21 September 2023
In a shocking act of disrespect, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s Labor Government will force Tasmania to pay the whole $240 million Hobart stadium Commonwealth contribution that was announced earlier this year by not making an exemption for our GST calculation.
This move by Labor will rip away $240 million in Tasmania’s agency and ability to fund essential infrastructure, health and education needs.
The Prime Minister claims that Tasmanian senators and crossbenchers “don’t understand how GST formula works”. The Prime Minister is out of his depth when he makes this comment and is clearly wrong. One example of this is the $700 million exemption for the Mersey Hospital in 2016 that was secured under Federal and State Liberal Governments.
Exemptions can be made, and Tasmanian Labor MPs and Senators Julie Collins, Brian Mitchell, Anne Urquhart, Helen Polley, Carol Brown and Catryna Bilyk have failed our state by not effectively advocating to Treasurer Jim Chalmers and the Prime Minister to do so for the stadium.