Sparks fly over federal funding

TASMANIA is fighting a war on two fronts over federal funding, with the acting premier calling on the commonwealth to stump up more cash for health and saying the state runs the risk of being “done over” over GST.

Tasmania was among the signatories to a letter from health ministers seeking “immediate additional health commonwealth funding” to help deal with the continuing cost of the pandemic.

But Acting Premier and Health Minister Jeremy Rockliff said the federal response had been “less than satisfactory” and the fight would continue.

“Quite rightly state health ministers wrote to the federal government, saying we do need more support,” he said.

“We had a less than satisfactory response back.

“Can I say that state health ministers will continue to fight for more funding or given the extraordinary circumstances that we are dealing with.

“We need federal government to stump up like the states are stumping up in protecting Tasmanians.”

Incoming New South Wales Premier Dominic Perrottet has ramped up calls for a new deal on GST sharing to head off Western Australia continuing to enjoy windfall surpluses when a federal funding guarantee ends. Independent MP Andrew Wilkie was the lone voice against the GST deal when it passed three years ago.

“Premier Perrottet is quite right to again call out Western Australia because the fact that it’s about to get a thumping big GST increase, when the state is rolling in cash due to the mining boom, it’s downright obscene and an affront to the millions of Australians doing it hard in other states,” he said.

“Tasmanian federal Liberal and Labor politicians created the current GST train wreck, when they all voted for it in 2018. So they are more obligated than anyone right now to clean up the mess.

“To do anything less would be to accept the continuing chronic underfunding of public services and facilities in Tasmania.”

Mr Rockliff said the Liberals would fight for the state’s fair share.

“The guarantee that goes through to 2026-27 is good and we want that to absolutely continue because beyond that when we look at comparisons with other states such as Western Australia, Tasmania is utterly being done over,” he said.