Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to the Prime Minister's claim in his previous answer that he will not rule out changes to the GST. If this is true, why did the Prime Minister promise 33 times that there would be no changes to the GST?

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a question going close to having been directly answered, but I call the Prime Minister.

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I just make the obvious point, partly repeating what I said before: if any proposal is supported by this government in respect of any change to that tax, it would go to the people, as you would expect, at the next election. But no proposal will come forward from this government in respect of that tax that is not supported by the states and territories, because it is a tax which is raised for the states and territories, to be spent by the states and territories.

What we certainly want to encourage and what members opposite would want to see, if they had any serious concern for economic reform, is a proper, national conversation about how our economy can work better. We are prepared to talk about what would make our economy work better, and all that the members opposite are prepared to do is engage in a long and useless complaint. This is a government which has already increased jobs growth from 43,000 in the last year that Labor were in power to 243,000 in the past year. We have increased economic growth. This is a government which is about jobs and growth, and members opposite should be part of the conversation. They should be part of the conversation about what we do to build a stronger and more prosperous economy, what we do to bring about more jobs and more growth in our country. This government is prepared to have the conversation. All the members opposite want to do is complain. Well, it is about time they stopped being the national complaints bureau and started getting on with the business of being serious members of this parliament.