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

I also rise to speak on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Making Sure Every State and Territory Gets Their Fair Share of GST) Bill 2018—a bit of a mouthful. What an absolute dog's breakfast the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government has made of this debate. Who could forget that in September this year, just weeks after ascending to the prime ministership of this country—an ascendancy he still cannot explain—Prime Minister Morrison is reported to have called the Tasmanian Treasurer, Mr Peter Gutwein, a mendicant for questioning the PM's original fix? The Tasmanian Treasurer, a mendicant for sticking up for his state! If this is the language that Mr Morrison uses to describe fellow Liberal treasurers, imagine what he says about the rest of us! He tries to hide his elitist attitude with his rolled up sleeves and silly hats, but we all know that, while the PM represents a seat in Sydney's southern suburbs, his true affinity is with Sydney's leafy eastern suburbs, exactly the same as the man that he deposed. The arrogance of the man, throwing around 'fair dinkum' more than Russell Coight, Alf Stewart and Steve Irwin to try to speak to us 'normal people' and then barking down the phone at the Treasurer of Tasmania, saying that over half a million Australians are mendicants, as if to say we're not entrepreneurial, not hardworking and not looking to grow.

It hits right at the core of Tasmanians. It's a smaller state, a little island at the bottom of this big country, but we produce. For over 20 years as a union official with the Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union, I worked day and night with hardworking Tasmanians to get a good deal at work, to continue to grow jobs and opportunities and to secure more investment in Tasmania. To say that our shipbuilders, our heavy vehicle manufacturers, our food manufacturers, our farmers, our component manufacturers, our miners, our foresters, our fishers and all our service providers are mendicants in this nation is an absolute disgrace. Why, Mr Morrison, are hardworking Tasmanians less worthy of good schools, great hospitals and decent roads? Why are we less worthy? And why, Mr Morrison, are hardworking Tasmanians less worthy of strong public services, decent housing and secure jobs?

His statement to the Tasmanian Treasurer and subsequent denials go to the heart of Mr Morrison's values. They go to the core of his elitist attitude to the country. And, worse, they demonstrate again that, when flustered, Mr Morrison buckles under pressure. In the face of legitimate questions from a fellow Liberal treasurer, he wouldn't seek to work through their differences but resorted to cheap abuse, demonstrating his inability to do the job and his disdain for hardworking Tasmanians.

Of course, it didn't have to be this hard for Mr Morrison. This robust debate, as we all call it now, with the Tasmanian Treasurer was about ensuring that no state was worse off. Mr Morrison denied for months that such a guarantee was necessary, even though politicians from all sides, including his own Liberal Treasurer and the Premier of Tasmania, were clear that the guarantee was crucial to ensuring that no state was left behind. So poorly did this ATM government handle this debate that they caved and announced a limited guarantee only after their own Liberal senators finally realised the problem and threatened to cross the floor to support a Labor amendment to protect every state's and territory's share.

If Mr Morrison really cared about Tasmania, really cared about supporting our students and patients and supporting our future prosperity, he would have committed to a guarantee back in July. We're not talking about a few thousand dollars here—a few days' bus hire or a few hundred trucker hats. Respected forecasters estimated that, at worst, Tasmania could lose $248 million without a guarantee. That's almost a quarter of a billion dollars. This would have been a massive hit to our health system, which is already in crisis after years of Liberal cuts and inaction. It would have further stretched our schools, leaving more Tasmanians behind after years of under-resourcing by the Liberals. Instead, Mr Morrison performed a last-gasp backflip, just days after ruling out a guarantee in Hobart. He held on for months. Why?

Tasmanians cannot afford a deal on GST that would impact on our state's ability to deliver the best possible essential services both now and into the future. Was it because Labor sought the guarantee? Is it pure politics for this Prime Minister? He saw a way to try to solve the issue, but he failed to account for some basic concerns. Faced with legitimate questions, he bunkered down for months and months, only relenting when his own senators couldn't stand by him anymore.

It continues this GST saga to which Labor provided a clear answer years ago—a saga in which Mr Morrison, as Treasurer, delayed releasing the Productivity Commission's report until after the Tasmanian and South Australian state elections in March in a desperate ploy to help his Liberal counterparts. It is a saga that continued for three-quarters of the Braddon by-election. As Mr Morrison dodged questions from all sides about how he would find a way through without leaving Tasmanians worse off, in July he announced the first part of his GST reform—and I say 'first part' because he neglected to include a provision that no state would be worse off. His announcement was flashy. It was the typical big-spending, carefree approach to budget management that we've come to expect from the Liberals. Every state and territory would be better off, with the top-up payment a sweetener. A flashy Facebook post on the Tasmanian Liberals' page claimed, under the Turnbull government. 'Tasmania's GST funding secured—$112 million better off,' and then in brackets it said 'over the next eight years'. The word 'secured' was underlined with a big, brash, gold line—or was this a big, brash golden lie, to try to rebuild some faith with the Tasmanian people ahead of the Braddon by-election, just a few weeks later?

Independent economist Saul Eslake has warned that the $9 billion top-up funding could be pooled from specific purpose payments made from the government to the states. As he notes:

After all, that's what the Abbott government sought to do in its first budget ... put its budget back into surplus by cutting payments to the states.

These specific purpose payments are used to fund vital services such as schools and hospitals, services that this government continues to gut, making their delivery unviable and unsafe in some instances. In Tasmania, we see the same occurring at a state level, as our state Liberal counterparts continue to rip money from schools and hospitals under the flawed logic that cuts, cuts and more cuts will deliver their utopian budget surplus. Teachers and nurses are protesting unfair work conditions—stressful and dangerous conditions—by walking off the job, and rightly so. Under Mr Morrison's GST fix, things in Tasmania are only going to get worse if the current state and federal Liberal governments are allowed to cut essential services at every turn. Labor's model of keeping the current system and providing a top-up payment that would not come from ripping money back off the states specific purpose payments or national partnership payments is a fair and equitable system that ensures states and territories have the ability to provide the much needed services for the people.

At the heart of the current GST system is the foundational idea that all states should be able to provide a standard level of services to its people. This takes into account states like Tasmania, which has to spend more to provide the same standard of services as other states due to disadvantage and isolation. Tasmania is the only state in the country that has the majority of its population living outside its capital city. We are the most geographical dispersed state. This makes the delivery of services increasingly difficult, and we have seen the current state government failing miserably with the delivery of such services. We have bed blocks in every hospital, ambulances that spend more time ramped at the entrance of a hospital emergency department than they do out on the road and a mental health crisis that sees patients seeking urgent medical care sleeping on the floors of our waiting rooms. Let that sink in. Patients are sleeping on the floors of our hospital emergency rooms.

We see them ripping money off the states' specific purpose payments or national partnership payments, which is a fair and equitable system that ensures states and territories have the ability to provide services for the people. Our state health and education systems are at breaking point. Every year, the cost associated with putting on a nurse or a teacher increases. Every year, the price of consumables increases. As Tasmania's population continues to age—at the fastest rate in the country—the cost of our health system is going to continue to increase.

Will Mr Morrison's fix solve that? Will it deliver more specialists to isolated Tasmanians living on the west coast? Will it be funded by reducing other grants to Tasmania, thereby not fixing any of the problems that I've just outlined? This government must ask itself, 'What level of services do Tasmanians deserve?' The potential clawback of grants and payments that are specifically used to fund, for example, early childhood education programs, essential vaccines programs and family violence prevention programs to fund a top-up payment to states and territories is not what I would call a fair go. This is the question that Mr Morrison refuses to answer, and one that, in many respects, he can't, because, of course, so much power is afforded to the government of the day.

If Australia continues with governments like the ATM Liberal-National shambles—a government that cuts essential services at every opportunity, a government that slashed infrastructure spending across the country and a government that wanted Australians to work until they were 70 on lower wages and with a lower pension at retirement—then we know that they will cut grant funding to pay for part or all of this GST top-up fix. Past behaviour is the best indicator of future behaviour, and this ATM Liberal-National government has form. It's a government led by a man who says Tasmania is a mendicant state. If he is re-elected next year, we will have to beg for top-up payments and other grants to continue at the promised and current real levels. Tasmanians deserve a government that will prioritise essential services, and that government would be a Labor government. It's time to get rid of this ATM Liberal-National government before they do any more damage.