Premier Anna Bligh says Queenslanders should view the state’s debt as a mortgage, not a hefty credit card bill.

Queensland is expected to record a $1.95 billion deficit for 2009/10.

Its debt level is projected to blow out to $85.5 billion by 2012/13 - the highest of any state.

A day after the Queensland budget was handed down, Ms Bligh said that borrowing to invest in infrastructure during a global recession was good debt.

The opposition has criticised the government for wracking up an enormous debt on what it called the taxpayer credit card.

“The (right) analogy is: it’s $85 billion on a mortgage,” Ms Bligh told an ALP post-budget lunch in Brisbane.

“With the mortgage we are buying long-term infrastructure that is equivalent, in state terms, to the goodness of buying a house.”

It was okay to go into debt, she said, as long as you could afford the repayments.

To cover some of the debt, the government plans to sell $15 billion in public assets over the next three to five years.

“We all encourage our children to enter into a very high level of debt - as long as they can afford to pay their mortgage - rather than pay rent, and that is what we are doing in this state,” the premier said.

“And if you get a windfall inheritance, you should use it to pay off that debt if you can, and that’s what we’re looking at with the asset sale.”

A vote against the sale of assets was a vote to send the state into more debt, Ms Bligh said, as the opposition voiced reluctance to sell off assets to prop up the bottom line.

Opposition Leader John-Paul Langbroek said Tuesday’s budget figures proved Queensland’s economy was the sickest in the nation.

“I think it is pretty obvious when you’re borrowing nearly more than all the other states combined you have a pretty sick economy,” Mr Langbroek said.

“We are borrowing $85 billion in the years to come. It’s very clear, even the treasury acknowledges, we are not going to get back that AAA credit rating.

“It just means we are going to have higher interest repayments on our borrowings and that’s going to lead to less services and greater charges for the people of Queensland.”

Mr Langbroek’s deputy, Lawrence Springborg, branded unions “pansies” for allowing the $15 billion sell-off, holding a bunch of the flowers in parliament to underline his point.

“I want to say to the average Queenslander that the unions are the very definition of a pansy - pathetic and wimpy,” Mr Springborg said.

Meanwhile, Ms Bligh said she hoped there would be green shoots in the economy within 12 months and the government’s forecasts held up.

Treasurer Andrew Fraser said investment in public infrastructure was the “only show in town” in 2009/10 and in 12 months’ time he hoped there would be renewed business confidence.

AAP