The Queensland privatisation push has now descended into total farce: read all about it at John Quiggin’s place.
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That’s kind of like the Mac Bank
Ponzi schemebusiness model. I wonder who got the fees for “facilitating” the sale?Parliament in QLD needs to be suspended right now. Is there any way to hold a dismissal at a state level?
Strangely, when I saw the news my reaction was “you can’t make this stuff up”.
This is worthy of Monty Python.
It didn’t twig when I read it first time, but yeah QIC is the government’s investment arm, that is pretty shady. Exactly why did we think this was better then the Coalition? (At best it’s about the same)
If this was a Coalition government I’d be calling for a dismissal and an investigation.
As this is an ALP government…I’m still demanding the same.
And yes. This should directly drag the Federal ALP down as well. If they won’t do anything about it what the hell good are they for?
Think of all those fees and other waste. How many teachers could that have paid for? How many nurses? How many job schemes? How much public housing? And for the libertarians out there, and for once this is completely justified, how much of their taxable income for the year was wasted on this? (And if I was libertarian I’d be jumping up and down and using this as a clear case of tax is theft.)
I’m speculating that they couldn’t find a buyer, so sold it to themselves to clear the debt and remove the legislative overhead involved in selling it off in small chunks over a longer period of time.
OMG no tssk! Just don’t say that.
This reminds me of the time that the North Sydney Rugby League Club couldn’t find a corporate sponsor to supplement the money they got from their main financier, the North Sydney Leagues Club (which in turn got the money from pokies.)
This was potentially very embarassing, so they found an elegant solution. Norths Leagues Club became the corporate sponsor of Norths Football Club.
Is there any way to hold a dismissal at a state level?
The Commonwealth government is just a copy of the state ones. The Premier serves at the pleasure of the Governor, who serves at the pleasure of the Queen.
However, it would seem that there is no valid basis for a dismissal just because the Premier’s done something you don’t agree with.
So people from a “left of centre” blog are calling for the return of an LNP government, of the sort that once gave us Sir Johannes Bjelke-Petersen? Interesting.
At least with a conservative government we are certain who the enemy is.
No, Terry. We’re suggesting that an honest government (of any persuasion) would be a Good Thing.
Seeing as the Qld govt is unicameral, there’s precious little chance of that.
What we should be calling for is a Qld upper house with something like a Hare Clarke voting system. We need a check and balance to avoid creative accounting in the lower house.
No we should be abolishing the states, or at the very least forcing them to have PR in their lower houses.
Terry, the LNP of the 2010s has faults aplenty but it is nothing like the National Party of the 1970s and 1980s. Indeed the Borbidge government of 1996-98 was nothing like the Bjelke-Petersen government.
The Labor Party needs a couple of terms in opposittion to refresh itself and what the purpose of being in government is.
No one outside of Sydney and Canberra favours abolition of the states. It leaves everyone else vulnerable to the depradations of power-crazed commissars.
Sam @ 14, that is very similar to an argument that was common prior to the last UK election. It was that either the Tories had changed and it was now OK to vote for them as they were no longer Thatcher’s party, or at the very least people on the left should vote for the Lib Dems. The reasoning was that UK Labour had lost its way, and needed time in opposition to work out what it stood for, rather than seeking power for its own sake.
A lot of university students would have voted Lib Dems for reasons like this, having never known anything other than Tony Blair and Gordon Brown as PMs. Six months into the new UK coalition government, not many of them are thinking like that now.
So what your saying terry is that parties will never change and whatever the leaders of the time were thinking is what is valid now.
Meaning of course that the ALP will support fundamentally racist immigration laws, conscription for foreign engagements, heavily protectionist economic policies, IR laws that favour the rights of workers over economic growth etc…
It’s rubbish! If the people who voted in the tories this time around don’t like the government they got it’s not because of the spectre of Thatcher, it’s because they don’t like the government (for whatever reason)
Bad government is bad government regardless of the colours it wears.
Terry, rather than making strained comparisons with Britain, please tell us who in today’s LNP are the equivalent of Joh Bjelke Petersen, Russ Hinze, Leisha Harvey, Don Lane etc.
(And as I said, Queensland has already had the experience of a fairly benign National Party government, post Bjelke-Petersen.)
Of course a good Labor Party is always better (IMO) than the Liberals and/or Nationals. But a bad Labor Party is not necessarily better, unless the Lib/Nats are very bad, which today in Queensland they are not. The Labor Party in Queensland today is bad; not nearly as bad as NSW, of course, but bad nonetheless.
The LNP is the Queensland National Party in a borrowed suit. It is basically run by Barnaby Joyce and his cronies. On the Liberal side, it is the product of the hard right, Santo Santoro faction driving moderate liberals out, which is why there are som many Brisbane-based Libs who keep their distance from the LNP. I see absolutely no factional equivalent in the LNP to, say, the “wets” in the Liberal Party in states like NSW and Victoria. The Queensland Nats basically worked out, like the Bourbon kings of yore, that all must change so that it can remain essentially the same.
@ 3. Sam Says: indeed very Pythonesque – “Colin Bomber Harris has knocked himself out” …
I don’t disagree with Terry’s characterisation of the LNP and I share his distaste at the prospect of an LNP government, especially as Queensland still lacks many of the institutional safeguards which exist in other states.
The problem is: what other democratic recourse do the citizens of Queensland have to call to account a very bad incumbent government, if not to, at the very least, deny it a parliamentary majority when we next have the opportunity? Must we continue to let Labor get away with playing Chicken with us? Will certain commenters who need not be named continue to bewail the supposed perfidy and folly of the Greens in seeking to have a Green candidate elected in place of our faux left, faux feminist Premier in South Brisbane?
QIC manages some money for Queensland government employees superannuation funds, (amongst a very wide range of other clients). To my knowledge they manage no money for the Queensland government itself. To say they have “sold it to themselves” is just ridiculous.
All of the other buyers are arms length purchases who have virtually nothing to do with the Queensland government.
THis really is completely ignorant, and I suppose that means Quiggin as well.
Bill, what people are referring to is the fact that QIC is owned by the Queensland Government. From QIC’s website:
‘QIC Limited is a company government owned corporation (GOC) constituted under the Queensland Investment Corporation Act 1991 (Qld) (“QIC Act”). QIC is regulated by Queensland State Government legislation pertaining to GOCs (Government Owned Corporations Act 1993) (“GOC Act”) in addition to the Australian Corporations Act 2001 (“Corporations Act”).’
Whether that translates into QIC owning part of the port or a fund it manages on behalf of others is the real question.
Is QIC therefore a sovereign wealth fund?
Grant, there’s also the question of control vs ownership. If the QLD govt has effective control over the QIC by virtue of, say, a majority of directors, then the nominal ownership is not not relevant. Much as I’m sure I “own” shares in a bank or two, but my control over those shares is negligable (I can only exercise it by changing super funds).
Bill 22, you are talking twaddle.
QIC is owned by the government. Every dollar it makes on its investments, such as in the Port of Brisbane, that pays for Queensland government employees’ superannuation, is a dollar that the government doesn’t have to find itself. And if the government did have to find that money, where would it come from? From various sources, including its investments, such as in the Port of Brisbane.
Moz, QIC is 100% owned by the Government. The questions that I believe are relevant are:
1. Did QIC enter the consortium with it’s own money and therefore owns part of the port?
2. Did QIC enter the consortium as trustee for one of the funds it manages? If so id the government an investor in the fund?
Under scenario 1 the government sold an asset to itself.
Under scenario 2 QIC has a fiduciary duty to act in the interests of investors in the fund and therefore the government did not sell to itself unless it is an investor in the fund. It just looks weird.
Sam it is you who are twaddling, (though I’m not sure I quite understand what you are trying to say).
QIC is an investment management company, it owns no investments, it merely manages them for others. It does charge a fee to manage investments, but it earns no dividends or other income from the investments themselves.
So far as I know QIC manages no money for the Queensland Government, so they have certainly not bought the asset from themselves. QIC has bought the asset on behalf of their investment clients, not on behalf of the government
QIC may be owned by the government, but the government would find it very very difficult to pursuade QIC to buy an asset that QIC’s management didnt like – since some people seem to be trying to insinuate that that is what happened. If QIC did buy something due to political pressure, many of their clients would be very unimpressed and would sack them.
(and, no, QIC is certainly not a “sovereign wealth” fund)
The more I understand of this, the less I see a problem. Except in a time of war, why is it important that the government of the day controls a port? Also, the $2.1 billion in returns go towards reducing gross state debt, and thereby returning Queensland to a AAA credit rating. As well as freeing up funds for other purposes – schools, hospitals, roads etc. that the Qld taxpayer wants to see more spending on – a return to AAA also reduces the interest premium paid on debt, thereby also freeing up more funds in the medium term without a need to reduce taxes.
If the situation is as Bill @29 and Terry @30, suggest, then it’s incumbent on the Bligh government to be transparent about their actions.
However, it seems this will probably not occur, if I understand the criticisms from Qld commenters correctly.
In any event, I think the Qld ALP has “lost its way” after being in power far too long. Time for a change in most states, I think, so we can have a taste of corruption, Tory style. Sales of fish nets and plastic bags should soar.
Time also for Qld to have a bicameral parliament, I think. I used to be in favour of ridding ourselves of the upper house at a state level, but after the Bjielke-Petersen years, I changed my mind.
Opposition dominated upper houses are a pain in the neck, but it can stop corrupt governments like Joh’s and the Rodent from pushing through very bad legislation.
QIC is an investment management company, it owns no investments, it merely manages them for others.
Bill, you are wrong. QIC holds a 27% share in the consortium which bought the Port.
Still not sure its a bad business investment. Attachment to state ownership of ports does sound somewhat sentimental.
You alao need to keep in mind that the Courier-Mail is an anti-Bligh paper, and Queensland Labor is hardly going to get fair coverage in The Australian.
Time also for Qld to have a bicameral parliament, I think. I used to be in favour of ridding ourselves of the upper house at a state level, but after the Bjielke-Petersen years, I changed my mind.
I couldn’t agree more. The Queensland Parliament is known around Australia as the single house circus.
The installation of an upper house with regions would fix many of the problems in the North and certainly provide a more accountable government for all.
By simple adjusting the number of lower house seats it would be simple to establish 5 regional upper house districts Each with 6 members.
Simple and very much needed.
Yes, disgusting, but let’s watch as the brainwashed left go ahead and vote for Bligh again despite her government being more right wing than the LNP.