NSW ‘needs more’ from Commonwealth as GST stoush flares up

The NSW Premier and Treasurer have attacked their federal counterparts for short-changing the state in the GST carve-up.

Premier Chris Minns speaks during NSW parliament’s question time on Wednesday. Picture: Max Mason-Hubers

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The NSW government says it “needs more” from its federal counterpart after Tuesday’s pre-election budget, again slamming the “unfair” GST carve-up amid a long-running stoush between state and federal Labor on how that revenue is distributed.

And while welcoming multimillion-dollar funding for some of NSW’s worst roads, state Labor said the tranche did not go far enough, urging whichever government emerged from May’s election to “stay at the table” on infrastructure funding

In federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ Tuesday budget, NSW received $2.8bn in funding for road and transport projects – from a $17.1bn pool – partly enclosed in a $55.2bn tranche of payments the state would receive in the next financial year, $1.9bn more than forecast in last year’s budget.

Speaking on Wednesday, NSW Premier Chris Minns reiterated his government’s longstanding calls to change the GST distribution system, with the state’s share of revenue forecast to drop over the next four years.

“We get about 27 per cent of the GST carve-up … We need more of it, the Victorian government just got more,” he said, criticising the “dark arts” of the Commonwealth Grants Commission behind the distribution.

“We need more from the federal government – I’m happy to say that.”

The state Liberals, however, urged the premier to “call out” Anthony Albanese for not going further with the chequebook on road and transport projects, given that the state houses about 31 per cent of Australia’s population but received less than 20 per cent of the $17.1bn infrastructure spend.

Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers. Picture: Martin Ollman

Former NSW MP Nick Lalich. Picture: AAP

The $2.8bn tranche of federal funding will go toward heavily used and ageing suburban Sydney thoroughfares, such as Mona Vale Road in Sydney’s north and Fifteenth Avenue in the southwest.

State Treasurer Daniel Mookhey – while welcoming funding for Medicare and Tuesday’s surprise tax cuts – said that while the infrastructure spend was encouraging, it didn’t go far enough.

“We have more infrastructure investment on Wednesday than we did on Tuesday,” he said, also urging “more work on GST reform”.

“Of course, we need to see more from the Commonwealth. We do need to see the Commonwealth stay at the table when it comes to funding the infrastructure we need for our growing economy and our growing population.”

Mr Mookhey, who will hand down his own state budget in June, said there was little “discrepancy” on the road improvement priorities between the two governments, denying also that the tranche was Labor politicking, given major funding was allocated to projects falling within ALP-held seat of Werriwa and the Teal seat of Mackellar.

Separately, both of the state parliament’s chambers on Wednesday paid respect to former Labor Cabramatta member Nick Lalich, who died overnight aged 79 after a long period with throat cancer.

Mr Lalich, who fled Serbia in the then-Yugoslavia as a refugee to Egypt before settling in Australia, was first a longstanding Fairfield City and mayor before his election to state parliament in 2008, retiring before Labor’s 2023 election win.

His mentor was former Labor prime minister Gough Whitlam while Labor whip Ron Hoenig, a close friend of Mr Lalich, said on Wednesday that the ex-MP was a shining example of Australia’s opportunities, praising his decades of public service.