Anthony Albanese says no one is playing 'favourites' in under-fire GST carve-up

A GST carve-up system lambasted by one state treasurer as “absurd” does not play favourites despite repeat claims of unfairness, the prime minister says.

Anthony Albanese has rejected criticisms of the latest distribution of GST revenue, saying the independent process is designed to be free of political interference.

The Commonwealth Grants Commission on Tuesday announced the recommended 2024/25 distribution, with the national GST tax take estimated to grow to $89 billion from about $85 billion in 2023/24.

But NSW and Queensland’s share of the GST pool will fall because rising coal royalties have put them in a stronger budget position to provide services relative to other states, according to the commission’s official advice.

All other states were estimated to receive more in total GST and so-called “no-worse-off payments” than they received in 2023/24.

Victoria is set to receive a $3.7 billion increase in its GST distribution because it is less able to raise royalties from mining.

NSW Treasurer Daniel Mookhey called the distribution “absurd” and said the country’s most populous state would be $1.65 billion worse off.

The figure is based on the state’s GST payments decreasing by $310 million in the coming financial year, contradicting previously forecast projections that NSW would receive a higher share.

“We’re not expecting anybody else to bail us out, but we’re making the point that a system like this will continue to see NSW transfer a lot of its wealth to other states,” Mr Mookhey told Sky News on Thursday.

“We accept our responsibility as the biggest and best economy in the nation, but we need fairness, particularly because our population is growing faster than elsewhere.”

Premier Chris Minns also questioned whether the changes to the GST carve-up were “planned or accidental”.

The prime minister said state governments knew the Commonwealth Grants Commission was an independent agency that calculated the distributions based on a “long-standing and complex methodology”.

“This is at arm’s length of all governments ... (but) every year this happens, the calculations come out and people say it’s unfair,” Mr Albanese told ABC Radio.

“What you don’t want is political interference and a political decision based upon favourites.”

Mr Albanese said the federal government understood the pressures on state budgets and had committed more funding to hospitals and housing.