Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That the Senate take note of the statement.

Yet again, the government has refused to provide the information the Senate has sought. I draw the attention of the Senate to what it is that we asked for. The Senate ordered the government:

… that there be laid on the table by 5 pm on Thursday 18 November 2010, any advice (including legal advice and advice from the Solicitor General or the Australian Government Solicitor) to the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet or the Department of the Treasury, or advice from these departments to their respective Ministers, concerning the need for unanimous agreement to vary the GST Agreement.

What have we got here? We have a letter from Senator Wong telling us that the original 1999 version of the GST agreement was replaced with the 2008 version of the GST agreement by COAG unanimously. There is no comment here whatsoever, no attempt at providing the information that the Senate asked for, which of course is the advice from those respective agencies that has been provided to the government. We know that the Treasurer, Wayne Swan, knows that he has a problem. We know that he knows he has a problem because it is contained in the incoming government’s brief, the red book. I will just read from it in relation to the implementation of the GST takeover proposed by this federal Labor government. On page 15 it says:

Western Australia’s decision not to participate in the NHHN reforms poses an implementation challenge. The key issue for Western Australia is the dedication of a portion of each state’s GST to health and hospital services.

It goes further. It goes into a section on the Intergovernmental Agreement on Federal Financial Relations. It says:

Western Australia has indicated that it is not prepared to agree to proposed amendments to the IGA notwithstanding that they preserve the current arrangements for Western Australia.

I am quoting: ‘notwithstanding that they preserve the current arrangements for Western Australia’. And here comes the clincher. This is in advice from the Treasurer’s own department. This is in advice from the Treasury to the Treasurer, released under FOI after the election. I will quote from the red book again:

As changes can only be made to the IGA by unanimous agreement of all parties, alternative approaches may need to be considered to give effect to the financing arrangements for other jurisdictions.

That is a polite and bureaucratic way to say: ‘You may have to find the money elsewhere. You might need to do it another way. This way might not work because you have not fulfilled a core requirement under the intergovernmental agreement—and that is to have the unanimous agreement of all the parties involved in the intergovernmental agreement.’

It continues. This is very informative advice to the Treasurer. I am not sure whether he has read it. If he had read it he would not have taken the actions he did in pressing ahead with reintroducing the legislation to grab $50 billion of the states’ and territories’ GST. He would have actually done his homework. I will keep reading, for the benefit of the Treasurer and for the benefit, perhaps, of his staff, the hollow men in his office who might be watching what is happening in the Senate right now. I will continue to quote from the advice:

… alternative approaches may need to be considered to give effect to the financing arrangements for other jurisdictions.

Ideally, these issues should be resolved before the reintroduction of the legislation.

That, again, is a very polite way for Treasury to say to their boss, the Treasurer, ‘Do your homework before you bring the legislation back into the parliament.’ But this Treasurer has a problem because he is desperate for the cash. He wants the money. But he also knows that there are two states in Australia that are going to have elections soon. There is the great state of Victoria and the state of New South Wales—also a great state.