The Commonwealth is being “pretty nasty” by slashing funding for remote housing, WA Premier Mark McGowan says.
The premier plans to raise the National Partnership Agreement on Remote Housing issue with the prime minister at the Council of Australian Governments meeting later this week.
“It’s pretty nasty for the Commonwealth government to walk away from their obligations to the most disadvantaged Australians,” he told reporters.
Mr McGowan said WA had about 200 remote communities and the Commonwealth was planning to cut the financial support it had been providing for 50 years.
“That’s clearly not acceptable to Western Australia, South Australia or Queensland,” he said.
“They already walked away from funding services, so that’s an enormous cost that they’ve put on West Australian taxpayers.
“If they walk away from providing housing, that means that we won’t have that Commonwealth support in upgrading and building new housing in remote communities.”
The federal government has previously said it would not be intimidated after being accused of turning its back on indigenous Australians.
Mr McGowan said he also planned to again raise the GST issue with the prime minister.
“It’s simply unacceptable that they continue to cut, cut, cut our state and they don’t seem to care,” he said.
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