Message for the New Year

Please accept my best wishes to you, your family and loved ones for the New Year.

2018 promises to be one of the most momentous in Queensland’s history with our largest ever event the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games to be held in April and our State to reach the milestone of being home to five million people later in the year.

For the thousands of athletes competing at the Games, success will be measured in medals and personal best performances. However, for our State a successful Games – like Expo 88 and the Brisbane Commonwealth Games did a generation ago - will be how we showcase Queensland to the world with an estimated TV audience of 1.5 billion people and tens of thousands of visitors to the Games venues.  The legacy will be an even more positive image of Queensland – our people and places – around the globe.  

The milestone of five million Queenslanders highlights the importance of government’s role as a service provider and a generator of opportunities.

Since my Government was first elected, we have worked with business and industry to create 143,400 jobs – or the equivalent of more than 140 new jobs every day. 

Across Queensland, our infrastructure investment, our Back to Work, Works for Queensland and Skilling Queenslanders for Work programs are creating jobs.  We are working in partnership with key industries like tourism, agriculture, construction, resources and energy as well as promoting new jobs and opportunities through large-scale renewables, biofuels, advanced manufacturing and start-ups.

For our second term, my Government has rededicated itself to the priorities of job creation, provision of world-class health services, quality education for young Queenslanders and reskilling for those in - or seeking to rejoin - the workforce.

That is why, during the election campaign, we promised new and refurbished schools and more teachers for our classrooms, upgrades for key hospitals and more nurses and midwives across the State and an extension of key job-generating programs. 

We will honour all of our commitments to Queenslanders.

As Premier, I reaffirm my commitment to lead a Government as hard-working and as decent as the people of Queensland we work for.