STATEMENT FROM PREMIER ANNASTACIA PALASZCZUK IN PARLIAMENT TODAY
Today I tabled an update on the progress of the implementation of election commitments as at November 2018 in reports titled Progress Report on 2015 Government Election Commitments and Progress Report on 2017 Government Election Commitments.
They make excellent Christmas reading, but for those of you who’d like a summary here’s what they say:
They say we keep our promises.
And we deliver!
We made 498 commitments to the people of Queensland last November.
And we’ve fulfilled 213 of them in less than a year.
We went to the election promising to end a century of discrimination against women.
We gave women the right to be in charge of their own bodies and their own healthcare in the privacy of their doctor’s surgery and, together, we delivered.
We’ve restored laws that protect our environment and our Great Barrier Reef that still uphold a farmer’s ability to feed their stock in the grip of a crippling drought.
We allocated another $6 million adding the 7,000 kilometres of wild dog fencing that has brought back the sheep industry in western Queensland.
Everyone knew something had to be done to stop the hideous practice of cyberbullying.
Within this first year I was able to embrace Tick and Kate Everett and know we have done more to stop the bullying that took their daughter Dolly’s life than any other state.
We’ve created 39,100 jobs.
That’s 170,000 since 2015.
How?
- By restoring and boosting our Skilling Queenslanders for work program
- Helping businesses take on particularly younger people looking for work
- Providing free TAFE courses for school leavers
- Boosting out exports another $6 billion to an incredible $77.6 billion – that’s more than NSW and Victoria combined
- We’re spending $11.6 billion this financial year on building infrastructure supporting another 38,000 jobs
- And, yes, we support the jobs created by Queensland’s screen and stream industry, a success story so compelling even the federal government now supports it.
I’ve stood next to excited parents, teachers and students as we opened four new schools.
We’re building seven more including the first new high schools in Brisbane in 50 years.
We’re building or upgrading 40 hospitals including Logan, Ipswich and Caboolture, Nambour, Blackall, Roma and Toowoomba.
We’re hiring more doctors, more nurses, more teachers, teacher-aides, firies and paramedics.
We’re widening the M1 all the way to the border.
We’re putting downward pressure on electricity prices plus we have an energy plan.
In short, Mr Speaker, we are doing what we said we would do.
Twice now, as recently as a year ago, we have asked the people of Queensland what they want.
And they have told us.
And we have listened.
And we have delivered.
