I was just referring to what Keating wrote in the AFR. I was not privy to all the other matters you are referring to. At the end of the day the GST is a rubbish tax that enables governments to get into our wallets under the pretense of introducing some non-distortionary tax system.
The Libs have to be held accountable for the GST. These (value added) taxes have been great in Europe for spreading socialism. Public servants and politicians just love them. No accountability.
No tax system is perfect. At least with the sales taxes they could be made specific to broad categories and meant that pollies had some accountability for raising taxes. In any case we still have some sales taxes (called something else, eg for cigs).
The one add on pollies will be looking for is longer terms between elections arguing this is needed for longer term planning. As if governments actually plan the economy! What they really seek is to reduce their accountability. We are lucky to vote once in three years. They will not allow citizen initiated referenda because they fear voters.
