Turnbull Government’s GST carve-up push ‘undermines federation’: Weatherill

PREMIER Jay Weatherill will demand the Prime Minister promise there will be no changes to the GST carve-up unless all states agree or risk undermining the federation.

PREMIER Jay Weatherill will demand the Prime Minister promise there will be no changes to the GST carve-up unless all states agree or risk undermining the federation.

In a surprise move, Mr Weatherill also said he did not support states including Western Australia being punished with cuts to their GST share for bans on fracking.

At a meeting of the nation’s leaders in Canberra on Friday, he plans to join with Federal Labor to call on the Productivity Commission’s final report on the GST distribution to be released before the State election.

Mr Weatherill said advice indicated the Federal Government has the power to change the formula which decides how much GST each state receives.

“They can’t just do it unilaterally. It starts to undermine the whole federation,” he said.

A draft Productivity Commission report released last year proposed changes to the GST the revenue-sharing system, which it stated could cost SA up to $557 million based on this year’s funding. Treasurer Scott Morrison, who ordered the review, said the draft “demonstrated the system is broken and needs a real fix”.

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann told the Senate yesterday the draft report was not a Government proposal. “If the Federal Government were to adopt certain recommendations in the final report that is yet to be received ... (it) would be subject to the requirement of unanimous agreement amongst all state and territory governments,” he said.

But Mr Weatherill said Mr Turnbull must provide states with that commitment.

He said given Liberal backbenchers had promised to fight any unfair deal ahead of a policy announcement — and were not “worried about embarrassing their Cabinet Ministers” — there was reason for South Australians to be concerned.

SA Labor Senator Penny Wong accused SA Liberals of being “cowards” after claiming they would fight for the state but then refusing to support a motion in Parliament that condemned the final report being delayed until May.