Hearings Reveal LNP Waste And Arrogance

Media Release 

Opposition Leader Annastacia Palaszczuk says the first week of Budget Estimates hearings revealed government waste and arrogance at levels not seen since the Bjelke-Petersen era.

“What the Opposition exposed in last week’s hearings was a string of Ministers who care more about themselves than they do for average Queenslanders and who have no regard for the public purse,” Ms Palaszczuk said.

“Opposition questioning has also shown how little regard LNP Ministers have for the people they are sacking and for the community organisations providing frontline services whose funding they are slashing.”

 
Ms Palaszczuk said the first week of Estimates Committee hearings had revealed:

•  the Premier’s inability to say how many actual people were represented by the 14,000 full-time equivalent positions he was abolishing. 
  
• the Premier’s inability to say how many other jobs had been lost in community organisations as a result of his savage funding cuts to frontline services.
• the Premier’s obsession with his new and unnecessary Executive Building in the Brisbane CBD with $3.5 million being spent just to start its planning.
• the Premier’s waste of almost $70,000 on refurbishments for senior bureaucrats in the current Executive Building he wants to demolish. 
•  charter flight costs by the Deputy Premier of $65,000 to fly him home and back in just three months, equivalent to around $260,000 a year. 
•  the Deputy Premier’s reliance on his Assistant Minister Ian Walker to answer questions. 
•  the willingness of the Deputy Premier to hold one-on-one meetings behind closed doors with people seeking to do business with the government including a major donor to the LNP. the Attorney-General publicly pressuring the Crime and Misconduct Commission against conducting a review of political donations. 
•  the Attorney-General’s admission he had conducted no consultations before deciding to shift Labour Day from May to October despite the disruptions caused to regional communities, and  the Attorney-General’s admission he had no clue about the work of the community organisations affected by frontline funding cuts.

“These are just a handful of examples of the callous and arrogant attitude of the Newman Government,” Ms Palaszczuk said.

“With another week of Estimates hearings to go I am sure more will be revealed.”