George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the annual report of the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government for 2007-08. I want to draw the Senate’s attention, if I may, to output 3.2.1, Local government policy and programs, on page 205 and following of that report. That output reports, amongst other things, the payments made to Queensland local authorities in the 2007-08 year, which in the initial months included the last months of the previous Howard government. Those moneys were in addition to the moneys funded under the GST arrangements.

The decision by the previous government to provide direct grant funding to local government and thereby relieve the burden on the Queensland state government—if I may deal specifically with the matters arising in my own state—took a huge debt off the public finances of the state of Queensland, a huge debt off the state budget. But what have we seen in the time since? What we have seen is the entire benefit of that relief of the burden of local government financing being lost by the mismanagement of the state’s budget by the Bligh Labor state government, so much so that two weeks ago we learnt that Queensland had lost its AAA credit rating and had been downgraded to AA-plus. Queensland now has a lower credit rating than the basket case state of New South Wales.

The consequence of that, arising from $74 billion of public debt, has been to increase the interest on that public debt by 0.4 of one per cent. That might not sound a lot, but, on the $74 billion of debt which the Bligh Labor government’s mismanagement has accrued, the downgrading in my state’s credit rating will cost the Queensland taxpayer $296 million this year. That is not through any additional expenditure but merely because the bondholders have so little confidence in the capacity of the state Labor government to manage the state’s finances, are so concerned at the $74 billion of public debt run up by the Bligh Labor government, that they have downgraded the state. So, with the stroke of a pen, Queensland taxpayers have been exposed to $296 million extra debt. By comparison, that is more than the total funding, as reported in this report, which I am considering, of local government in Queensland in the 2007-08 year.

That comes on top of the appalling news that we learned of earlier today: Queensland’s unemployment has gone up to 4.5 per cent. That is an increase, since August of last year—in only seven months—of 1.1 per cent. Only seven months ago our unemployment was below 3½ per cent. Now it is up to 4.5 per cent—an increase of more than one per cent in seven months. So this is the state of the budget in Queensland: $74 billion of debt, in one state more than 80 per cent of the value of the debt racked up for the Commonwealth by the Hawke and Keating governments; the downgrading of Queensland’s credit rating from AAA to AA-plus, a worse credit rating than that of New South Wales, which has exposed Queensland taxpayers to—

Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Unbelievable!

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is unbelievable, Senator Mason. I am astonished. I would not have thought that even a Labor government could have managed an economy so badly. But it has exposed Queensland taxpayers to $296 million of extra debt service cost, and now unemployment has increased by 1.1 per cent in only seven months.

Steve Hutchins (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Senator Brandis, your time has expired.

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.