Saturday, January 24, 2015

Queensland Election: Labor leader Annastacia Palaszczuk speach

Queensland Labor leader Annastacia Palaszczuk launched her party's bid for a return to power, saying the LNP has opened the door to corruption during its first term of government.

"Most Queenslanders never thought that 25 years after the Fitzgerald inquiry and reforms put in place by (former Labor premier) Wayne Goss that we'd be talking about a Government that has weakened the fight against corruption," Annastacia Palaszczuk told those assembled at the Ipswich Civic Centre, west of Brisbane.

Arriving onstage to the music of Bruce Springsteen, she said Premier Campbell Newman needed to understand "that Queenslanders are not fools".

  • "We have seen the LNP use its massive majority to change the law so it can receive huge donations from secret donors," she said.
  • "We see a massively cashed up LNP raising tens of millions of dollars in secret.
  • "We have seen the LNP throw open the door again to those carrying brown paper bags."

Palaszczuk pledges $240M for jobs training

Ms Palaszczuk restated Labor's opposition to asset sales and said the ALP remained focused on job creation. She said it had been sheer hard work that had brought Labor back into contention for the January 31 poll.

  • "Labor learned our lesson on asset sales - we learned it the hard way," she said.
  • "I can sum up the difference between the LNP and Labor in six simple words - Labor will not sell your assets."

$240 million over four years to jobs training for 32,000 people.

"We will also be legislating against 100 per cent fly-in, fly-out projects to create more jobs for Queenslanders living in regional communities," she said.

Ms Palaszczuk also confirmed Labor would scrap the Newman government's Royalties for Regions program.

She said the infrastructure scheme was flawed because it unfairly distributed funding among communities. Instead, Labor would start a Building Our Regions scheme offering $200 million over three years and up to $390 million in total - about a quarter of it to be spent in mining towns.

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