FORGET BANK LEVIES AND GST HIKE - AUSTRALIA NEEDS SWEEPING TAX REFORM

Queensland by all rights should have all along been getting a lot bigger slice of the GST pie than what it ever has. The blame for that falls fairly and squarely at the feet of federal treasurer Scott Morrison, and his predecessors, Wayne Swan and Peter Costello. 

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk's and Curtis Pitt's palpably contrived and incessant anti-Turnbull buckpassing as soon as they don't get every cent they demand from Canberra highlights Queensland Labor's own tax policy failures and shortcomings just as much as the Turnbull government's policy failures. The "bank levy" is a stupid, dumbed down idea. 

The big banks will just pass it onto the consumer in any case. They're not going to lose out - their customers will. What the states need isn't bank levies, federal handouts and an increase in the GST, as many media commentators would have it - but genuine, sweeping tax reform. The mere mention of which is something that seems to make politicians from both sides of the fence run and hide.