South Australia
South Australia is estimated to receive $8,671 million in GST in 2024–25. This would be an increase of $457 million compared to 2023‑24. The change reflects South Australia’s assessed needs for GST and its share of the growth in the GST pool. It also reflects the application of the 0.75 GST relativity floor, which increases the GST distributed to Western Australia and reduces the GST distribution to all other states.
GST distribution in 2024-25
Key factors that affected South Australia’s GST needs in 2024-25 compared with 2023-24
How South Australia compared with other states and territories
South Australia’s capacity to raise revenue from its own taxes is lower than the national average. For example:
The characteristics of the people living in South Australia mean that it has above-average costs of providing government services in some areas and below-average in others. Overall, its costs are similar to the national average. For example:
Overall, the below-average capacity to raise revenue in South Australia and similar cost of delivering services results in it receiving a per person GST distribution above the national average.
How the GST is distributed
The Commonwealth Grants Commission provides independent advice to the Australian Government on how GST should be distributed among the states. In doing this, the Commission takes account of states’ different abilities to raise revenue and their different costs in providing services.
The amount of revenue each state can raise differs because it depends on things like the value of mining production, property transactions and taxable payrolls. The cost of providing services varies too, based on things like a state’s size, its geography, where its residents live and other socio-demographic characteristics, for example, age, health, income, and education.
Changes to the GST distribution in 2024–25 reflect the 2018 GST legislated arrangements. These include implementation of a GST relativity floor below which no state’s GST revenue sharing relativity can fall and Commonwealth top-ups to the GST pool. The Commonwealth also makes separate transitional no worse off payments to the states.