Goods and Services Tax

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:37): My question is to the Premier. Given the Premier's public comments on 22 June this year about the prospect of broadening the base of the goods and services tax, when did he first contemplate changes to our GST arrangements?

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier) (14:37): All of my remarks are on the public record. I made a speech to the National Press Club where I contemplated a broadening of the GST base. We published a NATSEM report which looked at all the elements of broadening the base.

The only element of broadening the base that's not regressive is to broaden the base and include for the first time the GST on financial services. That would raise in the order of $3.6 billion across the nation, which would be an important contribution to the funding gap that exists between the revenue that we raise and the services that we need to spend our money on. So, it certainly was canvassed publicly at that time.

The second principal event that occurred was that the Premier of New South Wales made a substantial intervention in the debate and suggested that we should contemplate lifting the rate of the GST by 15 per cent. I met that suggestion with the suggestion that I couldn't contemplate such a thing unless there was some attention to those on low incomes who would be adversely affected by such a change, but I did say that we needed to have this debate.

It was a valuable debate where a conservative leader in this country has contradicted all the nonsense that we have heard from the other side of politics that there has not actually been a cut in the federal healthcare budget. The truth is he belled the cat on the fact there has been a massive cut in healthcare funding from the commonwealth to the states, and he went further.

Ms CHAPMAN: Point of order: given your excellent earlier ruling today that allows for interjections when debate is ensuing, is this now the time that we can interject?

The SPEAKER: The deputy leader is warned for the second and final time for a bogus interjection. If you want to interject, take your chances. Premier.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: The context in which I responded to Premier Baird's intervention in the debate was this very important question of him identifying that there is a gap between what we raise as a nation and what we spend in particular on healthcare services. He went further. Not only did he say that that is caused by the cut that came from the commonwealth, he said that the problem is even bigger than that. He went further again to analyse the other contention that is usually put against the states and territories on healthcare spending to show in all the international data Australia has one of the most efficient healthcare systems in the world. That is not to say that there cannot be improvements but on any measure we have one of the most efficient healthcare systems in the world, so what that means is, even with additional efficiencies, we are not going to make up the difference between what we raise for health expenditure and what we spend on our healthcare system.

That drives you in the direction of a revenue measure and it is to the credit of a conservative leader that he was prepared to be honest enough to say that because this goes against Liberal orthodoxy. It goes against Liberal Party orthodoxy; that is why when the man said that I was not going to allow him to be chopped off at the knees in the national debate which usually starts with somebody saying something controversial and then they get piled on by everybody in the gotcha moment, 'He has made this faux pas, let's all kick the person who raises the issue to death so that it never gets raised again.'

I wanted to support him and have his voice heard so that we could have this important national debate, and what it did I am pleased to say is that all state and territory leaders joined in with that spirit and actually we had a sensible and honest debate about the challenges that are facing this nation, and it includes a revenue problem that requires something to fix it, and that is an increase in some form of taxation. I favour an increase in taxation that does not hit those who can least afford it the hardest.