The election best lost

To use a tried and true expression, Labor has attempted to have its cake and eat it too.

As a result they got government but no revenue, when what they wanted was revenue for future government.

The new government will be faced with $80 billion debt and no mandate to adopt any of the far-reaching savings measures needed to repair the budget deficit.

Labor Treasury spokesman Curtis Pitt outlined his modest budget strategy that forecast a $5.4 billion reduction in government debt over five years, through such measures as freezing the Newman government's payroll tax threshold, project re-prioritisation and cutting government advertising.

Such micro measures should not be dismissed, but to rule out $37 billion in potential savings seems pointless when the current debt is incurring an annul interest rate of $4 billion.

Pitt described the initial audit recommending the asset sales by former Federal Treasure Peter Costello as "predictable and purely political" despite a similar recommendation in the 2012 Infrastructure Finance and Funding Reform paperby then Federal Labor Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese.

The report stated: "State and territory governments should identify and monetise suitable public assets, allowing the freed-up capital and the avoided debt repayments to be invested in new infrastructure."

Pitt has said that the asset sales would deprive Queensland of revenue and lead to a $2 billion a year black hole in the budget.

This approach runs contrary to that of former Labor Premier Anna Bligh who said, in defence of her $15 billion asset privatisation plan (which the Newman government expanded upon):

"There are also many myths being spread and outright scare-mongering that feed those concerns. For example, these businesses are not, as some claim, a cash cow from which government can endlessly draw money. In 2008-09 they generated $320 million, or less than 1 per cent of the Government's revenue. On the other hand, the Government will save $1.8 billion every year in interest payments on the borrowings needed to sustain them as viable businesses."

In harking back to its 1950s era hysteria about private ownership, Queensland Labor has dug itself into a ditch, ignoring the advice of its predecessors and crying foul at the sale of $37 billion assets that generate only a $2 billion per annum return.

Annastacia Palaszczuk claimed that keeping assets 'in public hands' was part of her campaign to combat cost of living pressures.