Bligh to press ahead with Qld asset sale

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh will not budge on her decision to sell $15 billion of
public assets despite an expected voter backlash at the next election.
The Queensland government passed laws in June to allow the sale of assets, including
the Port of Brisbane, Queensland Motorways and Queensland Rail's coal freight
business.
Results from a union campaign and poll against privatising assets to reduce
Queensland's debt have revealed a voter backlash in safe Labor seats.
Ms Bligh said her government had known it could face a backlash at the polls due in
2012.
"I accept that my government might not be the government that gets the benefits of
this decision but it is the right thing to do to take Queensland forward," she said.
"No other state continues to put taxpayer money into some of these sorts of assets
and that means those other states are better equipped to spend money on new
hospitals, on new schools and on new roads and that's what I want for Queensland."
She said the sell-off would go ahead because it would reduce Queensland's debt
levels and restore its AAA credit rating.
The Electrical Trades Union (ETU) is sinking $1 million into a campaign against
privatisation which includes placing billboards against the proposal in the
electorates of Labor politicians who voted for the sale.
ETU state secretary Peter Simpson said the government had timed the sell-off in the
hope voters would forget about the decision before the next election.
"The laws have been passed, but they haven't been enacted and our goal in the next
two-and-a-half years is to make sure they're not enacted," Mr Simpson said.
"People are genuinely outraged ... because they weren't consulted, they weren't told
about it before the election and they (the government) are selling their asset, so
they're pretty dirty about it."
The first billboard targets Transport Minister Rachel Nolan in her seat of Ipswich.
Bumper stickers read: "See Queensland first before Bligh sells it."
Results from the ETU poll showed that 37 per cent of Labor voters would switch their
vote because of the privatisation, while 60 per cent of "soft voters" indicated they
would be more likely to switch their vote as a result.
The Queensland Council of Unions is also planning a year-long anti-privatisation
campaign with details expected to be known after July 28.
The Rail Tram and Bus Union, the Australian Services Union, the Australian
Manufacturing Workers Union, the Australian Federated Union Of Locomotive Employees
Queensland and the Maritime Union of Australia have been organising meetings and
rallies in regional communities.
Liberal National Party leader John-Paul Langbroek has branded the union protest as
hypocrisy, saying the unions spent millions getting the government re-elected at the
March election.
"On the one hand, the unions are spending money to put up billboards attacking Labor
MPs, but come election time they will be stuffing the bank accounts of those same
Labor MPs with finance for their campaigns," Mr Langbroek said.