Ted O’Brien: Opposition open to reviewing current GST carve up

Shadow Treasurer Ted O’Brien has left open the possibility of reviewing the GST settings put in place by Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg when the Coalition was in power seven years ago.

A productivity commission report released last Friday suggested States in a better fiscal position were less deserving of keeping their share under the Commonwealth Grants Commission distribution formula that has been in place since 2018.

The Albanese government has repeatedly assured Western Australia it will keep the arrangements in place and during a visit to Perth last week Treasurer Jim Chalmers insisted he was committed to the current GST deal.

Appearing at the National Press Club, Mr O’Brien was asked if the current arrangement and its structure was a spending priority, and what his attitude was towards the deal.

The Liberal frontbencher said if the government came forward with a proposal, he would be prepared to look at it and take a constructive approach.

“We have been very clear since this term of government began that if the government wishes to engage with the Opposition on holistic, comprehensive tax reform that would drive more efficiency into the tax system, we stand ready to engage with them.”

“We will treat it like anything they bring forward. We will be constructive where we can and critical where we must. I do not think they will, by the way, but let’s wait and see.”

The Deputy Liberal leader has also brushed off suggestions he has ambitions for the party’s top job, after the latest Newspoll showed him polling well behind several other possible alternatives to leader Sussan Ley.

“My ambition is to be the next Treasurer of Australia under a Ley-led Coalition Government,” Mr O’Brien told the National Press Club when questioned by The Nightly.

When pushed on whether this would change if that scenario does not eventuate, the opposition’s treasury spokesman quipped: “I don’t know why you would doubt that.”

In the latest Newspoll the deputy liberal leader was favoured by just 3 per cent of voters when asked who they would prefer to lead the federal Coalition, well behind Andrew Hastie, Angus Taylor and Tim Wilson.

During his press club address, Mr O’Brien attempted to continue the Coalition’s work to win back younger voters using the story of a young couple he called “Jess and Matt”.

“The sad truth is that, today, our intergenerational compact is disintegrating, and all signs point to it only disintegrating further,” the shadow treasurer told his Canberra audience..

“As Liberals in 2025, our mission must be to assure Jess and the millions of Millennials just like her, the younger Gen Zs and the younger-still Gen Alphas that we see them and we are here to serve them.”

He also repeated Ms Ley’s pledge that the Coalition will take a plan for income tax cuts to the next election, and return to the mantra of needing to “grow the pie” to improve the state of the Budget.

Mr O’Brien also described Artificial Intelligence as the “most profound economic transformation since the advent of the internet”.

“AI leadership in South East Asia is up for grabs, and we should take it,” he declared.