Queensland Premier Campbell Newman has set the tone for more asset sales, despite the electoral oblivion the issue helped force upon the previous Bligh Labor government.
Mr Newman told the Liberal National Party state council meeting in Toowoomba on Saturday the state was about $80 billion in debt.
That resulted in interest payments of about $450,000 an hour.
We're not saying these assets have to go, that is not the conversation, Mr Newman told delegates at the historic Empire Theatre.
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We're saying we want to talk to Queenslanders so they know about this challenge.
Included on the government's potential sale list are generators Stanwell and CS Energy, along with several ports along the coast.
Outside the theatre, Treasurer Tim Nicholls said Queensland's $80 billion debt needed to be reduced if the state was to regain its AAA credit rating, which had slipped to AA+.
The other option, he said, was to cut services and increase taxes, fees and charges massively, which was something he wanted to avoid.
We're going to really run into an event horizon, Mr Nicholls said.
We've gone as far as we can with our current level of capital, but that $80 billion cloud of Labor debt is hanging over us and we will not be able to invest in the schools and the roads and the things that we want to have, like football stadiums and new arts theatres without doing something about it.
That's the choice, as a state, we face and that's the choice that Queenslanders face.
Mr Nicholls said the Redcliffe byelection result, which saw Labor regain the seat with a 17 per cent swing against the government, showed people wanted the government to listen to their views.
He said the government would seek a mandate at the ballot box before going ahead with sales.
We've always said that before we sold any of those businesses we would take it to the people in an election and that position hasn't changed, Mr Nicholls said.
I note that certain people, notably the (Electrical Trades Union), are saying that decisions have already been made, but it's quite the contrary.
We wouldn't be going out and talking to Queenslanders over the next three months about the choices they face if we'd already done that.
Shadow Treasurer Curtis Pitt said it was clear Mr Nicholls and the Newman government had already made up their minds.
The Premier's promise that he and his government would listen more in the wake of the Redcliffe by-election has been shattered a week later by Mr Nicholls, he said.
Trotting out the bogeyman of 'going broke' shows he will not be listening as he swans around the state. The Newman government is determined to forge ahead with asset sales regardless of what Queenslanders think.
Mr Pitt said the former Labor government had a strategy to pay down debt.
"Mr Nicholls has never acknowledged the fact that almost half of the $62 billion in state debt at the time of the March 2012 state election was held by government-owned corporations whose clients not average taxpayers would pay off, he said.
For example big mining companies using port facilities help pay down the debt of port authorities.
"Labor learned the hard way when it came to Queenslanders' views on asset sales but the LNP has not been listening even after the message it was sent from the Redcliffe by-election.
Among the policy resolutions passed at the LNP council was the introduction of four-year parliamentary terms.
Advocates for the change argued people were sick of elections and four-year terms would give governments more time to implement their agendas.
Those opposed said it would take the power away from the people, who could be stuck with a bad government for an additional 12 months.
Mr Newman said he would take the proposal to the LNP parliamentary team, but it would need bipartisan support to be implemented.
