Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Families and Payments) Share this | Hansard source

It would be absolutely disastrous. Tascoss CEO Kim Goodes has already highlighted the impact that any rise in the GST would have on Tasmania, pointing of course to the GST modelling that showed that higher income households would pay less tax as a proportion of their income if the GST rose to 15 per cent than families on lower incomes. This conversation is going on with most of the coalition backbench—most of them not named—being concerned about increasing the GST not because they are concerned about their constituents but because they are concerned about their seats. And they should be, because this is another broken promise by this government to the Australian community. Tasmania has received some of the worst impacts from these broken promises. There has been a massive impact on education and on our health system as well. We even had the Liberal Treasurer in Tasmania talking about the $2.1 billion cuts, saying 'Where is the money? Show me the money.'