THE commonwealth could better support Victorian public transport projects by changing the way grants for rail and road are treated under the GST, the state treasurer says.
Michael O'Brien said Victoria missed out on billions due to discrimination in the current arrangements.
"When it comes to GST distributions, commonwealth grants to states for rail are treated very disadvantageously compared to commonwealth grants for roads," Mr O'Brien told a Committee for Economic Development Australia event on Tuesday.
He said Victoria would get about $3 billion in gross grants from the commonwealth for the Regional Rail Link project.
"But because of the way the GST works, the discrimination that applies to rail projects, about $2 billion of that gets distributed to other states," Mr O'Brien said.
"So a $3 billion cheque from the commonwealth turns out to be a $1 billion net benefit to Victoria."
He said the Victorian government had put the case to the federal government that there should be better support for state transport projects.
"A really simple way, that wouldn't cost the federal government a single dollar, (would be) if they could change the discriminatory way rail grants are treated under the GST compared to road grants," Mr O'Brien said.
Mr O'Brien has repeatedly referred to the way the GST is distributed as similar to a Ponzi scheme.
"This is a problem that does need to be fixed," Mr O'Brien said.
He says federal Treasurer Joe Hockey has flagged that the forthcoming federal taxation white paper will deal with GST and GST distribution issues.
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