Peter Costello (Higgins, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

There is one state of Australia which refuses to honour this agreement and which believes that it is entitled to keep in place the GST and the taxes which it was designed to replace. That is the shameful state of New South Wales. Premier Iemma wants to double tax the people of New South Wales. He wants them to pay GST and he wants them to pay stamp duty on their mortgages and stamp duty on their leases and stamp duty on their hire-purchase agreements and stamp duty on their unlisted marketable securities and stamp duty on commercial conveyances. The New South Wales Labor government has so mismanaged the state of New South Wales that it now wants to take GST revenue and keep the taxes that the GST was introduced to replace. Do we hear a word, a murmur, about this from anybody on the other side, any member of the opposition, including the member for Grayndler, who may have an interest in the New South Wales government and its tax policy? Not a word of complaint.

Whilst I am on the subject, is there any political party at the federal level that supports the New South Wales government in its demand to take money off other states and give more to New South Wales? We have not heard the federal Labor Party say that either. In fact we had the situation before the last election where the Leader of the Opposition was promising more money to Western Australia, notwithstanding the fact that Western Australia is a recipient state under horizontal fiscal equalisation.

I note that the federal Labor Party does not support the New South Wales government in its demand to take revenue off other states and to increase the New South Wales share of GST, but I also note that the federal Labor Party does support the New South Wales government in maintaining those taxes which the GST was introduced to replace. On this side of the House, having gone through the hard yards of tax reform, we demand that the people of New South Wales get their entitlements: that those taxes are abolished, that they are not double-taxed and that they are not put to a special penalty through an incompetent New South Wales Labor government.

See this speech in context