Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr President, for your indulgence for Senator Wang's first supplementary. I would like all states to get more GST revenue. I would like all states to get more GST revenue on the back of stronger economic growth. Because if we implement our agenda to build a stronger and more prosperous economy, there will be more GST revenue and it will be spread across all of the states. If we get rid of the mining tax, if we get rid of the carbon tax, if we invest in productivity enhancing infrastructure, if we cut red tape costs for business by $1 billion a year, if we do all of the things that we said we would do in the lead-up to the last election, we would have stronger growth which would generate a bigger pie. The problem is when you have to cut up a pie and you want to give individual recipients pieces of that pie. At the end of the day, you need to grow the size of the pie if you want to give people more money because, otherwise, it is a zero-sum game.