West Australian Premier Colin Barnett he feels he's been under siege by the federal Labor government.
He says he hopes a government led by Tony Abbott could be a bit more flexible.
WA has been at odds with the Commonwealth on a range of issues including Gonski education funding, the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) and the amount of GST the state receives.
"Each of those are separate issues and as a premier I must say I have felt under siege by the Labor government in Canberra," he told ABC television on Monday night.
Mr Barnett said this started with health reform and WA agreed in principle with the NDIS.
He said something like 70 to 80 per cent of funding for disability services came from state governments and that was ignored in the discussion.
Mr Barnett said from WA's viewpoint, they were cooperating on education reforms.
"But when you have a prime minister who says that schools, primary schools for example, will be funded to the level of $9200 a student and in Western Australia we are already spending $13,900 a student, it is not very attractive," he said.
Mr Barnett said WA received 55 cents in the GST dollar back last year and that would fall to 45 cents next financial year.
"It could get down to 17 cents in the dollar. What that would mean would be that WA would effectively become a financially independent state within the Commonwealth. It is weakening the Australian federation," he said.
Mr Barnett said WA was more prosperous than the nation as a whole and should get at least 75 cents in the dollar.
"We are willing to give up a quarter, maybe even a third of our GST to support Tasmania, South Australia and the Northern Territory. But I don't believe it is fair on the WA people," he said.
No comments:
Post a Comment