Senator CAROL BROWN (Tasmania—Deputy Government Whip in the Senate) (12:14): I seek leave to amend general business notice of motion No. 879 standing in my name relating to GST before asking that it be taken as a formal motion. Leave not granted. Senator CAROL BROWN: I move: That the Senate— (a) recognises the significance of goods and services tax (GST) receipts to state governments; (b) acknowledges the commitment given by the Federal Labor Government to Horizontal Fiscal Equalisation (HFE); (c) notes that: (i) HFE is the distribution method that underpins the concept of federalism in this country and spreads Australia’s wealth fairly across all states and territories, (ii) HFE is vitally important to the Federation and this long-standing principle of equalisation has served Australia well, and that this has long been a bipartisan position of successive Labor and Liberal Commonwealth Governments, and (iii) a move to per capita distribution of the GST would have disastrous consequences for the budgets of smaller states and territories in the Commonwealth, whose residents would consequently receive a significantly inferior level of key services such as health and education; and (d) endorses HFE and calls on all sides of politics to support the principle that HFE be maintained into the future. Question agreed to.