THE Beattie-Bligh Government deficit for 2007-08 has blown out from a $995 million to $2 billion deficit – the worst in Queensland history.*

Shadow Treasurer Bruce Flegg said it was very worrying that within a month of handing down the 2008-09 State Budget, the Bligh Government was again blaming global financial markets for massive new losses from the Queensland Investment Corporation (QIC).

In May, Treasurer Andrew Fraser dropped a pre-budget bombshell announcing that there would be a "final" operating deficit of $995 million for 2007-08.**

However, it wasn’t so "final" – and within weeks it has blown out to $2 billion.*

Dr Flegg said there were now more than one billion new reasons to question Treasurer Andrew Fraser’s capacity to understand, predict and manage the Queensland economy.

"Blaming the stock market for the loss of billions of dollars that have been used to prop up successive Beattie-Bligh Government’s budgets is an opportunistic political escape," Dr Flegg said.

"It is duplicity in the extreme to use QIC investment returns to prop up the budget bottom line and then dismiss a $2 billion loss as irrelevant."

Dr Flegg challenged Treasurer Andrew Fraser to tell the truth about the full impact of the Queensland economy’s exposure to global financial pressures, especially with regards to the government’s spending commitments.

"It is simply dishonest and arrogant for the Queensland Treasurer to pretend he has quarantined global market pressures to QIC investment earnings," he said.

"The Bligh Government’s privatisation plans are vulnerable, especially market forces driving down the sale price for airports and ports. This government is so desperate for cash that it is looking to sell public assets at the wrong time."

Dr Flegg said he was also concerned the Beattie-Bligh Government’s poor economic management would mean more and bigger state taxes, as well as a firesale of public assets.

"We have had a series of new and increasing state taxes under this government despite the economic boom and the GST windfall," he said.

Dr Flegg said the Beattie-Bligh Government had made history for all the wrong reasons – record debt, record deficit and record new taxes, as well as a series of crises that reflected poor planning and bad management.

"With an expected interest bill of over $4 billion per year on state government debt within four years and no plan for repayment, the Beattie-Bligh Government is simply mortgaging away our kids’ future," he said.

The State Government has "rolled over and played dead" to its federal counterpart, submissively accepting the Rudd Government’s decision to slash funding for the Corroy to Curra Bruce Highway upgrade.

Member for Gympie David Gibson said despite the Bligh Government’s announcement of a new route for the urgently needed upgrade, the Labor Party have decided that Queenslanders will continue to risk their life on the dangerous stretch for years to come.

"The Howard Government allocated $700 million to start the upgrade but Kevin Rudd immediately slashed this funding to only $200 million," Mr Gibson said.

"The Bligh Government now doesn’t have the money to start the bypass for another 6 – 10 years but we haven’t hear one peep, one protest or one plead from Premier Bligh to have the funding restored.

"Obviously Queensland lives aren’t valued as much as the unified face of the federal and state Labor Governments

FORMER Treasurer Keith De Lacy has slammed the Bligh Government’s $2.2 billion tax hike on coal royalties this year as "opportunistic".*

The 2008-09 budget papers show a massive $2.1 billion hike in coal royalties - from $1billion in 2007-08 (est actual) to $3.2 billion in 2008-09 (est). **

In a blow to the Bligh Government’s political sales pitch, the former Queensland Labor Treasurer said the massive tax grab "sends a bad signal to investors around the world". *

"What they want is a stable tax regime, not a changing one," Mr De Lacey said in The Australian Financial Review today.*

Shadow Treasurer Bruce Flegg said the Bligh Government’s proposed tax hike on coal was just a cynical revenue-raising exercise designed to offset the adverse impacts from the $65 billion ‘Bligh the Borrower’ experiment.

Dr Flegg dismissed as "grossly overstated" the Treasurer’s claims that the massive new tax grab on coal would benefit Queenslanders because it will automatically reduce Queensland’s share of the GST.

"This also sends a major warning to overseas investors that this Labor Government does not have a stable and predictable taxation regime," he said.

Dr Flegg said the Beattie-Bligh Government had benefited from unprecedented revenue from the resources boom but had limited its growth through poor planning.

"The bottlenecks in port and rail export infrastructure are costing the resources sector a lot of money," he said.

"The safest way to increase the state government’s tax take from coal royalties revenue is to improve productive and export efficiencies."

It was a view backed by the former Labor Treasurer.

"They [the State Government] get the extra money when coal companies make more money – it’s one of those kinds of taxes, you don’t have to put on a surcharge," Mr De Lacey said.*

The Shadow Treasurer said he was also concerned at the major inconsistencies with the Bligh Government’s claims on its coal royalties tax hike.

Last month, the Treasurer’s media release said coal royalties would generate an extra $578 million this year***, which the government now claims is $585 million.*

The Bligh Government’s solar rebate scheme serves to highlight their focus on the PR of climate change, rather than creating policy with substance.

The State Opposition has criticised the Governments flawed scheme, which involves merely 1000 households state-wide and only pays the 44 cents feed in tariff for any left over power fed into the grid.

Shadow Minister for Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation, David Gibson, said the Solar Bonus Scheme has left Queenslanders and conservationists questioning the Government’s green credentials.

"The Government’s feed-in tariff is just environmental lip service with no bite," Mr Gibson said.

"More households need to be involved and the scheme needs to be revised to truly encourage and reward involvement."

The Queensland Opposition has announced plans to pay a gross feed-in tariff to all owners of solar energy systems, where everyone who contributed power - whether used at home or fed into back into the grid - would be paid 44¢ per kilowatt.

"Homes, schools, shopping centres, businesses and sporting clubs will all be encouraged and rewarded for using solar power, whether they produce a little or a lot," Mr Gibson said.

The Wilderness Society, WWF Australia and Queensland Conservation released a review of state government environmental policies last week, which backed up the Opposition’s calls for a gross, not net, tariff scheme.

"The Government’s solar schemes simply fails to pack the punch that’s needed to make a true dent on changing culture," said Mr Gibson.

"Sadly, the Solar Bonus Scheme can not be celebrated as the significant step forward in renewable energy initiatives that it could have been.

THE Queensland Coalition has today welcomed the Queensland Government’s decision to appeal a District Court’s decision to set free a serial paedophile because of widespread public awareness of his criminal history.

Queensland Liberal Leader and Shadow Attorney-General Mark McArdle has backed the Attorney-General’s decision to appeal a decision that allowed a serial paedophile to escape justice because of infamy.

However, Mr McArdle said the rising community anger could have been avoided if the Beattie-Bligh Government had lived up to its "guarantee" that the serial paedophile was being watched by police* and were aware of what he was up to at all times.**

"Either the Beattie-Bligh Government knew about the flaws in the management of this serial sexual predator in the community – or it was just not telling the whole truth," he said.

The Shadow Attorney-General said while he shared the community’s concerns about the release of a convicted serial paedophile, he would reserve making further public comment about this specific case until after the appeal.

Mr McArdle said news that another dangerous sex offender allegedly breached their supervision order last week showed the laws and procedures governing the release and management of serial sexual predators needed major reform.

The Bligh Labor Government should stop stalling and start rolling out Taser stun guns to Queensland police now following the completion of a successful 12 month trial, the State Opposition said today.

Shadow Police Minister Vaughan Johnson said the State Government committed to the state wide roll-out in January but still haven’t revealed any details on when the Tasers would actually be provided to police and how much the full roll-out would cost.

"Specialist police units have been using Tasers since 2002 and both the Police Minister and the Police Commissioner have argued these devices save lives and prevent injuries to officers and members of the public," he said.

"The trial has been a success. Tasers won’t be used randomly, they’ll be used by officers fully trained in their use, so the State Government should stop making excuses and start rolling them out."

Mr Johnson said he feared the Bligh Labor Government’s growing debt, which would reach $65 billion by 2011/12, could lead to the state wide Taser rollout being delayed.

"I am very concerned with reports that Taser training for police on the Sunshine Coast has been rescheduled and that a cheaper option to Tasers is being considered," he said.

"In January, the Police Minister was definitively saying Tasers would be made available to operational police after the trial finished on June 30 this year.

"By March, she was back tracking and instead saying there would be a ‘staged roll out’. Now here we are in July and we still don’t have any answers on when police can expect to get the Tasers they were promised.

"The Minister has had six months to get the full state wide rollout of Tasers organised and yet she is claiming there is still more ‘work to be done’.

"It is vitally important our police are given the tools they need to protect our community. These Taser stun guns must be rolled out now and not subjected to the Treasurer’s razor gang."

SICK Queenslanders are waiting longer because of Queensland’s underperforming public hospitals.

The Australia-wide report ‘The State of Our Public Hospitals’ was released yesterday by Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon.

The report compares the performance of public hospitals across the country on a state-by-state basis.

Shadow Health Minister John-Paul Langbroek said that while Australia was improving nationally with elective surgery waiting times significantly decreasing, Queensland was lagging behind.

"We have now had a series of reports that have shown just how bad Queensland hospitals are performing," Mr Langbroek said.

"In comparison to other States, Queensland is spending less, has fewer beds and patients are waiting too long for elective and emergency treatment."

Mr Langbroek said that across the board, Queensland Health was failing and the latest report showed Queensland Health was so dizzy from Labor’s political spin cycle it was making sick Queenslanders wait longer for treatment.

He said expenditure as weighted for population is lower than any other State at only $1,065 per person.

"In 2000, Queensland had 3.2 beds per 1,000 people. This has fallen to 2.5 – below the national average," Mr Langbroek said.

"Emergency patients are waiting on average 29 minutes. The national average is 24 minutes."

The Shadow Health Minister said elective surgery waiting times grew with 92 per cent of sick Queenslanders being seen within the recommended timeframes in 2000, which has now blown out to only 84.8 per cent of sick people seen in the recommended timeframe.

"This means sick Queenslanders suffer longer waiting for proper clinical treatment. This is not a good clinical case management practice," Mr Langbroek said.

Mr Langbroek said the human face of these waiting lists was sick people like eight-year-old Ruby Martin (from Cairns), who had her life-saving heart surgery postponed because of Queensland Health’s poor management and planning.

"This Labor Government’s priority is to make sure it has enough spin doctors to make itself look better than making sure an eight-year-old cardiac patient gets the clinical treatment she needs," he said.

THE Queensland Coalition has welcomed the proposed alcohol ban in Woorabinda, which takes effect today, but said an all-of-government intervention was also necessary to help rebuild the seriously stressed and failing community.

Queensland Liberal Leader and Shadow Attorney-General Mark McArdle said he shared the concerns of neighbouring communities that simply banning alcohol in one area would cause problem alcoholics to pack up their troubles and move to a new town.

Mr McArdle said a Queensland-led all-of-government intervention was needed to help rebuild some of the state’s failed remote Indigenous communities, as well as maintain the security and quality of life in nearby communities.

Last year an internal report from the Office of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships revealed Queensland’s Alcohol Management Plans in 18 remote Indigenous Queensland communities failed not long after the Beattie-Bligh Government’s media events.

The Premier’s brief, the ‘Review of Alcohol Interventions in Queensland’s Remote Indigenous Communities’, found the risk of a violent alcohol-related attack was still 15 times worse in many indigenous communities on alcohol restrictions.*

"About 60 per cent of offences against the person, serious assaults and hospital admissions are alcohol-related," the December 2007 report said.*

"Sly grogging remains a significant problem." *

However, five months after Police Minister Judy Spence said a special taskforce wasn’t needed in Cape York, an unannounced visit by an Australian Crime Commission (ACC) taskforce found 130 reports of child abuse and neglect and referred 15 matters to Queensland police. **

The unannounced visit by the National Indigenous Violence and Child Abuse Intelligence Taskforce (NIITF) to 17 communities on the Cape York last month showed the Queensland Government were still in denial.

Mr McArdle said too many young Queensland children were forced to endure appalling living conditions in remote indigenous communities in far north Queensland because the Beattie-Bligh Government had failed them – and then tried to bury government reports.

"There have been a series of government reports on Alcohol Management Plans that have highlighted the appalling living conditions in rural indigenous communities," he said.

"This government has failed to protect vulnerable children, especially in remote Indigenous Queensland towns. And it actively obstructed offers of help from the previous Federal Government."

"Something should have been done to fix this mess when the Beattie-Bligh Government found out about the appalling conditions these children had to endure," Mr McArdle said.

Instead, Premier Anna Bligh and senior Labor Ministers’ Warren Pitt and John Mickel were actively involved in papering over the dangerous threats to children living in remote Indigenous communities, including Woorabinda.***

The key observations from a 2006 Woorabinda Alcohol Management Plan found: ****

Mr McArdle said the Child Safety Minister Margaret Keech got it right yesterday when she said "children deserve better". **

Last year, former Premier Peter Beattie also admitted the Beattie-Bligh Government had failed indigenous Queensland children so badly he thought the Federal Government should take over responsibility.*****

THE Beattie-Bligh Cabinet has seemingly signed off on a review of dangerous prisoner laws and management processes, which relaxed controls on serial sexual predators.

Late last year Premier Bligh announced an "urgent" overhaul of how all dangerous sex offenders were managed as a proactive-sounding reaction to mounting public criticism over the release into the community of serial rapist Robert John Fardon.

Eight months later and a long-running series of breaches to supervision orders, including alleged sexual assaults, the Premier used a "tough sounding" political script to ease the conditions for dangerous sexual predators.

Queensland Liberal Leader and Shadow Attorney-General Mark McArdle said a closer examination of ‘A New Public Protection Model for the Management of High Risk Offenders’ showed it was softening, or re-announcing, existing controls and management approaches for dangerous sex offenders. 

Mr McArdle said the review recommended the early return to serial sexual predators of all the rights, freedoms and liberties accorded to law abiding citizens.

"The focus of the Bligh Government’s review is on returning dangerous sex offenders back into the community earlier, while re-casting existing management approaches," Mr McArdle said.

"Queenslanders should not be put in harm’s way by ‘tough sounding’ words that in effect weaken the community’s protection against convicted sexual predators."

It recommends reducing the maximum period for supervision orders to just five years for dangerous serial predators.

"Sexual predators may offend for years before they are caught and many will never change. To suggest a five-year across the board limit for all offenders is very dangerous," Mr McArdle said.

"The community has a right to be protected and their safety should not be leveraged away by giving known sexual predators the benefit of the doubt."

Mr McArdle said behind the political spin, the Premier’s tough-sounding "chemical castration by consent" formalised an existing case management approach that could be used as a bargaining tool to reduce sentencing conditions.

"Chemical castration" is a tough sounding word used to describe the temporary suppression, through medicine (oral and intravenous),* of the male sex drive.

The Department of Primary Industries has "shut until further notice" an office at Helidon which helps ensure the western Queensland cattle industry remains tick free, the State Opposition revealed today.

Shadow Primary Industries and Fisheries Minister Mike Horan said the DPI’s Helidon office, near Gatton, was an important biosecurity barrier that must stay open.

"The Helidon clearing dip yards handle thousands of cattle every year travelling from the coastal tick area to the clean areas of the Darling Downs and Western Queensland," he said.

"The Helidon office is also essential in ensuring that the massive pleasure and performance horse industry has available biosecurity services in case of disease outbreak.

"I understand the stock inspector is on long service leave and an administrator is also on leave, which means the office is shut until further notice and there is concern it may not reopen.

"It is disgraceful that the DPI and F has been run down so much over the past decade by the Beattie-Bligh Labor Government they can’t keep a crucial office open when staff go on leave.

"So much for the Minister’s ‘fresh approach’. It’s really the same old, same old with Labor unable to get the basics right."

Mr Horan called on the Minister to ensure replacement staff were provided immediately and to give a guarantee the Helidon office would not be closed permanently.

"Three years ago, there was concern the DPI and F Helidon office would close and the former Premier gave a written guarantee it would not," Mr Horan said.

"The Primary Industries Minister needs to provide a similar guarantee and re-open the doors right now."