Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the minister's response.

I very much welcome the minister's contribution just then. And I thank the minister for her brief but revealing response. Just to recap, the Senate has asked for the release of documents in regard to the GST distribution. The government, in its admission just a few moments ago by Minister Gallagher, has conceded that two of three documents have been revealed but not the third. In addition to that, the minister has also confirmed that attitudes to the GST differ vastly across jurisdictions. That is not a surprise, but it's an important admission that what the government is to now contemplate is how it responds to the concerns of Labor premiers and Labor treasurers that the GST is not meeting their needs—and that's code for doing the wrong thing by Western Australia.

The key question here is: Why is it that the government will not release all of those three documents? Why is it that they have chosen to release just two? When it comes to the GST, we know it's not a technical exercise but one that is about fairness, that is about trust, that is about the economic future and prosperity of Western Australia. We know, at the moment, that the Productivity Commission is being tasked to review the GST arrangements that were put in place by the coalition government in 2018. That task, which will include the release of an interim report at the end of August this year and the release of a final report at the end of December this year, could put at risk that very necessary GST deal that has kept Western Australians safe and prosperous. Like I said, we need a GST deal that is about fairness, about trust and about the economic future of Western Australia.

Western Australians understand better than anyone else what happens when the GST system stops being fair, when the GST system stops being one that people can trust. Western Australians have lived through a GST distribution system that collapsed. It collapsed so far that Western Australia was entitled to just 29c in the dollar, an extraordinary low, a low that was never predicted when the GST distribution system was first put in place.

I think it's important to get some other statistics on the record, and here the Western Australian government has dropped the ball. The Western Australian Labor government has been unconvincing in making the case on why WA deserves to retain the GST deal that the coalition government put in place in 2018. Here are some important facts. For the last 10 years of the past 25 years, WA has received less than 50c in GST distribution. Meanwhile, New South Wales and Victoria have never dropped below 83c. Queensland has never dropped below 90c. This is not a marginal imbalance; it is a structural failure.

The GST system in our country has been in place for 25 years. It is an effective means of distributing income between the Commonwealth and the states and territories, but, for that particular period, Western Australia was treated with great unfairness. Like I said, in 10 of the last 25 years WA's distribution has never exceeded 50c. Meanwhile, New South Wales and Victoria have never dropped below 83c, and Queensland has never dropped below 90c. So, when the South Australian premier, Peter Malinauskas, criticises the WA deal as coming at the expense of South Australians, or when the New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, calls for an alternative GST distribution model, what they are choosing to ignore is the gross unfairness that Western Australia and Western Australians have suffered for a period under the GST arrangements.

As the peak Productivity Commission considers this GST review, with the interim report in August, all eyes will be on the WA Labor government to make sure it's doing everything it can to protect our GST deal. (Time expired)