David Leyonhjelm (NSW, Liberal Democratic Party) Share this | Hansard source

The bill before us today is a lie. It is called the Treasury Laws Amendment (Making Sure Every State and Territory Gets Their Fair Share of GST) Bill 2018. If it was just rearranging the distribution of GST revenues to make it fair—whatever 'fair' might mean—at least it would have no overall financial impact. What we have instead is a bill that will cost taxpayers $9 billion over 10 years. What is going on here and who is stretching the truth?

This bill is fundamentally about authorising the Commonwealth government to throw $9 billion at state and territory governments, over and above the GST revenues they already receive. This bill is not about a fair share of GST. It is about grabbing $9 billion from taxpayers in addition to their payment of GST and throwing that money to state and territory governments on an unconditional basis in what amounts to a massive bribe to get out of a political problem caused by the crazy fiscal relationships between the states and the Commonwealth. This is also not some trivial transitional grant; it is permanent change, entrenched in law. No longer can there be any pretence that state and territory governments receive GST revenues and the Commonwealth government receives income tax. The Commonwealth collects both GST and income tax revenues in massive proportions, massive quantities, and then decides—now on a political whim—what it might pass to state and territory governments. This time, that whim is to save some seats in Western Australia, but who knows what it might be in the future, because there is no reasoning or predictability?

The truth is federal financial relations in this country are a shambles. We have a federal government that raises the money, and state and territory governments that spend it, with next to no accountability anywhere. The Liberal Democrats have a fully funded, costed and published plan to get rid of the interstate welfare system called horizontal fiscal equalisation. Under our plan, taxpayers would see their tax bill slashed in half so they would keep much more of their hard-earned money. Crucially, each state government would be required to raise all the money they spend, so they would have no-one to blame but themselves if they ran out. There would be no more blaming the Commonwealth because they didn't get enough. But let's get back to this bill.

Of course, the great bulk of the $9 billion in handouts authorised by the bill is being thrown at the beggar state and territory governments—in particular those in Tasmania and South Australia. Regardless of which major party is in power, these beggar governments continue to hold back the prosperity of the people they are supposed to represent. These beggar governments only see the upside of preventing development, of smothering their small businesses in red tape and of making fanciful commitments to renewable energy. They should feel the downside of more expensive energy, fewer bustling small businesses and fewer jobs. But, for these beggar governments, such a downside is merely a recipe for more and more compensation from taxpayers in the rest of the Federation.

I don't expect this Senate to object to throwing billions of dollars of taxpayers funds at beggar governments in places like Tasmania and South Australia; after all, all the major parties are infested with a disproportionate number of beggar politicians from those states and territories. But it should. In fact, what we need is a 'begxit', where the beggar states exit the Federation. But the beggar governments of these states never do anything for themselves, so they won't exit of their own accord. The rest of us, with the Liberal Democrats at the vanguard, will need to arrange it for them.