Prime minister adamant to changing Western Australia’s GST share

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Western Australia is set to maintain its share of the GST despite the latest carve-up prompting a fresh round of criticism. The cost of the deal struck in 2018, has blown out significantly. But campaigning in Perth, the Prime Minister is adamant it won't be changed on his watch.

Transcript

00:00You'd be forgiven for thinking the Prime Minister's in campaign mode, blitzing four

00:06radio stations during his two-day visit.

00:08Why don't you ask him what he thinks of Harley Reid?

00:10Harley Reid will look great in brown and gold.

00:13Oh, there we go.

00:14What have we got here?

00:16And rolling out a $750 million promise to help drive low-emissions metals manufacturing.

00:22This is about securing the future of the WA economy.

00:25The money will help fund the development of new technology as well as pilot projects.

00:30But what we want to do is get the know-how and the smarts out of our scientists and researchers

00:36and put it into the mills and the smelters in this country.

00:40Trying to focus on new ideas but getting drawn back into old arguments over how GST payments

00:46are shared among the states and territories.

00:48Today's updated carve-up keeping WA's share of the pie the same.

00:52We support two things.

00:54We support the deal for WA and we support no state being worse off because of that deal.

01:00That deal, struck between Mark McGowan and Scott Morrison, includes a minimum amount

01:04of GST, a floor of 75 cents back for every dollar a state collects.

01:10To make sure that doesn't disadvantage any other state, the Commonwealth tips in about

01:14$5 billion a year extra.

01:17That's simply not sustainable either.

01:19We need to have some sort of careful and reflective view of what fair distributions

01:25might look like.

01:26Meanwhile, the blame game for issues on election day, which the opposition says included long

01:31wait times and incorrect instructions, continues.

01:35The state government says it wasn't briefed before the appointment of a Labor hire company

01:39to carry out the work to ensure the integrity of the selection process and avoid any appearance

01:44of interference.

01:45The company involved has released a lengthy statement saying it did what the Electoral

01:49Commission asked.

01:50They say the Commission determines all the staffing requirements and it simply distributed

01:55training which had been provided by the WAEC.

01:59Nearly a week on from the election and there are still a number of candidates waiting to

02:03find out if they'll end up in here.

02:05It's only once those votes are counted and the results officially declared that the process

02:10of working out what went wrong can begin.

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