WA premier reckons GST deal is good for Australia
Western Australian leaders are stepping up their defense of the resource-rich region’s beneficial GST deal as eastern states target the contentious deal.
Premier Roger Cook and Finance Minister Rita Saffioti have traveled to Canberra to persuade their federal Labor counterparts that what is good for the state’s economy is also good for the country’s bottom line.
GST regulations that eastern states claim unfairly benefit WA are currently being reviewed by the Productivity Commission, which is due to report by the end of 2026.
WA launches campaign to keep GST deal The WA government has launched a $1 million advertising campaign in a bid to persuade its federal counterpart to stick with the status quo.
“It’s critical that WA gets its fair share of the GST,” Mr Cook told reporters in Canberra on Wednesday.
“Any reduction in the base will not only have a direct impact on the state economy, but will also hinder national economic growth,” he said.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese continues to support the regulation, Mr Cook said after meeting him on Tuesday.
When it was established in 2000, the goods and services tax was designed to send revenues into a national pool and then distribute them among states and territories based on need.
As the mining boom took place and resource royalties rose rapidly in the 2000s, WA rose from being one of the poorest states to one of the richest states per capita; This meant that its share of the GST spoils fell to its lowest level per capita.
In the run-up to the 2019 election, and at a time when WA was vital to the survival of the then Morrison government, a deal was struck to implement a funding floor to ensure no state received less than 75 cents per dollar raised in that jurisdiction.
The taxpayer-funded measure has cost the country more than $24 billion by 2025, according to economist Saul Eslake, one of the deal’s most outspoken critics.
He said he, the Morrison government and their successors were “essentially succumbing to blackmail from Australia’s richest states”.
“My criticism is directed at federal politicians who put the most basic political aims ahead of the national interest,” he told the ABC.
NSW and other eastern states have long complained that the Morrison government’s changes and opaque GST delivery system have led to unpredictable budget cash flows.
