Queensland can’t afford a populist, dud government

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk surely rues the day, 18 months ago, that her minority Labor government rushed through legislation, with just 18 minutes’ warning, to change Queensland’s voting system from optional to compulsory preferential. The move, backed by crossbenchers, was designed to help Labor bag more Greens preferences. Ms Palaszczuk acted before the resurgence of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Mark II. If not for the change to the voting system, Ms Hanson would surely be gearing up for a re-run of the “Just Vote 1’’ campaign that returned Peter Beattie’s minority government to power in a landslide in 2001. In that campaign, the state’s wiliest politician since Joh Bjelke-Petersen capitalised on confusion surrounding the Liberal, National and the then-disintegrating One Nation Mark I parties.

The Queensland election, due by May but likely to be called shortly, is wide open. Unfortunately for a once-dynamic state where economic and population growth were taken for granted for generations, none of the parties is well prepared for a serious debate on the economy and fiscal repair. Too many One ­Nation policies are a joke; but its preferences could be the joker in the pack, shaping the result.

In almost three years, Labor, dominated by public sector unions, has re-inflated the public service by 15,000 positions, driving wage costs well above inflation and reversing the Newman government’s savings. Labor’s paper- shuffling debt on to state-owned corporations and raiding superannuation and long-service holdings is not a repayment plan for state debt, which will reach $81 billion by 2020-21. As treasurer in the Newman government, Opposition Leader Tim Nicholls knew there were only three ways to repay debt and build infrastructure: sell or lease state assets, cut services or raise taxes. Mr Nicholls, who was a good treasurer, has unfortunately boxed himself in by ruling out asset sales or leases and forced public service redundancies. That would leave him options such as capping public service growth, voluntary redundancies, natural attrition and cost cutting.

Higher taxes are not an option. To the contrary, state taxes and charges need to be reduced. In order to cut youth unemployment and boost its share of capital investment and interstate migration, Queensland needs to further cut payroll tax to improve its economic competitiveness. Youth unemployment, which is 13.5 per cent across the state, should be a major election issue. In the outback, the youth jobless rate is 56.3 per cent. It is also dire in Wide Bay (25 per cent) and Townsville (21.4 per cent). In parts of Brisbane it is 18 per cent. The problem has cost the Turnbull government support in regional Queensland, as today’s Newspoll shows.

At state level, dissatisfaction with the major parties will help the protest parties, creating serious problems for Ms Palaszczuk, who has pledged to put One Nation last across the board. A month ago, Newspoll showed Ms Palaszczuk leading the LNP by 53 per cent to 47 per cent in the two-party preferred vote. Not for the first time in Queensland, One Nation is the complicating factor. Newspoll puts its primary vote at 15 per cent. And while Ms Palaszczuk refuses to exchange preferences with the protest party, the LNP has left its door open for seat-by-seat preference swaps with One Nation.

Energy policy, if Mr Nicholls exploits it, will be an important policy difference between the main parties. Labor’s plans for meeting its 50 per cent renewable energy target by 2030 are deliberately vague. But renewable energy subsidies are a major driver of power bills, which would rise further under the RET. The LNP’s promise to smooth regulatory hurdles for a privately built coal-fired power station in north Queensland is the type of pragmatic approach most voters in an energy-rich state will welcome. To their credit, Ms Palaszczuk and Mr Nicholls both support the Adani coalmine project in the Galilee Basin, which will provide desperately needed jobs for central Queensland and Townsville.

If One Nation, supposedly the party of the battlers, gained the balance of power it would exacerbate the national energy shortage and cost the state dearly with its pledge to block new Queensland gas reserves. Copying the Andrews playbook in Victoria, One Nation opposes drilling on large tracts of farmland in the southwest — where gas has been produced for 40 years. It cites fears that releasing coal seam gas through fracking could damage agriculture by contaminating the water table. Labor is also vulnerable on gas development. Little is known about its secretive revival of the anti-development Wild Rivers legislation, renamed the Pristine Rivers policy. Regional mayors and the resources sector fear it would stymie gas development and grazing. A stronger economy and sound government have never mattered more. But Queensland faces an uncertain political future.