Life Insurance and other Financial Services

Health plan puts heat on Abbott The Age

21.04.10

TONY Abbott is under pressure to clarify quickly whether he will let the hospital reform legislation through the Senate, as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd takes the fight up to the opposition on his favoured ground.

''My very clear challenge to him … is to come out in black and white and say that he will not use his numbers in the Senate to block these fundamental health reforms,'' Mr Rudd said.

The deal between the federal government and all states except Western Australia requires a change in an intergovernmental agreement for the signatories to give up a third of their GST.

Mr Abbott is under conflicting pressures. To oppose the changes would paint the Coalition as frustrating hospital reform. But the GST is a sensitive issue in Western Australia, where Premier Colin Barnett, the country's only Liberal premier, has refused to hand over a portion and wants to cut a special deal with Mr Rudd.

Senior WA Liberal senator Alan Eggleston said any change to the GST arrangement raised important issues about the workings of the federation.

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