“Despite what they say close to elections, most state governments like the GST: the federal government wears the odium for imposing it while they get to spend the proceeds. An efficient, progressive state tax identified by Terry Moran and his colleagues in a recent Committee for Economic Development of Australia report is land tax. Its electoral appeal would be improved if its proceeds were hypothecated to, say, public transport, or to health and education. But it’s a safe bet that the CEDA authors have not been knocked over by the states in a clamour to levy extra land tax when a federal GST rate rise offers them all care and no responsibility.” 

– Former Labor Party Minister, Craig Emerson, in the Australian Financial Review today.