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

I thank the honourable member for Moncrieff for his question. When this government reformed the tax system in 2000, it introduced a broad based goods and services tax to replace a number of inefficient indirect taxes. The taxes that the GST was designed to replace were wholesale sales tax, bed tax, financial institutions duty, stamp duty on marketable securities, bank account debits tax, stamp duty on non-quotable market securities, stamp duty on leases, stamp duty on mortgages, stamp duty on credit arrangements, stamp duty on cheques and stamp duty on non-residential conveyance of real property. Since the Commonwealth introduced the goods and services tax, the states have agreed to abolish nearly all of those taxes. But the states still refuse to abolish stamp duty on non-residential conveyance of real property. As far as the government is concerned, the GST was introduced to get rid of other taxes—not in addition to other taxes. The people of Australia deserve to have all of those taxes abolished. That is something that the Commonwealth will require the Labor states to do.

The Labor states have commissioned a report on federalism and the GST. I managed to get hold of it today. It has been produced by Glenn Withers and Anne Twomey, I believe.

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