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

Firstly, all WA Liberal members and senators have worked for a long time to get a better deal for WA when it comes to GST sharing arrangements, and the Australian government has long recognised that WA's share of the GST is inappropriately low, which is why, for some time now, the federal government has made more than $1.2 billion worth of top-up payments, in order to ensure that effectively WA's share of the GST does not fall, as a short-term measure, below the relativity which applied in 2014-15. Furthermore, as part of our efforts to look at this whole issue more on a medium- to long-term basis, and in the context of reforms over the medium to long term, the government initiated the Productivity Commission review. The report that Senator Georgiou references is indeed a draft report of the Productivity Commission in response to the government's initiative. Now, of course, there is a process to be followed. There is a final report due at the beginning of 2018. Once that report has been received, the government will of course properly consider the findings and recommendations in that report and make decisions as appropriate in due course.