House debates

Thursday, 3 December 2020

Statements by Members

Queensland Government

1:40 pm

Photo of Phillip ThompsonPhillip Thompson (Herbert, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's just 33 days since the Queensland state election, and already the state Labor government has delivered a multibillion-dollar broken promise, and it's going to seriously hurt my community in Townsville. During the campaign, the Labor Treasurer told Queenslanders they would only borrow a few billion extra dollars in the budget, to take the debt to $106 billion. On Tuesday, the newly reinstated Treasurer revised that up by a casual $24 billion. It's a lot of money. That's a sevenfold increase in just four weeks. No-one is saying we don't have to borrow money to help our economy recover from the effects of COVID-19, but there is absolutely no excuse for misleading the people of Queensland at an election. This isn't the Treasurer's money, it's not the Premier's money and it's not the Labor Party's money; it's the taxpayers' money. One example in Townsville is a $40 million upgrade to the Kirwan health facility. Only half a million dollars will be spent this financial year. Another $30 million was promised for Big Rocks Weir, but now another business case is being done. It's not going to help the Townsville community. The people of Townsville deserve better from their state Labor government.

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