Shadow Treasurer Curtis Pitt says the Premier has shown how indifferent he is to the plight of his own employees by claiming people are thanking him for his government’s mass sackings.
“His comments on Brisbane radio show how little regard the Premier has for the families of those he is sacking,” Mr Pitt said.
“His remarks are doubly insensitive given he has failed to justify job cuts he is planning of 20,000 or more government workers which will have a huge impact on frontline services.
“In the Queensland Industrial relations Commission this week a member of the three-person Costello audit team reportedly undercut one of the Premier’s main justifications for his job cuts.
“For months now the Premier and other LNP MPs have been running around claiming the former government was borrowing to pay the wages of government employees.
“Yet audit commission member Dr Doug McTaggart disputed the claim when it was put to him in the QIRC.
“Even the letter from Dr McTaggart released by the Premier does not contradict his original testimony.
“In the letter Dr McTaggart does not even go as far as to say that the government is borrowing to pay public servants.
“The letter also reaffirms that Queensland’s level of debt ‘is manageable’. The debt projected by the LNP government is the same as the previous Labor government in 2014-15.
“The letter says budgetary action will be required at some point over the next seven years – and that’s just common sense.
“The fact is the LNP Government isn’t taking budgetary action to address debt over the next three years but is taking it to fund election promises. That’s what the Premier fails to tell Queenslanders.
“Am I the only one wondering why the government has not looked to review any of their election promises in light of the ‘so-called’ dire finances? Instead, they’re happy to break other promises and sack thousands of government workers.
“The Premier needs to look his own employees in the eye and admit that his sackings and cuts to frontline services are to find $5.7 billion in savings to fund LNP promises — and that’s $5.7 billion both he and the Treasurer said they had identified before the March election,” Mr Pitt said.
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