Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Community Services ) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to talk today about GST. As many people in this place know, I am the member for Franklin and a very loyal Tasmanian indeed. Tasmanians are feeling a little bit under attack from coalition state governments in relation to GST and, in particular, from comments made on the record over time by Premier Barnett in Western Australia and from other Liberal state premiers who continually attack Tasmania in terms of our GST and Tasmania's perceived reliance on GST.

It would appear that they have got a bit of support from Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey—the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Treasurer. In fact, Tony Abbott, the Leader of the Opposition, has said that he thinks that the proposal put up by the Liberal states that GST revenue should be distributed in a per capita arrangement ought to be very seriously considered by the government. I want to put on the record what this would mean for my home state of Tasmania. The estimates are that it would mean a cut of between $600 million and $700 million from Tasmania's state budget each and every year under a coalition government, should they implement this policy. That is equivalent to a combined 800 doctors, 3,000 nurses, 500 allied health professionals and more than 100 child protection staff all put together. This is an outrageous attack on Tasmania from the Liberal states and from the Leader of the Opposition. The shadow Treasurer, Joe Hockey, has said that Premier Barnett's attempt to rob smaller states of GST revenue is 'reasonable'.

We know that Tasmania in the past has had some issues, but we have had a decade of growth. There are many opportunities in Tasmania. As a loyal Tasmanian, I am sick of people continually criticising the state of Tasmania and the people of Tasmania. Just last weekend, again, in South Australia the Leader of the Opposition said that South Australia had an opportunity to become like Western Australia or like Tasmania. Those are the two choices; they are at a crossroads. It appears that the opposition and the coalition have indeed given up on Tasmanians, and Tasmanians are very concerned about this. They are concerned about what their future might be under a coalition government should one ever actually be elected.

We do have a review into GST distribution in Australia at the moment, and what I would like to see is for people to commit to horizontal fiscal equalisation. That is about giving the smaller states which are weaker at any particular given point in time—as, of course, Western Australia were for most of the time that they have been a member of the Federation—the capacity to provide similar levels of services, no matter their infrastructure, to their citizens. It is the Australian ethos of a fair go that all Tasmanians are entitled to and deserve.