New South Wales Premier Mike Baird has secured backing from South Australia for a fresh discussion on raising the Goods and Services Tax.

Mr Baird has mounted a social media push for an increase in the rate of the GST, from 10 to 15 per cent, in order to pay for the increasing cost of healthcare.

It comes just two days ahead of the Prime Minister's so-called "leaders retreat" between federal, state and territory counterparts in Sydney.

"The federal-state financial system is in imminent danger of tumbling over a fiscal cliff," Mr Baird wrote in an opinion piece for The Australian this morning.

He said measures could be taken "through the income tax and welfare system" to help struggling families affecting by the tax increase.

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YEAH! as if... "... through the income tax and welfare system..." If you're a mug, you will believe this artificial sweetener from Mike... As you should know, Turdy Abbutt is doing his best to cut welfare for the poor and cut taxes for the rich... Go away...

All these Liberal (CONservative) tax fiddles are like the tradition of emptying chamber pots from the first floor in medieval villages... The rich held the right to walk the high sides of the street, protected by building overhangs, while the poor had to straddle in the middle, in the open sewer, being golden showered. 

Australians are being told the only solution to our budget problems is a higher GST. But that's only because we've taken all the better and fairer options off the table, writes Ian Verrender.

Literary references are often lost upon Australian politicians. But most of them desperately cling to that oft-quoted line from Mark Twain about death, taxes and certainty.

It might be honourable politics, but promising a new tax is a sure pathway to political death. Just ask John Hewson. Then there was John Howard's near death experience when he barely scraped across the line when he took the Goods and Services Tax to the 1998 poll.

As for Kevin Rudd, he never even made it to the next election, after being rolled by a cashed-up resources industry scare campaign.

These days, the trick is to denounce any suggestion of new taxes forever more and then change your mind upon assuming office after discovering the dreaded BBH - the Budget Black Hole.

Despite all the pre-election promises, Treasurer Joe Hockey stumped up a raft of new taxes in his first budget, opting to instead label them excises and levies while reintroducing indexation on existing imposts.

With revenue under threat from diminishing resource prices, the focus this week has turned to raising the Goods and Services Tax.

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-22/verrender-picking-up-the-tab-for-poor-tax-decisions/6640392

So, poor Mike Baird claims he is sick of politics in this country & that he has had a gutful of “point scoring, fear, smear & who wins the daily news cycle”.

Whilst some might feel sympathy for NSW’s boy wonder, many are equally fed-up with the smooth, self-righteous pretensions adopted by disingenuous politicians, who treat them like mugs as they slyly endeavour to rig public debate by arguing over different brands of the same snake oil in order to serve their own vested interests.

Only a few short months ago Premier Baird was successful in spruiking the sale of NSW’s electricity grid, arguing that the $20 billion in proceeds would not only produce lower electricity prices, but would fund “substantially better road, public transport, health & education infrastructure”.

Now he’s back arguing that a 50% increase in the GST is essential to fund NSW’s future health services.

Australians don’t need a pub test or smell test to detect plain old-fashioned bullshit.

Two University of Queensland economists published a paper in April that should have brought down state and local governments, sparked a royal commission and radically changed the Australian housing industry. Five months later, the paper seems to be forgotten and Australia's biggest racket rolls on unchallenged: gaming land rezoning for enormous windfall profits.

There is no shortage of politicians willing to wring their hands and look concerned about housing affordability, but those prepared to take on the multiple conflicts of interest, ranging from from developer "mates" and NIMBYs to state revenue and the federal tax system, are as rare as a cheap Sydney waterfront.