Queensland Parliament returns amid budget concerns following credit rating downgrade

We’ve now dug into the detail of the government’s bill to set new limits on who can object to mining leases in the state (which you can read about here), and have taken a look at the proposed parole law overhaul.

Introducing that bill before lunch, Corrective Services Minister Laura Gerber said it was about parole laws reflecting the gravity of a life sentence. “Life should be able to mean life,” she said.

This would be done by expanding the discretionary restricted prisoner framework, which can delay parole for those imprisoned for murdering a child or multiple people, to anyone who is serving a life sentence.

As of Tuesday, Gerber said there were 71 prisoners under the framework, but 334 serving life sentences. She cited several high-profile cases, including the murder of Allison Baden-Clay by husband Gerard in 2012.

“Gerard Baden-Clay becomes eligible for parole next year. This bill fixes that failure,” Gerber said.

Back from lunch, Labor has used Matters of Public Interest hour to attack the LNP over Friday’s credit rating downgrade, as the government hit back with CFMEU inquiry evidence.

But we’re going to dwell a bit more on earlier proceedings, before the government introduced two new bills (which we’ll get into in more detail soon).

Leader of the House, Moggill LNP MP Christian Rowan, has outlined the government’s plan for the week, with a series of bills set for passage by the end of Thursday.

A bill making governance changes to the state’s container refund scheme will be debated and passed by 5pm today.

The government’s “circuit breaker sentencing” bill will be passed by 1pm on Thursday, with two bills clamping down on dangerous, drink- and drug-driving to be passed by 9pm.

Crisafulli has now delivered an “urgent ministerial statement” to detail a newly revealed outcome he says is the result of his recent trade mission to the US.

In a statement to the ASX this morning, tungsten miner EQ Resources announced involvement in a Pentagon-supported deal to restart a major plant in the States.

Crisafulli said representatives of the company, in which billionaire Andrew Forrest took a large stake in July, had joined him on the mission.

“When I say Queensland is open for business, this is what I mean,” Crisafulli said. “With the backing of the US government, the processing plant will be a joint venture, taking Queensland’s tungsten and preparing it for use in more than 100 US defence programs.

Labor used question time to grill Health Minister Tim Nicholls on a medical ordeal faced by Olympic skateboarding coach Patrick Gemzik, who waited four hours for an ambulance which never arrived earlier in the year.

Gemzik, who suffered brain damage and irreversible damage to his eyesight, was transferred from the Redlands Hospital to the Princess Alexandra Hospital against the advice of the latter.

Nicholls eventually, after receiving detail of the matter, said it was dealt with immediately and encouraged people to contribute to a fundraiser for Gemzik.

He also reiterated there were no missed Triple Zero calls or ambulances not dispatched during a recent transfer of paramedic dispatch system to a new computer-aided one.

Ministers used softball backbench questions to goad Labor over its action on parole laws and evidence aired by the CFMEU inquiry.

Premier David Crisafulli has declared he will always be open to provide investment opportunities in the state, even to “political opponents” like Clive Palmer.

Maiwar Greens MP Michael Berkman used question time to ask Crisafulli if his pro-coal stance was influenced by his relationship with Palmer, who this masthead revealed has met with Crisafulli on three occasions, including after rebranding his coal firm.

Neither Palmer nor Crisafulli responded to questions about the meetings, as the state’s richest man rekindles ties with his former National Party amid risk from One Nation.

Responding to Berkman, Crisafulli noted that Palmer had his own political party, saying “I will always stand up for opportunities for anyone who wants to invest in Queensland, even if they are our political opponents”.

Premier David Crisafulli gave a brief update on his recent trade mission to the United States, saying he met with representatives of the White House, the Defence Department, and export-import investors to push for investment in Queensland.

He said he put forward the state’s case for data centre investment in meetings with Anthropic, Open AI and Nvidia.

“If we can secure investment and use it as a catalyst to drive more energy generation, we can secure our jobs, our data sovereignty, and lower energy bills for Queenslanders,” Crisafulli said.

“We are the only state that can do this because we own our generation, we own our distribution assets, and we struck a deal with Canberra to acknowledge this.

“We will back investment, but it must be on our terms. It must add energy generation. It must protect local water supplies. It must respect the communities where projects can be, and it must never be in suburban backyards.”

An opposition effort to move a motion to condemn last week’s credit rating downgrade and call for the government to reveal all costs associated with Olympic infrastructure was blocked by the government.

Natural Resources and Mines Minister Dale Last has flagged new draft laws to be introduced by the Crisafulli government today: an overhaul of the framework for objections to mining leases.

Last cited the New Acland Coal Mine expansion as an example of why “this process has to change”.

“For close to 15 years, the mining company and the community did not have certainty on the project’s future, and the former Labor government allowed this to happen,” Last said.

“We’re replacing the automatic referral of objections to the Land Court with a more targeted and proportional referral process to reduce the number of projects held up in court. Further, the grounds for an objection will need to be based on the decision-making criteria.

We’re barely into the ministerial statement section of the day, and we’ve already had notice from Environment Minister Andrew Powell that the government will seek to revoke part of a state forest, the dedication of part of two national parks and one conservation parks.

More details to come on that, but the proposal will be open for a short period of public consultation.

Immediately after, Premier David Crisafulli revealed the government will today introduce a bill to overhaul the state’s parole laws, dubbed the “Protecting Queenslanders from Dangerous Prisoners and Strengthening Victims’ Rights Amendment Bill”.

Crisafulli said the bill would seek to expand restricted prisoner laws to cover all offenders serving life sentences, rather than just murderers who have killed a child or more than one person.

Welcome back! MPs have returned to George Street for the first parliamentary sitting since late August – which means so have we.

With last week’s credit rating downgrade, we can expect budget management (by this government, and the last) to be a major topic of the week.

Labor have already flagged they’ll be moving a motion to condemn the downgrade and call for Crisafulli LNP to reveal all costs associated with Olympic infrastructure.

However, the government’s majority will no doubt see the ultimately symbolic gesture turned back around on the opposition.

We’ll have all the detail you need to know out of today’s proceedings here. Come along for the ride.