The very man steering the sell-down of shares in QR National says the move to privatise Queensland’s coal and bulk freight rail business was divisive, but that battle was over.
The Liberal National Party (LNP) government announced on Monday it was reducing the state’s remaining stake in QRN from 34 per cent to 16 per cent.
Treasurer Tim Nicholls said the sale proceeds of $1.5 billion would be used to pay down state debt, with the cash to start flowing this week.
The LNP won popular support in 2010 with its vehement opposition to the then Labor government’s sell-down of QRN.
“Queenslanders have been sold down the river by a premier and a treasurer desperate to sell at any price just to get their hands on some cash to meet spiralling debt payments,” Mr Nicholls said at the time.
The LNP had a change of heart, however, and warned voters in the lead-up to this year’s election that it would sell the remaining shares.
Mr Nicholls defended the LNP’s backflip when pressed on Monday about whether QRN was better off fully in the public’s hands or privatised.
“A lot of people would think that it hasn’t been a good thing for Queensland because of the loss of faith in the political process … and divisions in society that it engendered. I guess that fight has been had and the decision of the people of Queensland has been made,” he told reporters.
“We are now left with the shares.
“Our obligation now is to get the best result we can and, having got that best result, move on.”
Mr Nicholls said the government had sold at $3.47 a share, representing a $400 million gain since the initial public offer in late 2010.
Queensland has reaped $61 million in dividends on the government’s stake since the offering.
While the sell-down of shares will cut its dividend receipts, the state’s interest payments on the $2.2 billion debt Labor took out against its shareholding will be slashed.
QRN’s share price jumped 18 cents, or five per cent, to $3.65 by mid-Monday afternoon.
The government has no plans at this stage to sell the remaining stake, but Mr Nicholls doesn’t see the government as a long-term holder of the shares.
Labor promised during the election campaign that it would sell the remaining stake in QRN, but on Monday Opposition Leader Annastacia Palaszczuk announced the ALP opposed any asset sale.
“Labor was delivered a very clear message from Queensland, when we were reduced to seven seats at the last election,” she told reporters in Brisbane.
“The people of Queensland did not like the asset sales, and it is a very brave government that now wants to (continue) upon this path.”
Opposition treasury spokesman Curtis Pitt said the government would have been better off keeping the government’s stake in QR National and using the dividends to fund future infrastructure.
