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The Prime Minister and the Treasurer with the Premiers yesterday. Help
The Prime Minister and the Treasurer with the Premiers yesterday.
Feds happy to talk, after the lecture
By ROSS PEAKE,
Political Correspondent
The states won a toehold yesterday
in their battle for certainty of federal
funding, and in return agreed to con
tinue implementing initiatives from
tne une iNation package.
The Federal Government acceded
to requests from the states and terri
tories to examine longer-term finan
cial arrangements — but there was
no movement, as expected, on a
guaranteed share of revenue.
Sources said that the Treasurer,
John Dawkins, told the leaders they
could not expect much help with
their budgets.
A new body, the Council of Aus-.
tralian Governments, will be estab
lished to allow premiers, chief
ministers and a local-government re
presentative to discuss non-financial
issues outside the framework of the
regular Premiers' conferences.
States will decide later this week
whether the June Premiers' Confer
ence should consider federal-state fi
nancial arrangements for next
financial year only, or for a longer
period. Federal officials said last
night that the Government was
ready to agree to rolling trienniums
for federal-state funding.
Federal, state and territory trea
sury officials will prepare a report for
the June conference on the outlook
of their various budgets. But the Fed
eral Government has not committed
itself to any greater funding for the
states.
Several premiers said the meeting
had gone better than expected.
Mr Keating began the closed
heads-of-government meeting with a
40-minute lecture to the states. But
he said the Federal Government was
prepared to talk about the quantum
and adequacy of funding.
He rejected the main theme of the
states' position paper, which warned
of an accumulated $28 billion in new
debt over the next four years.
The proposition to restore states
funding to the proportion of the early
1980s would cost about $5 billion
next financial year and $9 billion by
1995-96, he said. Sources said he told
the Premiers the suggestion left the
Federal Government "speechless".
Mr Keating said the meeting had
been very cooperative.
Continued on Page 4.

Feds happy to talk . . .

Continued from Page 1

In a communique last night, the
Fejtleral Government said the "states
needed to be adequately resourced
and that the predictability, flexibility
and growth of state funding were
agreed objectives".

The new council will meet at least
once a year. The Premiers pointed
out that there were 47 ministerial

councils, and some leaders felt they
were losing control over the councils'
wide-ranging activities.

The NSW Premier, NIck Greiner,
told the meeting the Federal Govern-
ment could not expect the states to
continue providing dollar-for-dollar
funding for projects on which the
Federal Government had taken the

decisions. Sources said the example
he used was funding to implement
the recommendations of the Royal
Commission into deaths in custody.

The Victorian Premier, Joan Kir-
ner, told the meeting the state of the
economy meant she was faced with
three options: raising taxes and char-
ges, increasing debt levels or making
massive cuts in services.

Mr Keating said the One Nation
initiatives would go ahead, despite
the Budget blow-out.

The conference agreed to recipro-
cal regulations on goods and ser-
vices, meaning goods — apart from
pornography and weapons — which
may be sold lawfully in one state or
territory, will be lawful in all others.

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