Well actually we did. The 1998 election was heavily focussed on the introduction of GST and it was made clear it would be introduced if John Howard was re-elected. Guess who was re-elected.
The thing with GST was most people had no bloody idea that everything they paid for already had a very convaluted sales tax on it, one that seemed to be different from one product to the next depending on what letter of the alphabet it started with. GST made it a heck of a lot simpler.
