Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

We are not going to put Victorian money into New South Wales, Senator Conroy. I find that quite extraordinary coming from Victoria. New South Wales has enough problems of its own; I do not think we need to do anything to assist them. When you look at the increased revenue and then at the service provision that has flowed from it, it is quite clear that this has been wasteful use of dramatically increased GST revenue.

What happened was that the states demanded, after decades of the farce that we all remember—the farcical Premiers Conference—that they have a revenue formula. While they were running around playing politics in relation to the GST when it was first suggested, when push came to shove they jumped on it. I think it was Paul Keating who said that you never stand between a state Premier and a bucket of money. They grabbed it and they have seen quite dramatic increases in their revenue. We are in buoyant times. This government, through good economic management, has given the states the ability, particularly through property taxes, to dramatically increase their revenue over and above the GST. As this Menzies Research Centre paper says, they have not returned the dividend back to their populations. And Victoria is probably the worst of them. If you had listened to the state budget you would think they were doing a marvellous job, according to them. The realities are that in those basic services they are failing; they are failing in education, health, transport and policing. It is about time, as this report says, that they started spending that money appropriately and wisely.