Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Vice-President of the Executive Council) Share this | Hansard source

The people in the great state of Western Australia are very generous people. Being part of a federation, those of us who live in Western Australia do support the principle of horizontal fiscal equalisation. In Western Australia, people just want to see a fair share. It's long been the proposition—which is a bipartisan proposition in Western Australia—that there should be a floor of at least 75c in the dollar. Nobody has ever argued, on our side of politics—we certainly haven't been putting the proposition—that there shouldn't be a level of equalisation across our country to ensure that the quality and standard of services that can be provided to citizens wherever they live in Australia can be of a similar level. The problem was that horizontal fiscal equalisation got out of whack. The formula, in the way it has been operating, is broken, and we are proposing to fix it. (Time expired)