Don’t trust Albanese with our GST

Anthony Albanese owes every Western Australian a straight answer to a simple question: will our GST arrangement change, or won't it?

He still won’t give a straight answer, hiding behind tricky language, which should raise alarm bells considering this Prime Minister’s past record in regard to promises.

Just over a week ago, the Productivity Commission handed down its interim report into the 2018 GST deal, the deal that guarantees WA a floor of 75 cents in the dollar, delivering roughly $9 billion a year to our State.

The Commission wants to go back to the old system that left WA with as little as 30 cents in the dollar.

That’s when Mr Albanese used the line he keeps repeating: Western Australians will get your fair share.

That sounds reassuring, until you notice what he is actually not saying.

Fair share is not the same as no change.

Canberra could quite comfortably say the old formula which left WA receiving as little as 30 cents in every dollar of GST we raised was a fair share, if it wanted to.

Fair share is a phrase with no fixed floor. 

That is exactly why the WA Federal Liberal team has refused to accept it. We have drawn a clear line: Western Australia must be no worse off than it is right now, under the current 75-cent floor.

Not fair. Not reasonable. No worse off. Full stop.

As I have said plainly: over our dead bodies will they take a cent from Western Australia.

A Prime Minister with form

There is a reason Western Australians are right to be sceptical of soothing words from this Prime Minister. Anthony Albanese told Australians, repeatedly and in the plainest terms, that Labor would not touch negative gearing or capital gains tax. He then went ahead and did exactly what he said he wouldn't, and claimedit as simply changing his position.

If a Prime Minister will do that on tax policy that affects millions of household budgets, why would anyone assume WA's GST deal is somehow safe from the same treatment?

Anything Anthony Albanese says about our GST share this week should be taken with a healthy dose of scepticism until it is backed by an ironclad, unconditional guarantee.

He should be asked the same question everywhere he goes this week: will you guarantee, in writing, that WA's current GST share does not change? Not fair share. Not wait and see. A guarantee.

We in the WA Federal Liberal team will keep holding Labor to the promises they made.

We will not accept any outcome that leaves Western Australians worse off than we are today, and we will be watching every step of this process through to the final report in December.

If you agree that WA has fought too hard for this deal to have it quietly unwound by a Canberra committee and a Prime Minister who won't commit, make your voice heard this week, on talkback, on social media, and with anyone in Mr Albanese's travelling party who will listen.

We fought for this deal in 2018 because it was right for WA and right for the nation. We are just as determined to defend it now.

The character test Anthony Albanese failed

It has often been said that you can judge a government's true values by looking at its spending priorities in the Budget.

I agree that is the case, and the Albanese Government can be judged on exactly those terms.

But I also believe the Albanese Government's true character can be judged by its performance in the Parliament.

Have a close look at that performance over the past two weeks.

The Prime Minister's own character has been on trial, as has the character of his decision-making.

And on every measure that matters: judgment, accountability, and honesty about the state of the nation's finances, Anthony Albanese has failed the test.

Let's start with the podcast.

Anthony Albanese sat down on the Bush Deep podcast and thought it appropriate to joke about "shagging" Kylie Minogue and to disrespect a gift of melons presented to him, in good faith, by the Prime Minister of Japan, Sanae Takaichi.

This was not a throwaway comment made in a moment of unguarded humour.

It was a considered decision by a sitting Prime Minister to trade the dignity of his office, and the goodwill of one of Australia's most important regional partners, for a cheap laugh.

It took Anthony Albanese months to concede any error of judgment at all.

Only after sustained public pressure did he admit the appearance was "an error."

This was after the Prime Minister's senior female Cabinet colleagues, women who have never hesitated to weigh in on questions of respect and conduct when it suited the Government politically, backed him.

That is a character failure that runs through the entire Government, not just its leader.

If this incident showed a Prime Minister who lacks judgment, the treatment of Australia's veterans by his own minister showed a Government that lacks a conscience.

Last week, veterans and advocates travelled to Canberra to raise their fears about a $5000 cap on allied health services that keep former servicemen and women alive.

Among them was Julie-Ann Finney, a mother who lost her son to suicide and has spent years fighting so no other family endures what hers has. She sat in the public gallery clutching his photograph.

Minister Matt Keogh's office told her and the others they were unable to meet him because of diary constraints.

When Keogh, under intense political pressure, finally did meet a delegation from the Coalition of Veterans' Voices, veterans in the room say the disrespect continued in person.

Former fighter pilot and GP Tim Nelson said the minister walked into the room, refused to shake their hands, sat down with his arms crossed and rolled his eyes. Keogh made a point of telling the veterans he was missing an appointment with the Governor-General because of them.

That is not the conduct of a minister who understands whose service he is there to represent.

That is the real indictment of Matt Keogh, the Western Australian member for the seat of Burt.

It was not just a policy failure, it was failure of character.

Australians who serve this country do not lack courage. They do not lack conviction.

They carry both into war zones, into deployments, into the hardest years of their lives, and they carry both home again when the uniform comes off.

Matt Keogh has shown neither.

The minister is imposing a $748 million cut on the very allied health services that keep veterans out of crisis.

Ten national ex-service organisations, including the RSL, wrote to Keogh jointly rejecting the $5000 cap.

Special Forces veteran Andrew "Horse" Hudson, who served 22 years, said the cap was built on flawed information, with no consideration given to its impact on the veteran community and warned that neglecting a military is one of the key indicators of the end of empires.

Female veterans have raised real safety concerns about being pushed toward unfamiliar providers rather than the practitioners they trust.

Matt Keogh has had four years to show he understands his duty to the men and women who wore this country's uniform.

He has shown, instead, that when the choice is between comfort and courage, he chooses comfort right up until the moment the political cost forces his hand.

Veterans do not get that luxury. They do not get to choose the easy path when the hard one is required of them. That is exactly why they deserve a minister who does not either.

Adding further insult to injury has been Anthony Albanese's response.

He said he had "full confidence" in his minister. He did not remove him.

A Prime Minister of strong character would have acted immediately.

That is not Anthony Albanese.

While all of this was unfolding, Australia's net debt passed $1 trillion for the first time in the nation's history.

This is not simply a number on a Treasury spreadsheet.

It is the accumulated cost of a Government that has spent four years telling Australians it understood the cost-of-living crisis while presiding over higher inflation, falling real wages, rising unemployment and now record borrowing.

Australians are now paying around $27.7 billion a year in interest on Labor’s debt, which is more than $52,000 every minute.

Labor spends, Australians pay, with government spending now at its highest level in four decades outside the pandemic.

That $27.7 billion interest bill could instead fund more than 200,000 nurses, around 400,000 high-needs aged care home packages, or around $1,800 in tax relief for every taxpayer.

Labor’s economic record is the biggest fall in living standards in the developed world, lower real wages, GDP per person going backwards in 10 of the last 15 quarters and power bills up around 40 per cent.

Every dollar Labor borrows today is a bill being handed to the next generation to pay tomorrow.

The Coalition has a plan that will put a speed limit on government spending, cut waste and restore a cap on the amount of tax government can take from Australians.

Our Future Generations Fund will bank 80 cents in every windfall dollar from high commodity prices to pay down debt and invest in nation-building infrastructure.

Character is revealed in how a Government treats the people who have the least power to hold it to account: veterans who have already given their service, and taxpayers who will be paying down this debt for a generation.

On both counts, this Government has been found wanting.

None of this, the podcast, the silence of his colleagues, the treatment of veterans, the trillion-dollar debt, happened in isolation.

Taken together, they describe a Prime Minister whose instinct, again and again, is to protect himself and his Government first, and to treat accountability as something to be managed.

This Government and Anthony Albanese should be judged harshly for what’s happened in recent weeks.

It should be judged when a grieving mother sat in the public gallery hoping to be heard and wasn’t, when a foreign leader's gift was mocked for a laugh, and when the true scale of this country's debt could no longer be hidden.

That is the real measure of this Government's character. And on that measure, it has failed.