On Thursday 25 June 2026, I addressed Parliament on the Government's 2026 State Budget. 

You can read my full speech below, or in the official Parliamentary Record of Proceedings (Hansard). 

There have been many words and a lot of hot air this week. For anyone paying attention, my hot tip is: when a politician speaks, pay attention to the bits they are not saying. When we hear ‘no new or increased taxes’, compare that with an extra $60 million on compliance and debt recovery in this budget. That means collecting fines, usually from people who would struggle the most to pay them.

The budget papers reveal that $60 million, and no doubt that is because we have seen this government expand drug offences and introduce restrictions on legal pedal-assist e-bikes among more nonsense tough on crime, but here is the real kicker. The budget says, in as many words, ‘broader population growth has expanded the client base’. That is budget speak for ‘more Queenslanders means more fines to collect’. ‘No new taxes’ maybe sounds great to some people until you realise that regular Queenslanders are still footing the bill because they will have more fines from this brazen revenue-raising ripped straight from their pockets.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Krause): Members, there is a fair bit of noise in the chamber. Keep your conversations to a minimum, please.

Mr BERKMAN: This remains necessary because others are not paying. I will give just one example, but I will get to others later, like the developers and big banks. I have said this countless times but I will keep banging on about it. Major parties refuse to tax big gas corporations properly. As I have said before and I will say again, it is clear in this year's budget papers that Queenslanders are paying heaps more in vehicle registration than the big gas corporations are paying in royalties. The numbers indicate there was $2.5 billion received from ordinary Queenslanders in registration last year compared to $1.1 billion in gas royalties—more than twice as much. In my mind, it should be straightforward. Raise gas royalties to 35 per cent and make a fair share for Queenslanders so they can pay for the things we keep hearing we cannot afford in budgets like this.

We are told there is no money for genuine cost-of-living relief. An extra 50 bucks per child on schools? Great! We cannot afford genuine cost-of-living relief, but it is not like there is not money in the budget in Queensland. It is all just going to the banks, the big developers and—do not miss this—the big fossil fuel companies and not ordinary Queenslanders. This year, on my numbers, there is around $615 million or more of taxpayer money spent on fossil fuels through our state owned power companies. That includes over $525 million this government choses to spent propping up aging coal-fired power stations. Our supposed clean energy company, state owned CleanCo, is spending almost $40 million on gas, that most clean renewable of energy sources. My tongue is firmly planted in my cheek.

This government's actions effectively constitute a breach of our legislated emissions reduction targets. But do not worry: we keep hearing that your power bills will be cheaper. That is what they claim. Well, not quite. The Australian Energy Regulator has been absolutely clear that renewables are driving lower wholesale energy prices. That is clear on any sensible analysis. This government is quick to claim lower power prices as a win, yet I know many people will still be confused about why their power bills are still going up. There is a really simple, one-word answer: privatisation.

Labor privatised electricity retail in Queensland 20 years ago in 2006 so the only remaining publicly owned electricity retailer in Queensland is Ergon which serves regional customers. Those customers are getting cheaper power because the government can direct retailers to pass on wholesale savings. However, the vast majority of Queenslanders, about two-thirds, especially those in South-East Queensland, are missing out on cheaper energy because the government privatised retail. These private retailers will always charge more to cover advertising costs and their massive CEO bonuses, and of course they will want to turn a profit on Queensland essential services.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Pause the clock. Members, there are too many people talking and standing around. If you are leaving the chamber, please go. Otherwise, keep your conversations to a minimum.

It is time for the government and the Premier to stop with this faux concern and the naming-and-shaming approach with these energy retailers that are ripping us off. It is time to cancel their licences, bring the full electricity system back under public ownership and invest in renewables. That is the way to deliver cheaper bills for Queenslanders.

Ultimately, the Greens believe that essential services should be publicly owned. Private companies should not be profiting off our essential services, but clearly that is not a view that this government shares. That should apply equally to public transport. This budget could have included funding to buy back the Airtrain. I have heard much revelry at the introduction of 50-cent fares in Townsville and Cairns, but here in Brisbane we are letting a private, foreign owned corporation hold Brisbane's airport train to ransom until 2036.

This month I revealed financial statements that valued Airtrain at just $45 million. For comparison, a single road upgrade in my electorate, the Indooroopilly roundabout, cost $257 million, which is more than five times that amount. If Airtrain will not sell for a fair price, then the government clearly has the power to legislate to force them to do it. They can buy it back, make it public, make the fares 50 cents, build new stations and make the trains run more frequently. All of these things are possible, but not until they take on the profiteering corporate owner of Airtrain.

I turn to local issues, and this will not take much time because this government has completely dudded Maiwar. We have seen nothing. Obviously, my constituents are disappointed about the Airtrain, but they are also disappointed that there is nothing around dedicated bus lanes or transit lanes on the west side. I invite the transport minister to try taking the bus on the Centenary Motorway during peak hour and I would like to see him tell me that we do not need that.

There is nothing at all for new buildings at Indooroopilly State High School. We have an infrastructure designation that accepts we need four major infrastructure projects, yet there is not a cent to be spent on those in this budget. We are still seeing this government proceed with the absurd idea that somehow student numbers at Indooroopilly State High School are going to drop. They have this bogus modelling and the infrastructure plan is for a 2,500 student population when we are already pushing 3,000 students. We have demountables on the oval and kids without specialist classrooms. It is farcical. It is a blight on residents in my area that their kids are not getting the facilities and the teachers are not getting the facilities they need to do their job.

Despite the new laws around e-bike safety, there are no new bikeways in my electorate so people are left having to ride on the road. There is never enough money for public transport, or to properly fund state schools or to build public housing, but it is clear that there is money to spend. For example, there is a $200 million taxpayer-funded handout to the racing industry, including a new greyhound racing track at Bundaberg. The last one that was funded at Ipswich has killed dozens of dogs, despite claims it has the highest safety standards of anywhere. Hospitals clearly need more funding. One of the biggest investments of public money is in a private hospital at Springfield that does not even provide reproductive healthcare services. We are pouring all of this money into Mater Springfield while they turn women away who need abortion, reproductive or miscarriage care.

There is more than $2½ billion in the budget for adult and youth prisons this year, including $250 million for building and expanding youth prisons. Before they start banging on about how it is keeping everyone safe, these budget papers also revealed that 53 per cent of adult prisoners are returning to prison within two years and 71 per cent of youth offenders are charged again within one year of an offence being finalised. Is it any surprise that we heard from the Attorney-General this morning that they need an extra $10 million on criminal prosecution services across the state focusing specifically on regional areas?

Even after I asked the question in question time on Tuesday, we still have no idea how much this government is spending on briefing a leading silk to maintain suppression orders to supress the identity of this high-profile public figure in Queensland. Maybe it is a question for the police minister. Maybe he could enlighten us: how much is being spent to maintain suppression orders protecting the identity of a high-profile Queensland man? I am certainly not going to say anything in here that might contravene those orders. To be perfectly frank, I do not care and I do not think most people in Queensland really care about the promiscuity, infidelity or philandering of whoever this high-profile man is, but we do care about the use of public funds to keep up a gag order in very unusual circumstances. I will move on.

We had some excellent question time pantomime this morning from the Premier who said that delivering is exhausting. They are absolutely exhausting themselves delivering new jails and filling new jails by criminalising kids and locking up anyone who dares to breathe those forbidden six words in support of a free Palestine. They are finding all manner of new creative ways to spend QPS resources, to waste QPS resources, like the e-mobility laws and fining kids and breathalysing people on bikes.

Meanwhile, public perceptions of police integrity have become a discontinued measure under this budget. People's confidence to report domestic violence to police is at a record low, which is no wonder when we had stories this week about a suspended officer being released on bail for a string of offences, including stalking. Perceptions of police honesty and fairness are consistently below targets, and the government's answer to that is to just stop asking and stop measuring how low people's confidence is. It is no surprise when we still have no independent police integrity unit. Labor and the LNP have both failed to implement the commission of inquiry's recommendations. We have cops investigating cops which is a recipe for corruption, abuse of power and low faith in the integrity of our policing system in Queensland.

This is the first budget since the LNP lifted its ban on developer donations and, man, it is delivering serious returns for those developers. When they talk about housing, do not be fooled by the spin. The billions in so-called activation funds is not money for housing; that is money for developers—the infrastructure that developers should be funding to just pad their margins out even further. We have another year of Boost to Buy and demand-side grants that are boosting the cost of buying a home. Brisbane prices are up more than 20 per cent in one year. That is great for investors but absolutely horrific for renters and first home buyers. We have solutions but neither major party is willing to take on the big banks or the property investors. We could cap rent increases. The Greens have introduced a bill to do that but the majors rejected it. We could tax vacant homes and land. Again, we introduced a bill but they rejected it. We could have a publicly owned developer to build more homes. Instead, this government is selling off public land and removing affordability requirements.

In looking at this budget, I nearly fell into the trap of going down the line of 'what a boring budget', but we cannot let ourselves be taken down that road because this is important and because that is what they want from us—to somehow frame inaction or so-called stability as a virtue. We cannot let them get away with that because we cannot allow Queenslanders to settle for scraps. Better things are possible but this government want us to expect nothing. They want us to expect that they cannot help us, while gas corporations get rich on our resources, while power companies continue to charge like wounded bulls on our monthly power bills and while developers get tax handouts to make money from the housing crisis.

We as a party have put forward countless options to address this. What would a Greens budget look like in Queensland? Here are three simple examples. Firstly, we could tax the gas corporations, as I said. We could afford more than scraps if we just took a fair share for our resources: programs like free school breakfasts, free psychology sessions and no more out-of-pocket costs for schools. Secondly, we could end privatisation and start reversing it by bringing electricity retail back into public hands and investing in cheap renewables. Thirdly, we could also take on the property and banking industries and genuinely tackle the housing crisis. We could tax vacant land and houses and levy the big banks.

These things take courage. It takes courage to challenge corporate power and profit and to do things differently. The major parties lack the courage we need and it will be their undoing because people can only take so much.