Prime Minister Tony Abbott has intervened in an internal stoush over how the states share GST revenue.
West Australian Liberal MP and former state treasurer Christian Porter told a coalition party room meeting in Canberra on Tuesday he and his state colleagues planned to make a submission to the forthcoming white paper on taxation.
The submission would advocate for a larger share of GST for WA, in line with Premier Colin Barnett's concerns that his state is being penalised for economic success.
Mr Barnett wants the revenue distribution formula to be changed to a per-capita basis.
Treasurer Joe Hockey told the meeting that any change was fraught because "for every winner there is a loser".
Mr Hockey said he was happy the WA government was now seeking to privatise some of its assets and put the money into infrastructure, as he had urged the Barnett government and other states to do.
Mr Abbott cautioned against groups of MPs putting in their own submission to the tax review, as they would also be the decision-makers when it came to new policy.
Whatever adjustments, if any, were made to the GST distribution they were best done "among the larger states" and any reallocation would need to protect the smaller states.
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