Doorstop interview: Threat to Tasmania and South Australia’s share of the GST

JULIE COLLINS, SHADOW MINISTER FOR AGEING AND MENTAL HEALTH: Good Morning. The Turnbull Government must come clean on its plan for the GST distribution and what it will mean for Tasmania. The interim report from the Productivity Commission suggested that Tasmania would lose $168 million in the first year, and up to a billion dollars over the forward estimates. And then we saw the Treasurer, the Liberal Treasurer Scott Morrison, sneak out a little line in January saying that the report that was due in January now won’t be delivered until May. That is simply not good enough. We’ve got Tasmanian and South Australian elections, the two states most affected. This report, and its recommendations, are being hidden from the Tasmanian public and what we want to see is that information released for the Tasmanian people before the state election. What we do know is that the Tasmanian Premier Will Hodgman and the Tasmanian Liberal Senators have not been standing up for Tasmania. They have not been standing up around here, going around seeing Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison and saying ‘enough is enough, Tasmanians need to know what is in this, rule out any changes that will see Tasmania worse off.’ Tasmania cannot afford these cuts, we already have a health system in crisis, we already have big cuts to health from the Federal Government. We cannot afford further cuts to our state, because our hospitals and our schools need that money.

 

JOURNALIST: Have you heard about any discussions from your federal colleagues about whether, from the Liberal side, whether they’ve had discussion with their team about the report?

 

COLLINS: Well we’ve obviously been talking publicly about this issue for a very long time, what we have heard from the Liberal Senators is that they will cross the floor. Labor will move a motion in the Senate calling on the Government to release the recommendations from the Productivity Commission before the South Australian and Tasmanian elections because this is too important for Tasmanians and South Australians and they have a right to know what this Government is going do to them before the state elections because the State Government in Tasmania, Will Hodgman, has not been standing up for our state nor have the Liberal Senators.

 

JOURNALIST: Is it Labor’s position that there is no room for changes on horizontal fiscal equalisation?

 

COLLINS: We obviously recognise there are issues in Western Australia and we have put up a package for Western Australia. But we do not want to see smaller states like Tasmania and South Australia lose vital services – a billion dollars over the forward estimates in Tasmania is a significant proportion of our state’s budget. We rely on the GST to provide essential services, it would decimate our state, Tasmanians would not be able to get the same health and education services as other Australians if these cuts go ahead.

 

JOURNALIST: Just on a different note, have you got some personal goals that you want to achieve this year for Tassie in particular?

 

COLLINS: Well obviously I’ll be fighting hard for Tassie. I’m also Shadow Minister for Ageing and I’m particularly concerned about the Government’s home care package waiting list, but what I want to see this year is a state and federal Labor government for Tasmania because we always do better under Labor governments.