rongee, why would either Party increase the GST to reduce the Federal Debt?

All the GST collected in Australia is divided up between the various States &

Territories & The Fed., Gov., does not get a cent.

When I wrote to the Government that is one of the questions I asked--of course have not had a reaply from the ALP yet just a reply from the Libs--which said NOTHING

[i]The GST rate can only be increased with the agreement of ALL the States.[/i]

In normal circumstances, I find it hard to believe the States would commit political suicide by agreeing. But.......

If former PM Rudd's health plan is still on the table, it means that the States in effect surrender a large % of their GST takings. In that scenario, there might be a faint possibility of some increase.

But it would still have to be fully agreed on by the States. The Fed Govt cannot increase the GST without that agreement.

You are very correct koko. As well as that, we have an interesting scenario

developing with Western Australia. Western Australia did not accept the

Rudd Health deal & hand over 30% of their GST to Rudd. I think that WA

receive the smallest GST/capita & they are not represented on the GST

Board. With the eventual collapse of the mining super tax & the increase

in mining State Royalties in WA, they will not want or need to raise the GST

& will be laughing at the Labor States, who will be desperate for the rise.

I don't know how Gillard will get over this one, if she wins, because the next

thing to evolve will be WA taking the Federal Government to the Supreme

Court over the unconstitutional Health Rebate to the other selected States.

Spot on Innes and believe me Colin Barnett will do just that - they have a very determined man as their Premier, I know him well as once worked with him when he was with the Chamber of Commerce.



Labor met their match here - the state has always gone ahead in leaps and bounds even if slower under Labor only going back a bit with exception of being under Burke handed over to Peter S but it was so buggered up and on the nose they did the usual ALP stunt put in a woman - Carmen Lawrence - who didn't manage to fool West Australians and Labor lost the election anyway just as Victoria did later when being a rust bucket for electing Labor over and over again - they put in Joan Kirner to win back the disillusioned vote and guess what - failed.



You know what they say - if we dont learn by history - it just repeats itself. And we as a nation never learn that Labor just cannot manage the economy and our money seemingly - or at least far too many of us cant learn the lessons of history. 51% in 2007 lets us hope that number has dwindled and we dont have to write that many off to lack of comprehension of history when it is so available.



And why is that? Do those with above average brains not be drawn to the policies of a socialistic left wing party? Appears not to be that at all as many of Academe are left wing socialists even communists but then the higher the IQ they tell us and proven too by genius - the less common sense for every day things.



So there it is maybe - the answer we have sort for years - lack of common sense to see the error of putting in a party who cannot learn to attract enough people with common sense to run a government without going off the rails trying to change the way people act by draconian legislation and changing education so that we end up short of tradesman as we did under Hawke when it was Uni and TAFE got neglected and we always end up with a debt to pay off and this lot under Rudd and Gillard have turned out to be a nightmare - every thing has been a debacle or a disaster - people have lost lives when they were warned - can pay back debt can't get back those lives - houses burned - and then Gillard's portfolio where she actually wasted more money than poor old Peter Garret but managed to politically assassinate the PM overnight and end up with the top job anyway.



Now she wants us all to place her in charge for another 3 years - bloody hell this is the test of common sense or lack thereof of the ordinary person in the street who has to manage to pay their bills and manage debt and live within their means and who does check to see if the estimate for a new building is not a rip off as it is his money and would anyway if it were ours as knows the value of money.