Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie Network) Share this | Hansard source

The goods and services tax, GST, is a tax paid by all Australians on various goods and services. It is supposed to be designed to benefit all Australians in every state. When it was first introduced in 2000, the Australian government and all states and territories agreed it would be shared, based on the longstanding fair-go principle of horizontal fiscal equalisation. That is a fancy way of saying the money raised by the GST must be fairly distributed to all Australians. This was supposed to make sure every state and territory had the money for health, education and infrastructure regardless of their own ability to raise their own revenue. So far so good.

But then in 2018 the Morrison government gave Western Australia a special deal on the GST which, by the way, was clearly designed to win marginal seats. Under that deal, Western Australia got a much greater share of the GST revenue than it would have received under the old system. But Western Australia already had loads of cash from the mining boom. In 2025 it declared a $2.5 billion surplus. Wouldn't it be lovely to have that in every state? Most other states like New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania and Queensland have faced budget black holes.

The fair-go principles of the GST were lost in both major parties' pursuit of an election win. They were effectively buying votes from the people of Western Australia, and, by goodness, didn't it cost you, as it has cost the rest of us. This naked manipulation of our country's budget is a shameful episode in our nation's history, and it needs to be fixed. The only state that benefited from these changes and is still is benefiting is Western Australia, the richest state. Since 2018 and 2019 it has received over $24.2 billion more than it would have done under the crappy Morrison deal. Combine that with the $53.8 billion in mineral royalties over the last seven years, and Western Australia has cash surpluses totalling more than $18 billion. Wow!

Every other state and territory recorded cash deficits over that time. The GST is Tasmania's single largest source of revenue, accounting for approximately 40 per cent of the total general government sector revenue in 2025-26. Given the importance of GST for the state, it is critical that Tasmania secures its fair share on an ongoing basis. When this dodgy deal was done by the Morrison government, all the other states rightly howled, and so they should have, because this deal was blatantly unfair. Instead of fixing the dodgy deal, the federal government chucked more Australian taxpayer money at the problem. This gave states like Tasmania a no-worse-off guarantee. This guarantee has protected Tasmanians from the dodgy GST deal, which would have otherwise reduced states' GST revenue by $318.6 million. Chucking money at a problem of your own making is not the answer, and you're following in pursuit over on this side. That's the government today.

It has been estimated that a no-worse-off guarantee will cost the federal government budget $8 billion over nine years to 2026-27, and it is now expected that it will have cost the federal budget almost $60 billion, because you won't fix the dodgy deal of Morrison, which is scheduled to expire in 2029-30. Apart from the National Disability Insurance Scheme, this is the biggest cost of any single policy decision. This $52 billion blow-out from the GST carve-up is a massive drain on the federal budget, especially at a time when there is a huge demand for money for our hospitals, schools and infrastructure—money that must be shared equally and fairly if the Treasurer is looking to save money and he has the courage to do so.

Does Minister Chalmers have any courage? That's what we want to know before the May budget. Is he going to have the courage to overturn the dodgy deal done by the Morrison government? Does he have the courage? I want to see what the man is made of. And what about the Tasmanians sitting over there in the Labor Party? How are you going with the dodgy GST deal? Are you going to get up and start telling your own to give back the money that's ours, or are we going to keep taking money out of the budget that we shouldn't have to because it should be coming from Western Australia? You've got to be kidding me in here.

I can tell you, there is nothing fair about the politicians using the GST money, which is our money, to buy voters in other states. That's all you're doing. It's bribery money, it's disgusting, and you should be ashamed of yourselves—and you're still going down that lane. Give Tasmania back its money.