Secrecy Needs To End With Report Release Today

Media Release.

A taxpayer-funded report recommending a wholesale sell off of Queensland assets will be kept deliberately secret while the Newman Government plots how best to privatise a raft of frontline services.

Opposition Leader Annastacia Palaszczuk said the final report of the so-called Costello Audit – which taxpayers paid $2 million to have prepared – would remain under lock and key from Queenslanders who deserved to be presented with the truth.

“Queenslanders in every town and city today are right to be questioning what exactly has this government got to hide,” Ms Palaszczuk said.

“Clearly, this government has a plan to stage a massive sell-off of assets which are owned by taxpayers but the level of deceit with which this plan is being handled is astonishing.

“But it’s also typically arrogant – this is a government that thinks nothing of paying an LNP mate $3,300 a day to prepare a report, all the time knowing what the end game would be.

“And that end game is a report intentionally designed to do the bidding of a government looking for an excuse to sell assets and determined to privatise services and determined to further cut jobs.

“If this Commission of Audit is truly independent why should only LNP politicians have exclusive access to it for the next six weeks?

“The Treasurer and Premier need to release it today. They need to stop playing games with Queenslander’s future. They need to stop with the deceit.”

Ms Palaszczuk said the first edition of the Costello Report released in June last year was a made-to-order excuse for the Newman Government's subsequent program of mass sackings and cuts to frontline services.

“We know the first report made bogus claims based on flawed assumptions.

“There are no doubt similar bogus and politically motivated claims in the final report.

“That's why the Treasurer Tim Nicholls is afraid of public scrutiny of the final report.

“The public, the Opposition and independent analysts need to see it for themselves in full to see just how strong its claims and arguments are.

“This is a government that floated the possibility of cutting 20,000 jobs but ended up big noting itself when cutting 14,000.

“The same tactic is likely with the final report.

“Queenslanders today require a commitment from the government that it will release the full report as well as the second secret report Mr Costello handed to Mr Nicholls in November.

“Or are they planning to stage a series of LNP fundraisers to sell its findings just like they did with their taxpayer-funded health blueprint?

“If the government insists on keeping these reports secret from the people of Queensland for up to two months, I want a guarantee that what is released in two months is exactly the same report handed to the Treasurer yesterday.

“I simply do not trust this mean and tricky government to deliver Mr Costello’s report unedited and unsanitised once it is analysed by all government departments.”