Asset sales+jobs

Asset sales now so there is money available to make future investments in roads, schools, health and other infrastructure, instead of paying off debt; that’s part of the sell the Queensland Government is pushing, using a proportion of the small available funds to market it.  Democracy in action will be part of the justification for this apparent waste of limited public funds. I’m not against asset sales if a proper review is done and a business decision is made on merit. The public should be informed and the whole process transparent.  However is the current blanket media campaign informing or trying to sway the public. When it is advertised that the state is currently paying $4 billion in interest payments each year, what will the repayment be after the sale? If private investment does pocket the Government $32 billion, that still leaves $48 billion debt. Interest on that would be around $2.4 billion. Freeing up around $1.6 billion per year. Did you get that message from the radio commercials or did you think $4 billion was to be saved? If the asset sales do go ahead could the Government effectively make a double investment for the future. Make the sale conditional that the buyer has to employ 25% of their workforce from unemployed or underemployed youth (under 24 years of age). You can’t force that on business and it’s age discriminatory maybe the response. When you’ve got 50000 Australians aged between 15-24 who have been unemployed for more than a year and employment underutilisation youth rate of 23.7% how could a Government who stay’s silent on post code discrimination with FIFO, justify age as an excuse. Maybe this sale condition negatively affects the price and thus infrastructure projects that can be done from the interest repayment savings, but when combined with the benefits of having more youth in full time employment wouldn’t the state (and nation) get a better long term return from the asset sales. That’s the desired goal isn’t it!  A double investment.  Too simple, maybe; it’s pretty much certain though asset sales will result in job redundancies, lets investigate ways for the asset sales to at least give our youth (future) fulltime employment, something nearly 1 in 4 aren’t currently getting.