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October 11th, 2011 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
LNP leader Campbell Newman. Photo: Glenn Hunt
Claims that Liberal National Party leader Campbell Newman was unduly influenced by waste company donations have been dismissed by the opposition as “baseless garbage”.
Queensland government MP Murray Watt today used parliamentary privilege to accuse Mr Newman of changing his tune on the proposed waste levy after the LNP received a combined $70,000 in donations from waste businesses.
The government is planning to impose a $35 per tonne levy on industrial and commercial waste in a move it says will help halve waste going to landfill in Queensland by 2020.
During debate on the measure, Mr Watt questioned why the LNP was now opposing the waste levy given Mr Newman’s previous apparent support when he was Brisbane’s lord mayor.
The claims come as the opposition accuses the government of becoming increasingly desperate and focusing on mudslinging and personal attacks against Mr Newman.
At a council meeting on May 11 last year, then-Councillor Newman said the then environment minister Kate Jones shared his views on the need to reduce solid waste going to landfill.
“I must say how impressed I am with Minister Jones’ approach,” Mr Newman told the meeting.
Mr Watt also pointed to a letter from Mr Newman on March 2 this year in which he said the council “strongly supports a levy implementation date of 1 July 2012”.
The attached Brisbane City Council letter noted the council was opposed to the levy applying to domestic waste – a move the government says it has agreed to.
A February letter from the South East Queensland Council of Mayors, which Mr Newman headed at the time, said the waste levy introduction should be introduced no earlier than December 1, 2011. The levy is due to come into effect on that date.
In State Parliament today, Mr Watt said Smartskip, a company which distributed skips for hire and would have to pay the levy, made a $5000 donation to the LNP on May 10 this year.
“On 15 June 2011, JJ Richards, the largest privately owned waste company in Australia, made a $55,000 donation to the LNP,” Mr Watt told Parliament.
“JJ Richards bought Mr Newman’s soul for $55,000. They are in the top tier of LNP donors.
“Two weeks later, on 27 June 2011, SITA, another enormous waste company, made a $10,000 donation to Forward Brisbane Leadership, which is the LNP’s fundraising arm.
“And what do you know? Last week, Mr Newman announces an LNP government would scrap the waste levy.”
Forward Brisbane Leadership was set up as a fundraising vehicle for the LNP’s Brisbane City Council candidates and not the party’s state campaign.
Mr Watt accused Mr Newman of having been “bought by some of the biggest waste companies in Queensland”.
“We know that the LNP won’t rule out taking donations from ‘Big Tobacco’. Now we know they are also captive to ‘Big Trash’,” he said.
“It’s a fact that large waste companies don’t like waste levies. Waste levies mean more recycling – and that’s bad news for waste transport companies.”
But LNP parliamentary leader Jeff Seeney said tonight the claims were “just the normal baseless garbage that Labor backbenchers always claim in Parliament”.
Mr Seeney told brisbanetimes.com.au the state LNP had opposed the waste levy from the beginning and no one in the party room had ever voiced support for the measure.
“He [Mr Newman] said to me that the council of mayors never supported the introduction of a waste levy in the first place,” Mr Seeney said.
“They accepted the proposition when the Labor government put it up on the basis all of the money would be used on waste and recycling projects [but withdrew support when it became clear the money would also go elsewhere].”
An LNP spokesman said the state party had always believed the measure was “a great big new tax”.
Earlier this morning, Mr Seeney accused the government of indulging in personal attacks on Mr Newman.
“It is time that the government made the choice that the people of Queensland so desperately want them to make,” Mr Seeney said.
“Either focus on the business of governing or call an election and let the people of Queensland pass judgment on this government’s record rather than indulge in the type of personal denigration and mud-slinging that we have seen over the last few weeks.”
Mr Seeney also used his morning speech to attack the recent appointment of former New South Wales government spinner Eamonn Fitzpatrick to serve as Premier Anna Bligh’s new principal media adviser.
Mr Seeney said Mr Fitzpatrick, from the Labor-aligned consultancy Hawker Britton, was “an operative who has been imported from New South Wales to save this failed government”.
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