Queensland treasurer Curtis Pitt has accused his federal counterpart Scott Morrison of forgetting the Sunshine State in the federal budget.
Before the budget, Pitt warned that any discrimination against Queensland for not privatising major assets would have serious repercussions when Queenslanders go to the polls in the federal election later this year.
Now the budget has been handed down, and the most funding has been granted to states who privatised, or moved to privatise significant assets in the last 12 months, Pitt is not happy.
“The Morrison Budget is titled ‘Sticking to Our National Economic Plan’,” the state treasurer said on Tuesday night. “It certainly sticks to the practice of ignoring Queensland.”
Pitt pointed out a lack of new funding for the planned stadium in Townsville, Cross River Rail and the Bruce Highway among other projects.
“There is not a cent from the $5 billion asset recycling fund that is conditional on asset sales and sees billions given to public transport projects in other states,” Pitt said.
“On a population basis alone we should have expected to receive at least $1 billion.
“This lack of funding is designed to blackmail us into asset sales.”
Pitt’s Labor Party, led by Annastacia Palaszczuk, won the 2015 state election after the previous Coalition Government vowed to sell off major infrastructure if they were re-elected.
The election was thus positioned by Labor as a referendum on asset sales, with the Queensland people voting against them by voting Palaszczuk into power.
Now Pitt says the state government is stuck between a rock and a hard place.
It is committed to building new infrastructure, but to also keep major assets in public hands. The federal government is therefore putting the state government in a position where it can’t keep both of those promises.
“This budget is a huge disappointment for Queenslanders who were expecting so much more from Malcolm Turnbull,” Pitt said.
“Queenslanders will pass their own verdict on this budget at the coming federal poll.”
Infrastructure Partnerships Australia chief executive Brendan Lyon seems to disagree with Pitt’s rejection of asset privatisation, however.
Lyon said on Tuesday the budget shows the model of rewarding states who privatise major assets – a process known as asset recycling – “works for infrastructure”.
“The resounding success of the asset recycling incentive shows that this programme needs to be extended for new state asset sales, beyond 30 June this year,” Lyon said.
“The asset recycling initiative is a stand-out success, because it has seen literally tens of billions of dollars unlocked from state budgets and has moved the needle on infrastructure.”