They ignored our recommendations, but they do quote from us extensively

Dear ,

One of the more valuable things we do is contribute to parliamentary inquiries. Given the state of the parties in the Queensland parliament and our general philosophical position, most frequently we are ignored, but that doesn't make these submissions useless.

Our latest submission was on the Cheaper Power (Supplementary Appropriation) Bill 2024, which gave each household $1,000 credit on their power bill. There was also a $300 payment to businesses. You can read our submission by clicking here. We were given only a few days to respond, demonstrating that the government had no interest in any contrary point of view. I thought the opposition might have had an interest in modifying some aspects of the bill.

The committee's report is short and can be downloaded from the parliament's website by clicking here.

Our opening paragraphs explain our major problems with the legislation:

This measure represents around 2.4% of budget outlays but more significantly, because it is a new outlay, not contemplated in the budget, represents approximately 14.4% of the projected budget surplus for this financial year. It will have a significant impact on Queensland’s financial position and the shortness of time to comment suggests the government has no interest in considered debate.

It is not a budget measure that can be repeated, so is not a measure to reduce the cost of living, and voters would be entitled to think, because the presumably one-off benefit will arrive in the three months immediately prior to the state election, that it is for electoral advantage only.

There is no economic justification for the payment, and it actually works against many of the government’s policy priorities, such as pricing energy so that consumer’s ration its use appropriately.

The committee's report doesn't quote those paragraphs, but it quotes some others from our submission at page 4.

These submissions are generally written by me, but after consultation with other members of the institute, and I'd like to thank those who helped with this one. If you have an interest in being part of discussion on issues for submissions, please let me know. To date our submissions have concerned power generation and housing.

You might wonder what the point is of making submissions if they are ignored. The bottom-line is that if you are going to win the battle of ideas you have to start somewhere. My experience is that most submissions accept the basic proposition of the draft legislation, while we are often one of the few to reject the whole premise of it.

Sometimes committees agree to let things through, not because all the members agree, but because they've decided it's not a hill to die on. I understand that from a political point of view, but we are not politicians and part of our role is to keep ideas in currency so that when the wheel turns they can be picked-up by forces who agree with us, but who have been keeping tactically silent.

Regards,

GRAHAM YOUNG
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR