Federal election creates opportunities for the Crisafulli government

In this latest carve-up Queensland money will go to help support Victoria, despite Victoria’s problems being all of its own making.

If Queensland wants to stay a leading state and honour the LNP’s promises it needs to be more like WA than Victoria, which means expanding its mining industry.

The announcement that nine new gas fields will be opened up shows the government understands mining is the key.

It needs to be rewarded for this, not penalized.

Mining is just one example. At the moment, anything Queensland does which might increase Gross State Product will increase GST, which might then be syphoned off to a less enterprising state.

If she cuts a tax, say payroll tax, to attract industry; or stamp duty, to improve the flexibility of the housing market; the CGC will cut her GST distribution.

It is an empirical fact that federations like Australia function better than unitary states, as long as they are run as a federation.

In a functioning federation GST would be distributed proportional to either the size of the population in each state, or its percentage of the national economy.

Queensland and Western Australia would be rewarded for having more productive economies, and other states encouraged to catch-up.

Who knows, under a properly competitive system Victoria might drill for its own gas, instead of banning all onshore exploration and drilling, and whinging because Queensland’s gas industry sells large amounts of gas overseas.

Federation is an issue where David Crisafulli could step in and organise a posse of states to agitate for sensible reform.

WA already understands the system is broken, and SA and NSW are both mining states with common sense right-wing Labor premiers who should be able to be convinced to back change.