July 14, 2015
Member for Nanango Deb Frecklington has summed up today’s State Budget as “disappointing”.
“It’s bad news for growth. It’s bad news for jobs. It’s all smoke and mirrors. There’s nothing in it for the Nanango electorate,” she said.
Mrs Frecklington said Treasurer Curtis Pitt had described it as a “regional Budget” but in reality the regions had missed out except for Townsville and Cairns.
The Shadow Minister for Agriculture said she was also surprised to see in the Budget papers that the number of staff in the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries had been cut.
“They have been going on and on about (the LNP’s) supposed job cuts, but the number of full-time equivalent staff in Agriculture has gone down from 2168 FTE to 2030,” she said.
“They have put a lot of money into the Panama disease issue (in bananas) – that is wonderful – but it looks like they have done that by cutting back elsewhere.”
Mrs Frecklington said that, as expected, the Budget contained the rest of the funding for the Kingaroy Police Station upgrade and also included $800,000 for Nanango Police Station.
However, she was particularly disappointed that nothing had been set aside for capital works at any of the schools in the Nanango electorate.
And she said there was “nothing at all” in regards to a new Kingaroy Hospital, not even anything for planning.
“It is disappointing that the South Burnett Club House proposal has been axed by Labor in this year’s Budget, even though the LNP had fully costed and funded the project,” Mrs Frecklington said.
“The South Burnett Club House was just one of the projects that would have benefited the electorate enormously.”
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In contrast, Deputy Premier Jackie Trad said rural and regional Queensland would see a significant investment in infrastructure funding.
“One specific initiative is the Building Our Regions program. It will be a targeted infrastructure program to deliver support for local government projects totalling $200 million over two years,” Ms Trad said.
“In order to create jobs and investment as a priority, we have brought this program forward one year to start in 2015-16, not 2016-17 as originally intended,” she said.
The four areas of focus for infrastructure investment under the Building our Regions program would be:
- Transport Infrastructure Development Scheme – $60 million over two years
- Regional Capital Fund – $70 million over two years
- Royalties for Resource-Producing Communities Fund – $55 million over two years
- Remote Communities Infrastructure Fund – $15 million over two years.
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Other Budget Highlights
- Stolen Wages Reparations Fund – Treasurer Curtis Pitt said the State Government was upholding an election commitment by setting aside $21 million over three years to establish a Stolen Wages Reparations Fund. A special taskforce will be established to develop criteria for the allocation of funds as well as assessing applications.
- Drought Well-Being Service – $1.5 million in 2015-16 to continue delivering support to people in drought-affected areas.
- $48.4 million funding for the continuation of existing drought and natural disaster assistance mechanisms
- $5 million to fund a three-year program to address problems caused by wild dogs and feral cats
- $172.1 million in joint funding towards the Toowoomba Second Range Crossing
- $4.1 million in rent deferrals, rebates and fee waivers for drought-affected leaseholders and water users
- $3.6 million to fund compliance activities by the Coal Seam Gas Compliance Unit
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