West Australian leaders are stepping up their defence of the resource-rich region’s beneficial GST deal as eastern states target the contentious agreement.
Premier Roger Cook and Treasurer Rita Saffioti travelled to Canberra in an attempt to convince their federal Labor counterparts what is good for the state’s economy also benefits the nation’s bottom line.
The GST arrangements, which eastern states argue unfairly benefit WA, are now under review by the Productivity Commission which is due to report by the end of 2026.
WA launches campaign to keep GST dealThe WA government has launched a $1 million advertising campaign in response to convince its federal counterpart to stick with the status quo.
“It’s critical that WA keeps its fair share of the GST,” Mr Cook told reporters in Canberra on Wednesday.
“Any reduction in the floor wouldn’t just have a direct impact on the state’s economy, it would impede national economic growth as well,” he said.
After meeting with him on Tuesday, Mr Cook said Prime Minister Anthony Albanese remained supportive of the arrangement.
When it was established in 2000, the goods and services tax was devised to send revenues into a national pool which is then divided between states and territories based on need.
As the mining boom took off in the 2000s and its resource royalties skyrocketed, WA went from being one of the poorer states to the richest per capita, meaning its share of GST spoils plummeted to the lowest per capita.
In the lead-up to the 2019 election and with WA pivotal to the then-Morrison government’s survival, a deal was struck to implement a funding floor to ensure no state received less than 75 cents per dollar raised in that jurisdiction.
As of 2025, the taxpayer-funded measure had cost the nation more than $24 billion, according to economist Saul Eslake, one of the deal’s most outspoken critics.
The Morrison government and its successors, “caved in to what was in effect blackmail by Australia’s richest states”, he said.
“My criticism is of federal politicians who’ve put the basest of political motives ahead of the national interest,” he told the ABC.
NSW and other eastern states have long complained about the Morrison government’s changes and an opaque GST distribution system they say leads to unpredictable budget cashflows.