PM says govt and Tassie a GST 'team'

The prime minister says he is working collaboratively with the Tasmanian government on GST changes, despite it wanting a legal guarantee it won't be worse off.

Tasmania is hungry for a legal guarantee that it won't be worse off under changes to the GST carve up, but Prime Minister Scott Morrison says its essential services are already a sure thing under the plan.

Liberal Tasmanian treasurer Peter Gutwein was among state and territory treasurers to push for the legal guarantee this week.

But Mr Morrison has suggested Tasmania has nothing to worry about, with data showing it will get an extra $122 million over eight years.

The prime minister also sought to highlight his common ground with Premier Will Hodgman during a visit to the state's west coast.

"What we're committed to, as a prime minister and a premier, is to a guarantee of the essential services that Tasmanians rely on," he told reporters in Queenstown on Friday.

"On their schools, on their Medicare, on their hospitals. And our guarantee is our record on that.

"We're working very closely as a team and I want to thank the Tasmanian government for the strong input there's been to this process."

The federal government intends to introduce legislation for the GST changes, including a 75-cent floor in payments, when parliament resumes sitting in mid-October.

The plan was hatched to protect Western Australia's share, which crashed to less than 30 cents in the dollar after the mining boom.

Mr Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg have maintained every state and territory will be better off under the new system, with the group set to get an extra $9 billion over the coming decade and an extra $1 billion a year beyond that.

But they don't want to amend the proposed laws to include a guarantee nobody will be worse off, saying it would "parallel systems".


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Source: AAP


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