Russell Trood (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It may support jobs. It may secure jobs. But it will not create jobs. What is interesting about this is the analogy with Queensland. For almost the same period of time, 11 years—as Senator Mason pointed out—mountains of money flowed into the Queensland Treasury. There were record receipts from mining royalties. There were record receipts from property taxes of one kind or another. As Senator Mason pointed out, there was a vast amount of money from the GST. There was $8.3 billion in the 2007-08 financial year. No state of the Commonwealth enjoyed such a substantial degree of revenue. Where is it? Unlike the Commonwealth government, unlike the Howard-Costello government during that period of time, the Beattie-Bligh government has left Queenslanders bereft. It has left them without money. It has left them without resources. It is at the point where, as Senator Mason also pointed out, the state now has a $47 billion deficit. As a consequence of that deficit, its credit rating has been downgraded from AAA to AA. On my calculations, that means that Queenslanders in the future will to have to pay—almost into perpetuity—something in the vicinity of $5.1 billion in interest on this debt.

In addition to the approximately $9,000 per capita from the $42 billion Commonwealth debt that Queenslanders are going to have to pay, they are also going to have to pay in the vicinity of $15,000 for the Queensland debt. If you live in Queensland, you will pay $9,000 per head because of the Commonwealth debt, and you will pay another $15,000 approximately because of the state debt run up by the Beattie-Bligh government. What an abject failure that has been. What a disgrace it has been. There is going to be no way to address this debt, because one of the things that the Howard and Costello government was able to do creatively was to privatise some of our key assets. There are no key assets left, and there are certainly no assets in Queensland that might be used for this purpose. It is interesting that Queenslanders will have a $15,000 debt and a $9,000 debt—the highest debt per capita of any state across the country.

Senator Cash, on my calculations, Western Australians have the next highest per capita debt, of $8,000.