Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I compliment Senator Tyrrell on that very good contribution. It's something we should be extremely concerned about, so thank you, Senator.

I'd like to talk about another big spending, big taxing Labor budget. This one is in my home state of Queensland, where the state budget was just brought down. We're seeing the same old saying from the Labor Party in my home state of Queensland. St.George Bank came out and said that the budget will provide 'further upside risk to inflation and ultimately result in more stickiness in price pressures'. It is another Labor budget—another big spending, big taxing Labor budget.

The extraordinary thing about this Labor budget is that the Queensland government, which had put up royalties on the coal industry, had estimated—and we all laughed when they made this estimation—that the increased royalties would provide an additional $765 million of revenue in the next budget year. We all laughed at that—anyone who was watching commodity prices. And what has happened? That increase in coal royalties, which has led to international concerns about sovereign risk in Queensland, has brought in $10.5 billion of additional revenue. Has the Queensland government used that revenue to pay down debt? No, of course not; that would be too sensible! That would be the obvious thing to do—pay down your debt whilst commodity prices are so high! Where's the money going? It's going to an extra 100 people being employed in Annastacia Palaszczuk's own department. That is an extra 100 public servants in her own department. Queensland needs more police, more nurses and more frontline workers, and we need to get rid of this sad and sorry Palaszczuk government.