ADJOURNMENT

Senator BROCKMAN (Western Australia—Deputy President and Chair of Committees) (20:51): This is a test for Prime Minister Albanese—another test! He's already failed so many, but now he has a new test and that is in the form of the Western Australian fair share of the GST. The interim report of the ACCC was, to say the least, rather peculiar.

It's a rather peculiar document and a rather peculiar set of principles that they have outlined. They make the stunningly obvious point that WA was the principal beneficiary of the reform, as if that is somehow surprising or unusual. That was the point of the reform, at a time when Western Australia's share of the GST was sitting at around 30 per cent, was on target to reach the teens in a very short period of time and was projected to be in the single digits in a few years—something that would have come about under the old model.

Putting it in other terms, perhaps those a little bit easier to understand, for every hundred dollars of GST that Western Australia contributed to the national pool, Western Australia would have got back $4, $5 or $6 out of that $100. That's what we were on track for. So when the ACCC says WA is the principal beneficiary—yes, it is, because that is what that arrangement stopped.

It was an arrangement fought for and delivered by the Western Australian Liberal members of this place and the other place, of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The ACCC also seems to want to ignore that fairness brings its own efficiency. Fairness is its own reward.

It's not like Western Australia does not still make a massive contribution in the form of the corporate taxation produced from Western Australia's mining and oil and gas industries. But also, even with a 75 per cent floor, we still forgo 25 per cent of the GST collected in Western Australia to redistribute to help other states. Somehow the ACCC thinks that WA being the principal beneficiary is not what the arrangement was meant to deliver.

That is exactly what it was meant to deliver. It was to stop Western Australians only getting a few dollars back from every hundred dollars they contributed to the GST pool. That is what the GST deal delivered by Western Australian Liberals brought to this nation.

It is fair. It is fair that it's a transparent arrangement that sees that 75 per cent floor put in place—still delivering the other 25 per cent to other states. In fact, what does the ACCC propose as a fairer model?

It's ad hoc payments to states which are worse off. How is that predictable? How is that predictable for any of the states?

How is that predictable for planning the finances, particularly of Western Australia, into the future? The fact is that it was the Liberals that delivered that GST fix for WA, and I can tell you now that the Liberal Party members in this place will defend it to our last breaths.