Cameron Dick’s latest budget, flush with $15.3bn income from coal royalties, has brought the bigger picture into focus.
Everything voters might want – a budget surplus, debt reduction, cost-of-living handouts, infrastructure projects, new housing, health funding – is now linked to the decision to increase royalties on unprecedented profits.“A Queensland without progressive coal royalties … means there will be no cost-of-living relief, cancelled infrastructure programs, cuts to services, and a higher debt burden.
If this is starting to sound familiar, it’s because it is. These are versions of the same attack lines on potential LNP cuts that Labor used in 2020. And 2017. And 2015. The only thing missing was the dark spectre of Campbell Newman, dressed like death and carrying a scythe.