SMH · Shane Wright · Tuesday 24 March 2026
A deal to placate Western Australian anger over GST distribution has become a $60 billion drain on the federal budget, with NSW and Victoria bearing the cost of a system rigged to buy political peace.
The GST was designed as a national tax, then rigged into a protection racket for whichever state screams loudest. Western Australia threw a tantrum over its mining boom windfall being shared, so Canberra gave them a floor deal that turned the whole distribution into a funnel pointing west. Now NSW and Victoria subsidise the federation while being told they're the privileged ones. It's not fiscal equalisation — it's a sixty-billion-dollar hush payment on a rolling invoice.