{"id":72570,"date":"2026-08-15T09:58:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T09:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/72570\/"},"modified":"2026-08-15T09:58:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T09:58:10","slug":"resources-minister-madeleine-king-assures-wa-that-labor-government-wont-change-gst-deal-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/72570\/","title":{"rendered":"Resources Minister Madeleine King assures WA that Labor government won&#8217;t change GST deal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Federal Resources Minister Madeleine King has slammed as &#8220;unbalanced, highly speculative and clearly incorrect&#8221; an interim report that recommended a cut to Western Australia&#8217;s share of the GST, reassuring voters that the Labor government was committed to supporting the resource-rich state.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Minister King was speaking a day after state Premier Roger Cook called the <a class=\"Link_link__kR0xA Link_link__5eL5m ScreenReaderOnly_srLinkHint__OysWz Link_showVisited__C1Fea Link_showFocus__ALyv2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/2026-08-14\/albanese-and-chalmers-given-escape-plan-from-costly-wa-gst-deal\/107038112\" data-component=\"Link\" data-uri=\"coremedia:\/\/article\/107038112\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Productivity Commission report on GST distribution <\/a>an &#8220;attack on Western Australians&#8221;, and dubbed its authors &#8220;east-coast clowns&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">&#8220;I want to make it clear to all Western Australians that the Albanese Labor government has your back,&#8221; she said today as Labor officially launched its <a class=\"Link_link__kR0xA Link_link__5eL5m ScreenReaderOnly_srLinkHint__OysWz Link_showVisited__C1Fea Link_showFocus__ALyv2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/2026-07-19\/who-are-the-candidates-in-the-secret-harbour-byelection\/106931742\" data-component=\"Link\" data-uri=\"coremedia:\/\/article\/106931742\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">campaign for the hotly contested suburban seat of Secret Harbour, south of Perth.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We will always ensure Western Australia gets its fair share of the GST, we will always support Western Australia&#8217;s ambitions to be the resources capital.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">The explosive report, which was released on Friday, recommended the government scrap 2018 changes to how the goods and services tax was carved up among the states, saying Western Australia was the only state or territory to benefit from it and that it was a &#8220;costly mistake&#8221;.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/2026-08-15\/wa-productivity-commission-gst-report-analysis\/107040266\" data-component=\"FullBleedLink\" class=\"RelatedCard_link__rsgR9 FullBleedLink_root__lTw_U interactive_focusContext__yRhc_ interactive_defaults__AKxUU FullBleedLink_showVisited__g3Xvz\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">GST alarm bells ringing in the west<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"Typography_base__sj2RP RelatedCard_synopsis__cFwMW Typography_sizeMobile14__u7TGe Typography_lineHeightMobile20___U7Vr Typography_regular__WeIG6 Typography_colourInherit__dfnUx\" data-component=\"Typography\">Premier Roger Cook said &#8220;east coast clowns&#8221; attacked Western Australia&#8217;s federal GST deal. It set alarm bells ringing in WA government offices, literally, as state political reporter Keane Bourke witnessed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, whose government has endorsed and extended the deal to at least 2029, has said that WA would &#8220;get [its] fair share&#8221; of GST but signalled he would wait for the final report in December to comment on specifics.<\/p>\n<p>Cook says he has PM&#8217;s assurances<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Minister King said Mr Albanese had assured Mr Cook that there would be no change to the current arrangements.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"A woman with brown hair and glasses in a bright pink suit speaks to reporters\" class=\"Image_image__5tFYM ContentImage_image__DQ_cq\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1786787890_458_51e5b0d50cb87feaf8d1f1109e9b6c84.jpeg\" loading=\"lazy\" data-component=\"Image\" data-lazy=\"true\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"Typography_base__sj2RP FigureCaption_text__zDxQ5 Typography_sizeMobile12__w_FPC Typography_lineHeightMobile20___U7Vr Typography_regular__WeIG6 Typography_colourInherit__dfnUx\" data-component=\"Typography\">Minister King said the Productivity Commission&#8217;s report was speculating about things &#8220;that won&#8217;t happen&#8221;. (ABC News: Lauren Smith)<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">&#8220;The report itself is not only unbalanced, it is highly speculative and is clearly incorrect. It fails to take account of the enormous contribution Western Australia and Western Australia&#8217;s resources industry provides to the whole of the nation,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">At the same Secret Harbour event, Mr Cook also said he had the prime minister&#8217;s assurances that the GST deal would remain.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"A man with greying hair in a blue shirt and suit speaks to reporters \" class=\"Image_image__5tFYM ContentImage_image__DQ_cq\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1786787890_613_4b1676c166c3fdcc636ff9a7ed1f8a78.jpeg\" loading=\"lazy\" data-component=\"Image\" data-lazy=\"true\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"Typography_base__sj2RP FigureCaption_text__zDxQ5 Typography_sizeMobile12__w_FPC Typography_lineHeightMobile20___U7Vr Typography_regular__WeIG6 Typography_colourInherit__dfnUx\" data-component=\"Typography\">Mr Cook says he has assurances from the prime minister about the GST deal. (ABC News: Lauren Smith\u00a0)<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">&#8220;He knows that Western Australia is the engine room of the national economy,&#8221; Mr Cook said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;And that&#8217;s why he&#8217;s backing our team and he&#8217;s back in our state and he&#8217;s backing our situation when it comes to the GST.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">The deal struck by then-treasurer Scott Morrison ensures WA gets a bigger slice of GST revenue every year than it would under the national formula, which is meant to give more money per person to states with the highest need and lowest financial means.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">The formula has always been contentious, but became particularly so in WA when successive mining booms made it by far the richest state in the federation, resulting in very low GST relativities because the formula assessed the state as very high means.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Mr Cook&#8217;s government, however, has maintained that changing the GST distribution would unfairly punish WA for its success, with state Treasurer Rita Saffioti saying that unravelling the deal would unfairly disadvantage the state.<\/p>\n<p>Loading&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Federal Resources Minister Madeleine King has slammed as &#8220;unbalanced, highly speculative and clearly incorrect&#8221; an interim report that&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72571,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1869,22,21,102532,7436,463,464,78691],"class_list":["post-72570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-albanese","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-goods-services-tax","tag-gst","tag-perth-news","tag-wa-news","tag-wa-premier-roger-cook"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}