GOODS AND SERVICES TAX

The Hon. I.F. EVANS (Davenport) (15:37): I may not use my full five minutes today to grieve—

Ms Thompson interjecting:

The Hon. I.F. EVANS: —which is disappointing for the member for Reynella, I know. I just wanted to place on the record and bring to the house's attention the falseness of the Premier's answer today in question time regarding the meeting tomorrow of treasurers in regard to GST. Anyone listening to the answer would have thought that tomorrow's meeting of the treasurers about a number of matters, including GST, was going to talk about lifting the rate or putting the GST on other services such as food, health or education, because that is what the Premier spent his allocated time answering the question about. It was nothing more than a shabby attempt at a scare campaign about the GST matter.

I invite the media to seek out the treasurers attending tomorrow's meeting and ask them what item regarding the GST is on tomorrow's Treasury meeting. The advice to me is that the only matter on the agenda tomorrow of the treasurers regarding the GST is the question about whether the threshold on overseas sales should be lowered—nothing about food, nothing about health, nothing about education, nothing about increasing the rate.

The Premier has come in here to the house and given, in my view, a false impression about what is going to be debated tomorrow. He ran the line that all these coalition governments were lining up at tomorrow's meeting to push through or advocate some reform which the Premier does not support. The truth of the matter is that the advice to me is that that is not happening and that suggestion is simply untrue. I invite the media to ring the treasurers' offices around Australia—and there are six or seven of them—and ask them what is on the agenda tomorrow in relation to the GST.

Now, what is interesting is that the Financial Review today actually reports this, and if anyone goes to page 3 of today's Financial Review there is a full article on the matter that is going to be discussed tomorrow by the treasurers at the treasurers' meeting. The headline is 'Pressure grows to expand online GST'. And what does it say? It says in the second paragraph:

Ahead of the meetings of treasurers in Canberra on Wednesday, South Australian Labor Premier and Treasurer, Jay Weatherill, indicated his preparedness to support the move for change which is being led by New South Wales.

What that indicates is that the treasurers are on the same page. The treasurers are on the same page in relation to that GST reform, so I invite the media, if you want to see a shabby scare campaign by a desperate Premier weeks out from a state election, to have a look at his answer today. If you want to prove that his answer is nothing but a scare campaign, ring any treasurer's office in Australia and they will confirm that the reality is the only matter on the agenda tomorrow regarding GST is a matter for which South Australian Treasurer and Mr Premier is going to support.

His whole answer was fabricated around the issue that tomorrow there is a treasurers' meeting and the GST is going to be discussed and there is some conservative or Coalition plan going to be hatched at this meeting. The evidence is that that is untrue and I think the media need to go to the Premier and ask him on what basis did he suggest the rate—the extension of it to food, health and education—was going to be discussed tomorrow when it is not even on the agenda.