$1,000 has no rational explanation apart from electioneering

Australian Institute for Progress thanks State Treasurer Cameron Dick for drawing attention to their submission to the Parliamentary Cost of Living and Economics Committee criticising the $1,000 electricity rebate as an electoral bribe, but wishes to correct a few mistakes.

Executive Director Graham Young said it’s not true, for example, that the LNP follows the AIP’s advice, although the situation of the state of Queensland would be better if both they and the government were to do so.

“It’s also a stretch to suggest we are ‘running an LNP agenda’.

“I’ve known Cameron for a long time so I was surprised to find that he appears not to know that I was expelled by the Liberal Party in 2008 and have not been a member of a political party since.

“What is even stranger is that he didn’t notice that Campbell Newman, one of our board members, is not only not a member of the LNP, but belongs to another party for which he ran as a senate candidate, and that he is a vocal critic of the LNP.”

Mr Young said that Mr Dick had also attributed positions to the submission which were simply not there.

“The thrust of our report was to oppose the showering down of helicopter money into every Queenslander’s bank account in an effort to divert them from the fact that the cost of government-generated electricity in Queensland is, and will continue, rising, and that is attributable to this government.

“It was not to lay out a way forward for the electricity industry in Queensland, although we’d be happy to sit down and discuss this with the treasurer.

“At no stage did we suggest repaying the super royalties to the mining companies, instead we suggested that they should be ‘either used to reduce debt or invested in assets with a positive return’.

“Neither did we take a position on nuclear or privatisation.

“We did however suggest that the government should come clean on the fact that as a result of the energy transition prices will rise even further.

“And we did draw attention to the fact that the money would be rained down on the undeserving rich as well as the destitute, and that price pressures would just manifest elsewhere.”

Mr Young also noted the treasurer’s monotonous refrain that there is a plot to privatise Queensland’s power assets.

“This is strange because the recent Energy (Renewable Transformation and Jobs) Bill 2023 allows for generation assets to be 46%-owned by the private sector and under this government most, if not all, new electricity generation has been privately-owned.

“Combine this with the proposed closure of mostly government-owned coal-fired power stations and it would seem the Queensland government is doing a pretty good job of privatising the electricity sector all on its own.”

The treasurer’s full comments can be found in Hansard starting on page 1638. Our submission can be downloaded by clicking here.