The Liberals’ GST announcement has been a long time coming and still does not give Western Australians any guarantee that they will be any better off than before.

While the Liberals have been sitting on their hands, Labor has been proposing a 70 cent GST floor for WA for a year.

The fact that Turnbull has finally accepted a GST floor for WA is thanks to Bill Shorten, Mark McGowan and the WA Labor team who have campaigned for this for a long time.

The Liberals derided Labor’s proposal, and now they’ve copied it, but without offering any guarantee that other Commonwealth funding will not be slashed.

Turnbull first raised the prospect of a GST floor two years ago, then he did nothing. If a 70 cent floor had been in place then, WA would be $3.5 billion better off by now.

The proposed GST floor must be legislated – we don’t trust the Liberals not to cut it in the future.

WA Labor’s federal caucus will closely consider the Government’s full proposal. Without long-term agreements with the other states and territories, this isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.

We are concerned that there is no guarantee that Turnbull won’t make other cuts to services Western Australians rely on to pay for this.

He’s already cutting WA’s schools and hospitals to pay for his $17 billion handout to the banks – what else is he planning to cut?