Member for Nanango Deb Frecklington takes a question from the floor at Monday's briefing

May 7, 2013

There has been no decision made yet whether to sell Stanwell – operators of the Tarong power stations and Meandu coal mine – but if it is eventually sold, the community should remember that a private organisation “still has employees”.

This was the message from Member for Nanango Deb Frecklington to about 40 local businesspeople, councillors and “opinion leaders of the South Burnett” who gathered in the Tobruk Room at the Kingaroy RSL Club on Monday morning to be briefed on the State Government’s response to the recently released Commission of Audit Report (the “Costello Report”).

Mrs Frecklington is also Assistant Minister for Finance, Administration and Regulatory Reform which means she has firsthand knowledge of the ins and outs of the report, which was officially released last week.

It was an unique opportunity for South Burnett residents to see the same presentation that Treasurer Tim Nicholls gave after the Commission of Audit Report was handed down.

Of the 155 recommendations made in the report, the State Government has adopted 118, noted 13, rejected six and the remainder are “under consideration”.

In this latter category is the recommended sale of Stanwell.

“There has been no decision on any asset sales,” Mrs Frecklington said.

“But if we do decide that, we will take it to the next election.”

She said any decision to sell Stanwell wouldn’t be taken lightly and wouldn’t occur quickly.

“The timeliness of  selling a generator – if we were minded to do so – would mean that it wouldn’t be in the next few years,” she said.

“But what areas should we be playing in? Queensland is one of the few States left that owns its own gencos.”

Other points from the briefing:

  • The sale of Ergon, Energex and Powerlink were “off the table irrespective of Costello’s recommendations”.
  • The Queensland economy still faces major challenges. “How do we pay down the debt? What options do we have available? What is palatable to us as a government?”  The State Government had “no choice” but to lift the productivity of the State. Queensland also faced pressure on its fiscal position because of lower projected economic growth, the ageing of the population and an increased demand for government services. ” ‘Business as usual’ isn’t something we can do.”
  • The State Government has to move from being a “do-er” to being an “enabler” and allowing the private sector be the “do-er”. “We see there is a greater role for non-government delivery of services”.
  • The Southern Queensland Institute of TAFE in Kingaroy is propping up the balance sheet of other TAFES. “Is it viable for TAFEs to own their buildings?”
  • The Queensland Government administers $11 billion a year in grants. If it could improve the efficiency of these grants by 1 per cent, a massive amount of money could be saved.

Related articles: