Anne Urquhart (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

On the eve of the 2013 federal election, Tony Abbott, the now Prime Minister, made six solemn promises to the Australian people. He said on SBS in an interview in September 2013 that there would be, and I quote:

No cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions, no change to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS.

And we have heard this repetitively during this debate.

After the election, we have seen a very different story emerge as the Abbott government has systematically set out to break each and every one of these commitments. The ABC and SBS have had their budgets cut. The government is planning a devastating $80 billion worth of cuts to health and education. They are trying to slash pensions by $80 a week over the next 10 years and make all Australians work until they are 70 before they can qualify for the pension. And now the Abbott government is heading for a 100 per cent perfectly shameful record of broken promises, as they turn their sights to breaking their pre-election promise not to change or increase the GST.

Currently, the GST is distributed on a needs basis. It takes into account each state's ability to raise revenue and balances it with each state's funding needs to determine the fairest way to distribute the funds. A fundamental principle of the GST is that all states must have the revenue they need to provide their citizens with basic services like health, education, transport and security. No state should be left behind, and states that are benefiting from times of greater prosperity should contribute a bit more to help the states that are doing it a bit tougher. If the GST were changed, it would be devastating for Tasmania. Seven hundred million dollars in revenue and the vital public services that this money supports would be in peril. But it is not just Tasmania that could lose out if the rate base or distribution formula for the GST is changed. Let us not forget that it was not so long ago that Western Australia was a net beneficiary of the GST. And there is nothing to guarantee that that situation will not turn again.

Before the election, Labor was very concerned that the Abbott government had its sights set on changing the GST. This was a reasonable concern, given the Western Australian Liberal Premier Colin Barnett let the cat out of the bag about Mr Abbott's talks with the Liberal premiers on plans to change the GST once he got into government. But, remarkably, as the 2013 election drew closer, the story from those opposite changed dramatically. With his eyes keenly on the prime ministerial prize, Mr Abbott set about hiding his plans, saying:

Let me be as categoric as I can, the GST won't change, full stop, end of story …

…   …   …

Let me repeat it—the GST won't change, full stop, end of story.

On 11 May last year, he reinforced the message to Launceston's The Examiner newspaper, saying:

The Coalition fully supports the existing GST arrangements. We will not change them.

But now the Prime Minister must be getting giddy, because the past week has seen him perform another dramatic backflip. And this one shows that Labor's pre-election concerns about his plans for the GST were entirely justified. Gone are Mr Abbott's sincere promises about not meddling with the GST. Now, the Prime Minister is saying that the GST is certainly:

… something which ought to be looked at as part of the federation reform process and as part of the tax reform process.

He also talked of the need to look at spending responsibilities and revenue capacities while, at the same time, saying:

It should be possible to make these arrangements more equitable between the larger states with the smaller states no worse off.

This idea that more money can go to one state without disadvantaging any other states or increasing the amount of GST that is taken up is little more than 'magic pudding' economics. It does not add up.

Make no mistake: the threat to Tasmanian public services of Tony Abbott and the Liberals making changes to the GST is very real. Now, more than ever, we need a strong response from the Tasmanian Liberals in this place. In Launceston's The Examiner this week, the Liberal member for Bass and the Liberal member for Lyons both voiced their support for the current system. But the member for Braddon, Mr Brett Whiteley, failed to provide a comment. The most fundamental duty of a member of parliament is to fight for the interests of the people that elected them. At a time when north-west Tasmanians need a strong representative in Canberra to fight these regressive GST changes, Mr Whiteley has gone missing in action. It is time that he came out of hiding and fought against a move that could strip the Tasmanian economy of $700 million a year.

Interestingly, in a speech on 24 March this year, Mr Whiteley was quite willing to talk about the GST when he accused the Palmer United Party of:

… announcing a policy to rip hundreds of millions of dollars of GST payments out of the Tasmanian economy in a desperate attempt to win a seat at the upcoming Senate election in Western Australia.

He went further, saying that Senator Lambie is:

… faced with the challenge of standing up for the people of Tasmania or backing her party leader in ripping hundreds of millions of dollars out of the Tasmanian economy.

It is now time for Mr Whiteley to step up and back his electorate against his party leader's plans that could rip hundreds of millions of dollars out of the Tasmanian economy. For Tasmania's sake, Mr Whiteley needs to demand that the Prime Minister keeps his pre-election promise not to make any changes to the GST.