Dan Petrie: Inside Labor Party’s fake infrastructure war

Bravo to the Premier and Albanese government who this week managed to put on a performance bursting with D-grade schtick, writes Dan Petrie.

The war of words that has broken out between Labor states and the Labor federal government is a masterclass of how the Queensland government is positioning itself as the state’s champion and will not have its projects cut by a federal government seeking to rein in inflation.

These fights are effectively prerecorded but typically follow a review and if the traditional political opponent is not in office, then a “fight” is arranged to assist the government not travelling so well in the polls.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk.

Earlier this week, an independent review commissioned by federal infrastructure minister, Catherine King, into the nation’s decade-long $120 billion infrastructure program was released.

A cost blowout of $32.8 billion was found in the review which former Prime Minister, Scott Morrison was entirely responsible for (no mention of the states managing the projects made its way into the press release).

The review comes hot off the heels of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) releasing their own assessment of Australia’s economy only two weeks ago.

Cut infrastructure spending and tell the RBA to ‘raise ze rates!’ was the call.

It is hard to know if the IMF are acquainted with the vagaries of Australia’s federation but the inflation part and costs blowouts in construction, especially in Queensland stem from the government’s subservience to the union movement’s insistence around artificially high wages.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

Australian Constructors Association CEO Jon Davies told News Corp that for the construction industry’s challenges, sensible requirements around health and safety, are areas of agreement while the industrial component around wages continues to crowd out the sector.

“The industrial relations component only serves to drive wages even higher and has led to a shortage of workers for private sector projects that cannot afford to pay these rates.

“To compound the problem, these increases in wages are not being accompanied by any increase in productivity, resulting in ever increasing project costs.”

When federal treasurer, Jim Chalmers quite sensibly noted that infrastructure projects may need to be rolled out over a longer time frame, the fight was on with Queensland’s Police Minister, Mark Ryan, the guy who has overseen the response to Queensland’s youth crime crisis issuing a bloodcurdling threat.

“I’ve got a clear message for Jim. Jim’s a mate of mine. Jim, those projects better not be in Queensland,” Mr Ryan said.

Good on you Mark, that will get him!

Still, one wonders if Queensland is getting a raw deal?

In terms of project funding cut, the total comes to $449 million (the Federal Government’s share is $230 million) of which $320 million is for the Mooloolah River Interchange, leaving $129 million in projects impacted with the Federal Government not proceeding with $70 million of funding.

Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers.

When the two commuter car parks (for some reason the former Coalition government thought car park building was a vote winner) are taken out, the cuts are political and target the government’s political opponents meaning the shortfall except for the Mooloolah Interchange, is relatively small.

The state government in prosecuting its case has been somewhat mute on the additional funding it will receive.

A cursory glance down the press release reveals, ‘line item 1 – Additional unallocated road funding – QLD $250 million’ would suggest a net positive for the government.

Even on the most basic analysis of this review, the changes are modest, and if the state government wants to make the cancelled projects a reality, then it must come up with $200 million.

For context, that $200 million figure is a fraction of the multi-billion cost blowouts overseen by state transport minister, Mark Bailey, for Queensland’s bespoke train manufacturing program in Maryborough ($2.4b) and now the Gold Coast faster Rail project ($2.5b).

And that is just one ministry and not including Cross River Rail!

Premier Palaszczuk, who has signed off on many dud expenditure items, should perhaps learn about living within one’s means.

The $280 million spent on the Wellcamp quarantine facility the government doesn’t own, $250 million paid to public servants in 2019 as $1250 bonus to encourage government workers to buy a pie in an outback bakery to stimulate economic growth and the $750 million for Advance Queensland to pick winners are cases in point.

The government complaining about being blindsided may yet provide a moment of schadenfreude for Queensland’s resources industry which bankrolled Treasurer Cameron Dick’s record surplus earlier this year, enabling his cost-of-living electoral bribes in the budget.

This fake war is a performance by the premier whose ‘standing up for Queensland’ schtick is about as D-grade as the celebrities she hangs out with.

Originally published as Dan Petrie: Inside Labor Party’s fake infrastructure war