Premier lashes WA GST windfall

PREMIER Peter Gutwein has fired another broadside at GST sharing arrangements which have delivered a windfall surplus to Western Australia.

He says the state should be “embarrassed” for getting more than its fair share as it enjoys booming mining royalty revenues.

WA Premier Mark McGowan last week delivered a budget with a surplus of $5.6bn – the largest in the state’s history and the only state surplus in the nation. Tasmania’s deficit budget will see the state slide further into debt.

Mr Gutwein said the federal government needed to review the sharing arrangements which had delivered such a skewed outcome to WA.

“That state should be embarrassed to be frank in terms of the revenues it’s receiving at the moment,” he told parliament on Wednesday.

Tasmania’s GST take has increased under a revised formula which guarantees increased revenue for WA – but also that no state ends up losing revenue. Tasmania is $1.4bn better off than expected over the next four years under the new arrangements.

“We are no worse off in fact, we are better than where we were forecasting right now today,” Mr Gutwein said.

“But the guarantee finishes in 2026/27 and it’s incumbent on the federal government to review that situation to ensure that we either return back to the … calculations of old or the guarantee continues.”

Labor’s Treasury spokesman Shane Broad said the government’s budget confirmed Tasmania will be the big loser.

“When this absurd deal was first struck, Peter Gutwein attacked Labor for sounding the alarm,” he said.

“Now, with his own budget papers revealing it will cost Tasmania $83m a year, Mr Gutwein would have us believe that he has always been opposed to it.”