Editor’s view: Voter sugar hits turn budget surplus to $3bn debt

Treasurer Cameron Dick has very cleverly taken out the trash contained in the state budget – revealing he has somehow turned a forecast surplus for 2024-45 of $122m into a real $3bn deficit.

The absolute short-term futility of the Miles government’s decision to use some of the cash it made this year from royalties on the state’s finite coal assets to fund a voter sugar hit is proved in the latest numbers released by the Treasurer.

Cameron Dick has very cleverly taken out the trash contained in the state budget he will not bring down for another three weeks – revealing he has somehow turned a forecast surplus for 2024-45 of $122m into a real $3bn deficit.

It is astonishing, as that deficit – that the Treasurer bizarrely admits is a deliberate plan – will be 24 times larger than the surplus forecast, made five months ago.

Mr Dick is yet to explain why, but it is short odds the extra spend will be to fund more yet-to-be unveiled short-term sweeteners to households struggling under the weight of the cost-of-living crisis.

Deputy Premier, Treasurer and Minister for Trade and Investment, Cameron Dick.

On the face of it, that is not a bad thing – when Queenslanders are doing it tough, the government should step in and help.

But it is a bad thing, financially. Firstly, this money would be far better spent delivering services and infrastructure to support a growing population that will in turn deliver benefits of multiples to the state on that investment. And second, big handouts are usually just returned to the economy via spending – feeding the very thing that has led to the cost-of-living crisis – inflation.

But Treasurer Dick and Premier Steven Miles are not worried about the future, or at least the future beyond Saturday, October 26 – when the people of Queensland will head to the polls for the first time since the pandemic saved their government’s hide last time.

With opinion polling suggesting Labor is all but cooked – the latest YouGov poll for The Courier-Mail had the Opposition ahead 56-44 on a two-party-preferred basis – the Premier and Treasurer will be well and truly prepared to do whatever it takes to give them a chance. And with their own research showing cost of living is by a margin the biggest issue for Queenslanders, expect the rivers of cash to flow from the government’s coffers right up until polling day.

Meanwhile, Treasurer Dick told parliament yesterday that a deficit was a “deliberate choice” between “whether to prioritise people or numbers on a balance sheet; to decide who comes first – ratings agencies or Queensland families”.

Premier Steven Miles – Photo: Steve Pohlner.

But it does not end there. On Monday, Treasurer Dick said he would be prepared to “borrow to deliver our cost-of-living measures” now that the massive windfall he took from coalminers due to an extra tax on them when world prices were high has dried up.

That is a bit like you copping a pay cut at work, but instead of then cutting back on your spending accordingly, you take out a loan for the difference – and then drop it all on the pokies for a bit of a giggle.

The forecast deficit also exposes the state budget’s success last year of a record $14bn surplus as having been wholly reliant on the new tax it imposed without warning. Coal prices have dropped, and we are back in the red – and debt keeps on climbing, too. It is now forecast to hit a $188bn in four years.

That is more than $35,000 for every one of us. For that, Mr Dick could have bought us all a new car. Instead, households will get $1000 off their energy bills – once.

A few weeks ago in this column, we described the government’s spend of $2.5bn to fund that power bill rebate as being the equivalent of drawing down on the equity in your home to fund a few extra goodies in this week’s grocery bill.

Today we can confidently add that if Treasurer Dick’s budgeting strategy was copied by a household it would be broke, and there would not a bank in the world that would lend it a cent ever again.

Originally published as Editor’s view: Voter sugar hits turn budget surplus to $3bn debt