Hand-outs to big business revealed

Bill Mason, Brisbane

The Queensland government is giving millions of dollars to some of the country's richest companies. Corporate giants such as Qantas, Macquarie Bank, Suncorp and APN News and Media were among the 42 companies to profit from $21.5 million in state government "investment and incentive" grants in the 2003-04 financial year.

Premier Peter Beattie's Labor government is under increasing pressure to fully disclose its grants to big business. The opposition parties have criticised the secrecy about a $550,000 taxpayer-funded grant given in 1999 help Tropico — wholly-owned by Berri Ltd — establish a herbal sauces plant on the Sunshine Coast.

The grant to Tropico preceded a $250,000 grant — made up of $110,000 in cash and $140,000 in sewage works free of charge — to help Berri build a juice-extraction factory at Lytton in Brisbane's east. Beattie had told a parliamentary hearing on July 14 that the $250,000 was a one-off grant to prevent the company moving interstate.

The $500,000 payment to Tropico was revealed when Queensland information commissioner David Bevan overruled a government decision to white-out information on the Tropico grant from documents detailing government assistance to Berri. The uncensored documents were released on July 16.

Details of the Qantas package and other pay-outs to major companies remain shrouded in secrecy and the government intends to legislate to keep all other deals secret.

From Green Left Weekly, July 28, 2004.

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From GLW issue 591