Friday 6 June 2014 Government’s reckless asset sales to drive up prices: Knuth The Member for Dalrymple Shane Knuth said today the State Government was irresponsible and would be punished at the polls as it prepares to sacrifice its massive majority in the House to sell off profit-producing assets. In his Budget reply speech in Queensland Parliament, Mr Knuth said: “These assets belong to every Queenslander and the government is virtually selling off some of its 30-seat majority to flog them off. “I called on the Treasurer for an independent assessment on the income that will be lost over the next 20-year period if these assets are sold. “I also challenge the MPs to stand up for their electorates after they backed these multi-billion asset sales in hope of getting in return a sports stadium to be used by a handful of voters. “They can also explain to their electorates why prices for electricity, gas and travel have risen once their Government sells them off to the highest bidder – which will probably be an overseas investor,” said Mr Knuth. “The Treasurer was saying that, by stopping electricity prices from going up, we will ask private investors to invest into our energy sector. “We have already done that. That is why we have seen our electricity prices triple. “Peter Beattie even got up and said that the biggest mistake he ever made was privatising the retail arm of our energy sector because he could not believe how greedy the corporates were in ripping off the average consumer. “This is exactly the same thing. The last thing we want is multinational corporatisation and then we have to pay our electricity bill to those big corporates. “The reality is that privatisation of energy assets will see further skyrocketing of households’ and businesses’ electricity costs. “And then there’s the increasing number of Queenslanders, I am absolutely horrified by the seemingly increasing amount of money being wasted by the Newman Government on advertising. “This horrendous expenditure is totally unnecessary, achieves nothing for Queensland except promote the ego of this apparently dictatorial government,” said Mr Knuth. + Attached is an audio copy of Mr Knuth’s post-Budget speech. Mr Knuth is available for comment on 0429497469
Posted on: Fri, 06 Jun 2014 10:24:06 +0000
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