Reverse privatisation

Three decades of Labor and the LNP selling off Queensland’s public assets has meant more for corporations and less for Queenslanders.

Three decades of Labor and the LNP selling off Queensland’s public assets has meant more for corporations and less for Queenslanders

At a national level, some of Australia’s most profitable corporations including Telstra, Commonwealth Bank, and our biggest pharmaceutical company, CSL, used to be publicly owned before they were sold off to private investors. But over recent decades, both Labor and LNP governments have sold off Queensland assets including public housing, electricity retail, transport rail lines, and ports.

Here’s our plan to reverse privatisation and invest in a new wave of publicly owned assets run in the interest of ordinary people, not private profit. 

The Greens will: 

  • Reverse electricity privatisation and lower energy prices
  • Create Queensland Minerals, a public mining company to invest in critical minerals production in the North West Minerals Province 
  • Create a public property developer to build 100,000 homes
  • Expand our state owned builder, Qbuild, to create 10,000 new construction jobs and end outsourcing 
  • Support publicly owned manufacturing including green steel, renewable energy and modular homes.

Publicly owned electricity 

  • Set a target of 100% publicly owned electricity across generation, transmission and retail 
  • Reverse the privatisation of electricity retail by abolishing private retailers like Origin, AGL and Alinta and providing electricity as a public, non-profit essential service 
  • Stop price gouging by state owned generators and network companies and redirect profits into savings for Queensland households and businesses
  • Invest $65 billion in new publicly owned renewables, storage and grid upgrades, achieving 100% renewable energy by 2030.

You can read about our full plan to reverse privatisation, cut electricity bills, and reach 100% renewable energy by 2030 here.

Public mining company

  • Create a publicly owned mining company, Queensland Minerals, with first priority to own and operate key critical minerals projects in the North West Minerals Province
  • Create 1,000 good mining jobs at Queensland Minerals, with priority given to former coal and gas workers and a target of 15% First Nations staff
  • Enforce tough standards for environmental performance, safety, and land rehabilitation on public mine sites
  • Conduct operations only with the free, prior and informed consent of First Nations traditional owners, including adequate compensation
  • Deliver an estimated $14 billion in additional public revenue through critical minerals production from 2030-50.

You can read about our plan for a publicly owned mining company here.

Public property developer

  • Create a publicly owned property developer to buy land and invest $60 billion in the construction of 100,000 well-designed public homes over six years
  • Of these homes, 70% would be available to rent and 30% to buy. They’d be available to all Queenslanders, except those who already own a home
  • Rents would be set at 25% of household income, and first home buyers would save $225,000 off the purchase price of an average home. 

You can read more about our plan for a publicly owned housing developer here.

Public construction company 

  • 10,000 new jobs at Queensland’s public construction company, QBuild, including 7,000 trade positions and 3,000 apprenticeships
  • $500m for new QBuild equipment & workshops
  • Reverse privatisation, phasing out outsourcing at QBuild and directly employing tradies and apprentices to build public homes
  • Create a $500m fund for QBuild to buy out insolvent construction firms and stop capacity leaving the sector.

You can read our full plan for a bigger and better QBuild here.

Public manufacturing

  • Use government investment and our public mining company, Queensland Minerals, to spearhead new green manufacturing
  • Support new publicly owned green steel, wind turbine, solar panel and battery manufacturing hubs in regional Queensland
  • Require more on-shore processing of clean energy minerals produced by Queensland Minerals
  • Direct our new public property developer to support domestic manufacturing of prefabricated homes and mass timber products when building our 100,000 public homes.