Jacinta Allan to delay cost cuts for months
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Perth Now
21 minutes ago
- Perth Now
Major parties duel on health as hung parliament looms
Voters are being sold different plans to boost bulk-billed GP visits as campaigning for a snap state poll enters its final week. Tasmania's major party leaders hit the hustings on Monday to sharpen their sells for Saturday's poll, triggered by minority Liberal Premier Jeremy Rockliff losing a vote of no-confidence in parliament. Labor leader Dean Winter was busy fleshing out his expanded TassieDoc plan after using the official party campaign launch in Devonport on Sunday to double the pledge of free GP clinics from five to 10. New Norfolk, a town northwest of Hobart, has joined Ravenswood, Burnie, Devonport, Glenorchy and Risdon Vale on the list of areas earmarked for one of the bulk-billed clinics. Mr Winter said the clinic at Corumbene health hub would serve residents of the Derwent Valley and denied revealing the locations before the election amounted to pork-barrelling. "This is on the basis of need," he told reporters in New Norfolk. "We've been contacted by doctors, by facilities like Corumbene and by communities saying we desperately have a need here." Fitting out the first five government-run GP clinics in health hubs across the state was expected to cost $5 million, on top of $4 million a year in operating expenses. The total cost of the expanded policy will be revealed before election day, Labor's health spokeswoman and candidate for Clark Ella Haddad said. The Liberals promised to match Labor's initial commitment but the expanded pledge has proven a bridge too far for Mr Rockliff, who described it as a "Labor Party thought bubble". "Forty-eight hours ago there was five GP clinics, now there's 10," he said. "In their desperation, in the last week, they have come together with a policy that's not well thought through and not consulted with local communities." Instead the Liberals, if re-elected, want to set aside $6 million for a no-interest loan to build a community-based health and wellbeing precinct in Latrobe near Devonport. The Health Nexus-run hub would be across the road from Mersey Community Hospital and include 12 GP rooms, an allied-health and rehab gym and 20 units for housing seniors. It is estimated to deliver an extra 25,000 extra GP appointments a year once it opens to patients by 2027. After weeks of campaigning, both leaders are staring down the likely prospect of voters returning another hung parliament. A poll of 3421 Tasmanian voters, conducted by DemosAU for Pulse Tasmania from July 6 to 10, put the Liberals' primary vote at 34.9 per cent and Labor's at 24.7 per cent. Those numbers would deliver the Liberals 13 to 14 seats and Labor nine to 10 seats, almost identical to the make-up of the previous 35-seat lower house. The crossbench could be set to expand, with strong indicative support for the Greens (15.6 per cent) and independents (20.3 per cent). Mr Winter has repeatedly ruled out Labor agreeing to a deal with the Greens to form a minority government, but said he would work with "sensible" independents.
West Australian
24 minutes ago
- West Australian
Opposition says WA's GST might not be safe from Jim Chalmers' secret tax advice
Sussan Ley has assured WA voters she has 'no plans whatsoever' to change GST arrangements, but said a Treasury briefing urging the Albanese Government to raise taxes is proof Labor cannot be trusted. The new Opposition Leader has arrived in Perth for the first time since the May election and praised the 'great state of Western Australia' for 'having a crack', after a tour of mining giant Rio Tinto's operation centre. She seized on a briefing note from Treasury, accidentally released after a freedom of information request, when asked about a new push to reform the GST. 'We have no plans whatsoever to change the GST arrangements. However, when you look at the report that the Labor party leaked that it received, it doesn't make that clear,' Ms Ley told reporters on Monday. 'What it says is that taxes may need to be raised, so the great people of WA need to ask their Treasurer and their Prime Minister what plans they may have when it comes to the GST and, indeed, every other business tax, personal tax, mining tax that might affect the State of WA.' Treasurer Jim Chalmers said his view hasn't changed, since repeatedly promising during the election campaign that there would be no change to the deal that guarantees WA 75 cents for every dollar of GST raised. But he also vowed to keep an open mind, ahead of an economic reform roundtable in Canberra next month. 'We've tried not to artificially limit the ideas that the states or others will bring to the reform roundtable,' he told reporters on Monday. 'We've tried to have a relatively open mind. But you've all heard me talk about the GST before, and you all would have noticed what the Prime Minister said about the GST in the last few days and those views haven't changed. 'When it comes more broadly to complexity in the tax system, of course, we are interested in ways to simplify the tax system.' Mr Chalmers told reporters he was 'pretty relaxed' about the briefing notes that were reportedly sent by mistake, warning that additional revenue and spending reductions were needed, and that the Government's target to build 1.2 million homes over five years will not be met. 'When (Anthony Albanese) gets back to Australia, he's got some explaining to do,' Ms Ley said. Ms Ley is due to meet with WA Liberal Leader Basil Zempilas on Monday afternoon, as the party comes to terms with dismal results in both the State and Federal elections this year. The Liberal party lost the seat of Moore to Labor, leaving the Opposition with only four out of 12 Federal seats in WA, but boosted its numbers to seven MP's in the lower house of State Parliament. Ms Ley said the nation's prosperity depends on WA. 'They represent what the Liberal Party stands for, aspiration, having a crack and backing those Australians who do want to get ahead,' she said. 'But I am worried that productivity is declining, flat-lining to its lowest point in 60 years. 'To improve productivity requires a competitive economic agenda, tough decisions to be taken, less regulation, smaller government, and it requires effort from this Labor Government, and I'm not sure that we're seeing that.' She said she is in WA to listen and identified energy policy as one focus. 'I mention energy because energy is so important in our manufacturing industries, and they play such a vital role in WA,' Ms Ley said. 'The small businesses of WA that I came to know and love over the last three years are doing it really tough because of energy. 'So we're setting clear parameters around policies, but we're also making sure that we do listen, because we accept with humility the result of the last election. 'We will listen, we will stand by our values and, as we develop policy, it will be through the prism of those values. Lower, simpler, fairer taxes, less government regulation.' Ms Ley said projects in WA are 'drowning' in red tape and called the extension of Woodside's North-West Shelf gas project - that was granted provisional approval in June - a prime example, but wouldn't say how she proposes to fast-track approvals. 'I'm not going into the individual details,' she said. 'You have to have a government that's determined to bust that congestion and not bog everything down in bureaucracy.'
Perth Now
2 hours ago
- Perth Now
Home truths on housing target in leaked Treasury advice
The accidental release of government department advice which warned Labor was not going to meet its housing target and urged them to raise taxes, has not rattled the treasurer. Independent advice from the Treasury department, which was unintentionally sent to the ABC, reportedly contained subheadings which said the federal government's promise to build 1.2 million homes by 2029 "will not be met" and called for "additional revenue and spending reductions" to achieve a sustainable budget. Though he acknowledged Treasury's advice had been sent "in error", Treasurer Jim Chalmers said such incidents could happen from time to time. "I'm pretty relaxed about it to be honest," he told reporters in Canberra on Monday. "Treasury advises governments of both political persuasions - that advice can't be always adequately captured in the subheadings." A 2025 report from the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council - another independent government advice body - in May warned Labor would fall short of its goal by about 300,000 dwellings. It followed a report in March commissioned by the Property Council of Australia showing the government needed to build another 462,000 homes to meet its 2029 target. Asked if the government regretted putting out a housing target, Dr Chalmers said his government needed to be ambitious. "We'd rather have a big, ambitious, difficult target and work around the clock to meet it ... than to continue the approach of our predecessors, which was to build too few homes," he said. The government has also attempted to address its bottom line by reining in spending on the National Disability Insurance Scheme and proposing an increased tax on super balances above $3 million. Dr Chalmers has pledged to strengthen Australia's economy ahead of a trip to South Africa, where he will meet with his counterparts from other G20 countries as they deal with "extreme global economic uncertainty". Economic ties with countries like Indonesia, Japan, the UK and Germany could be strengthened as leaders discuss capital flows, supply chains, critical minerals and issues within their own communities. But domestically, one of the key focuses of Labor's second-term economic agenda will be to boost productivity. The agenda of an economic reform roundtable, to be held in August, has been finalised with Reserve Bank governor Michele Bullock set to kick off day one, Productivity Commission chair Danielle Wood to lead day two and Treasury secretary Jenny Wilkinson to head day three. Opposition Leader Sussan Ley claimed the government was "ignoring some of the very levers that matter most" in the productivity puzzle. While Dr Chalmers acknowledged he could not invite every industry, he said there would be many opportunities for people to contribute.
