Two of Queensland’s slipperiest politicians, Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and her Deputy Premier, Comrade Jackie Trad are the proud new owners of the Cairns-based sea freight company Seaswift, the largest privately owned shipping company in Australia.
Industry sources said QIC paid an unconfirmed $300 million for the freight company which services much of Northern Australia including the Torres Strait and Gulf of Carpentaria.
The government-owned company, Queensland Investment Corporation lists shareholders as the Premier and Deputy Premier, Jackie Trad who has just scraped through an investigation over insider trading in property.
Seaswift CEO Fred White said he would remain as manager of the company.
He stressed the (already exorbitant) freight rates would not increase but he did not say if there would be any decrease in charges for thousands of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders who struggle to buy high priced groceries and fuel at $2 a litre or more across the north.
Nearly all commodities on Cape York Peninsular and Island communities arrive by Seaswift.
Seaswift (Holdings) Pty Ltd recorded $144.6m revenue in the 2018 financial year.
QIC reported a pre-tax profit of $101.3m in 2017-2018 financial year from revenue of $410.6m.
The investment company owned $86.1 billion assets under management as of June 30, 2018 across a wide range of operations including global investments in real estate and private capital.
It would be of great interest to discover just how much money QIC has invested in private capital ventures in Queensland. –from our Townsville bureau
Neville you should be sending us articles, thank you Editor.
Australia Inc has been technically bankrupt since 1966 when Holt, under instruction from the US swapped us over to dollars. Our Commonwealth Constitution of Australia, still in force, only allows for the Governor General to be paid in Pounds and politicians to be paid a fixed allowance, in pounds, per annum. There is no provision for the existence of political parties in this founding document. Ad infinitum. Editor
How much debt would a State Government be in before they are declared bankrupt and the Feds put administers in to run the joint ?
They also purchased about 80% of Northern Australian Pastoral Company
Before SeaSwift came into being there was Burke Shipping who owned the same vessel in the photo and a few others and they went broke because of their very expensive Union Crewing where they worked 3 months on and 3 months off on rotation so in fact the company was paying for 2 crews at the same time so then they sold out to a non Unionised SeaSwift who then did made money and lots of it so I reckon SeaSwift will now become Unionised again for the benefit of the maritime union
And…how is this legal?
Michael you must have a crystal ball;how prophetic!Editor
A researcvher prior to the last Qld state election revealed the real debt for the state is $117 billion and we doubt QIC profits pay off any debts to the international bankers.Editor
Do any of the profits from the QIC pay down Qld Labor debt of $80 Billion ?
how long before this is back on the market at half the price ,labor running a shipping company would be like the pope running a brewery ,there will be no cargo left on the ship by the time it hits TI .probably run it along the lines of qld rail and run on overtime .
The return on investment is generous, could the freight rates be reduced to allow a little reduction in goods cost
What on earth is the Qld Labor government doing, using tax payers money, to buy a transport company? That’s the last thing they should be spending our money on – emphasis on ‘our’ – and it’s certainly not necessary to go into public ownership. Were you consulted about this? I certainly wasn’t and wouldn’t agree. But then, that’s probably why we weren’t consulted. More socialism by stealth…