Australian States’ Share In Taxation

Northern Advocate, 25 August 1948, Page 5

Australian States’ Share In Taxation

CANBERRA, Wed. (1 p.m.) The State Premiers have accepted the Commonwealth offer to increase their share of uniform taxation by £8.680.000 this financial year.

The extra money will bring the states’ combined share of taxation moneys to £53,680.000. compared with £45.000,000 last year, and £40.000.000 in 1946-47. The amounts to be received are as follows: New South Wales, £21,996.000; Victoria. £12.078.000; Queensland, £8,826,000; South Australia, £4,623,000; West Australia, £4,489.000; Tasmania, £1,668,000.

State representatives at the conference angrily debated the allocation of New South Wales coal. The New South Wales Premier (Mr McGirr) said that his state would ignore allocations made by the Coal Board unless the board adjusted the quotas of states that received coal from Queensland. OVERSEAS IMPORTATIONS Earlier in the debate he said that the board should also reduce the quota of a state which imported coal from overseas. Mr Chifiey replied that he believed that a state which imported overseas coal should not receive a corresponding cut in its allocation from New South Wales.

Without examining each transaction, he would not commit the Commonwealth to the principle that coal coal bought by cne state from another should be considered part of its allocation from New South Wales.

The Victorian Minister of Transport (Mr Kent Hughes) told the conference that Victoria planned to obtain supplies of coal from overseas and from Queensland. New South Wales representatives claimed that that state had enforced a rigid system of rationing and had undertaken many hardships to provide other states with coal.