7 Sep 2017 Public Works and Utilities Committee 2807 Mr COSTIGAN: I rise to a point of order. The honourable is talking about this government not selling ports. Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER (Ms Farmer): Order! Do you have a point of order, member for Whitsunday? Mr COSTIGAN: I think the member is misleading the House. Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: If you feel so, you can write to the Speaker. Mr COSTIGAN: I will. Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Lockyer, did you have a point of order? Mr RICKUSS: My point of order was that the member is misleading the House. The Labor government sold the Brisbane port. Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: If you feel that is the case, you can write to the Speaker. Mr KING: I reiterate that the Palaszczuk government does not sell ports; all the previous government wanted to do was to sell our ports. We are investing in our ports by keeping our government owned corporations in public hands so that they can continue to work for the public. Queensland government owned ports provide— Honourable members interjected. Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! It would be almost impossible for Hansard to hear the member for Kallangur. Would everyone please allow the member for Kallangur to speak? Mr KING: Thank you for your protection, Madam Deputy Speaker. I appreciate it. Queensland government owned ports provide a central role in the facilitation of trade, which creates jobs, mostly in our regions, and investment in the Queensland economy. I will not say too much more, except that we are investing. I notice that the member opposite said that some money would be well spent on the port of Mackay. The North Queensland Bulk Ports Corporation will spend $7 million on wharfs 4 and 5 fender upgrades at the port of Mackay and a further $2.9 million to complete the Port of Abbot Point module offloading facility. We are investing in our ports and we are keeping them in government hands. Question put—That the motion be agreed to. Motion agreed to. PUBLIC WORKS AND UTILITIES COMMITTEE Report, Motion to Take Note Mr KING (Kallangur—ALP) (12.14 pm): I move— That the House take note of the Public Works and Utilities Committee report No. 40 titled Auditor-General report to parliament 7: 2016-17 water: 2015-16 results of financial audits, tabled 31 May 2017. On behalf of the committee, I thank the committee secretariat and the Queensland Audit Office for their assistance with our consideration of the report. I also thank the committee members for their work during our examination of the report. The Queensland Audit Office's audit found that all our GOCs are financially sustainable. There is a ripple in Seqwater, but they do have a planned path to address that financial position in a way that is fair and sustainable. As we know, Seqwater is the owner of the South-East Queensland Water Grid, which has drought proofed South-East Queensland through strategic investments in large-scale water infrastructure during the millennium drought. During a different examination, our committee visited some of those facilities. We saw the investment that has saved us several times. It is because of the Labor government's investment in climate-resilient water sources and the Water Grid that South-East Queensland was better able to respond when poor summer rainfall left some of the region's dams in worse shape than others. When we have disasters in this area, such as ex-tropical cyclone Debbie, water treatment plants can go down, pounded by high rainfall events. As we saw during our visit, the Gold Coast desalination plant does not have any rust, as those opposite like to say. There is no rust whatsoever and there never was, except during construction. The Gold Coast desalination plant kicked into gear and was running at 100 per cent capacity to ensure that water supply was maintained. By building one of Australia's first water grids, we now have the flexibility to change supply sources when we need to and move drinking water across our region. Those investments ensure the 2808 Public Works and Utilities Committee 7 Sep 2017 south-east always has a reliable high-quality water supply. I note that the member for Southport was a big advocate for the desalination plant when we were down there. He loved it. Seqwater is on a price path, set by the Queensland Competition Authority, to reach a sustainable and fair bulk water price to pay down those investments, which have proven to be highly valuable to our state again and again. I am pleased to report that Seqwater has developed and implemented enhanced financial government practices to address the QAO's other findings. Mr MOLHOEK (Southport—LNP) (12.17 pm): I rise to also speak to report No. 40 from the Public Works and Utilities Committee in reference to the Auditor-General's report to parliament No. 7 for 2016-17 on water in 2015-16 and the results of financial audits. This report highlights the fact that the figures reported by the various water entities were accurate. However, it does not accurately portray what an absolute mess Labor has made of our water assets and our borrowings across the state of Queensland. As the member for Kallangur rightly pointed out, as a councillor with the Gold Coast City Council I was a supporter of the desalination plant at the height of the drought. The first proposal council had was to build a small desalination plant for emergency water backup at a cost of about $300 million. Then suddenly there was a looming election and the state government was in a panic because they had no answers to solve the water problems of South-East Queensland. A letter arrived from Peter Beattie's office, telling the Gold Coast City Council that they will take over the control of the desalination plant and reimburse the Gold Coast council for the money that had been spent on land acquisitions in preparation. It went from a $300 million project to about a $1.6 billion project. 018 What do we have now? We have a desalination plant that is over capacity, has been over speced and has been built at a level that was absolutely unsustainable and unnecessary. That is what Labor does. We heard from the member for Yeerongpilly, Mark Bailey, a little earlier. He accused the LNP of a lack of policy development. The policy that they have developed with regard to energy is building solar panel farms all over Queensland when we are one of the largest miners of coal and one of the cleanest generators of coal-fired power in the southern hemisphere, if not the world. Mr KING: I rise to a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I seek your guidance, Madam Deputy Speaker. We are talking about water assets not solar panels. Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER (Ms Farmer): I did not hear what the member was saying, but I would ask you to remain relevant. Mr MOLHOEK: The accusation was that the LNP has no credibility in terms of policy development. I just wanted to point out that importing more solar panels from China is not necessarily going to create jobs in Queensland. That is classic ‘Labornomics'. One of the questions that the committee asked the Audit Office was whether they could supply a schedule that provided some detail around the extent of borrowings, the amount of money that was being spent on maintenance and what the current policy direction was of the government. Again, as we saw with the energy audit report and the figures provided in an answer to a question on notice then, the figures for maintenance came through reading ‘Not disclosed. Not disclosed. Not disclosed. Not disclosed.' My question to the government is: what are they trying to hide? I know what they are trying to hide. They are trying to hide the fact that they have raided the water entities of money to prop up their budget. What we heard from the Audit Office was that debt amongst the water entities is now at $13.6 billion. The debt has not gone down. We would have thought that it might have gone down, but it has actually gone up again. The Audit Office said that this represents nine per cent of total state debt. They expressed concerns around some of the government policy. They went on to state— ... there was one significant or high-risk matter identified and this related to inadequate control processes at Seqwater relating to asset valuation. ... Our report also highlighted the returns to government from this sector and sustainability challenges faced by the water entity in Queensland. These include profits and retained earnings for 2015-16 supported the dividends and participation returns ... There was $169 million taken out of the water entities. There was another $130 million taken as a special dividend and then another $130 million taken as a share capital return. This is chipping away at the reserves of those water entities at a time when they should have been looking to pay off debt and at a time when they should have been looking to service the debt rather than pulling more money into the state coffers to prop up their appalling budget. There is so much more I could say on this issue. 7 Sep 2017 Public Works and Utilities Committee 2809 Ms PEASE (Lytton—ALP) (12.23 pm): I rise to speak to the Public Works and Utilities Committee's report on its inquiry into Auditor-General report to parliament No.