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

We made a very clear commitment in the lead-up to the last election that if we were elected in 2013 the GST would not change. We are, absolutely, standing by that commitment. What we are also doing is engaging in a discussion on how we can strengthen the Australian economy further. In order to ensure that the Australian economy is as strong as it can be and we create a better opportunity for people to get ahead and get a job we need to have a growth-friendly tax system.

After we got rid of Labor's disastrous mining tax, after we got rid of Labor's disastrous carbon tax, after we gave a company tax cut to small business and after we decided not to go ahead with Labor's bank tax we have, as we always said we would, initiated a discussion and a consultation, in good faith, with the Australian people and with the states and territories about how our tax system could be further improved to strengthen growth. Guess which state government leader was one of the earliest to suggest that we should look at the GST: it was the then Tasmanian Labor Premier Lara Giddings. Go and ask Lara Giddings. When she was coming to Canberra for more money for the state government in Tasmania, for health and education and the like, the Tasmanian Labor Premier Lara Giddings was suggesting that the federal government look at the GST.

We are working, in good faith, as we are developing our agenda for stronger growth that we will take to the next election, on how we can improve our tax system to make it more economic-growth friendly. That is a responsible course of action. That is what any good government would do. The Labor Party are going into a desert of negativity. We have the Leader of the Opposition trying to run a scare campaign, which has scared all of the Labor people, but we are not scared on this side. (Time expired)