"It certainly has to be part of a suite of measures. No
one's suggesting doing it in isolation," Mr Turnbull
said.
"You've got to look at it in a whole context."
Mr Turnbull said states would have to get rid of
inefficient taxes and be more efficient in the services
they deliver, such as health.
"You can't just treat the Commonwealth government as an
ATM, everyone's got to improve the delivery of their
services," he said.
Mr Morrison has already put to the states a series of
competition reforms stemming from the Harper review in
which they would receive incentive payments if they
opened up the delivery of health and other human
services to the private sector.
MORRISON SAYS SUPER UP FOR REVIEW
Separately, Mr Morrison confirmed superannuation taxes
were also up for review, saying the issue of "integrity"
needed to be addressed to ensue the concessions were
about enabling people to save for retirement and nt
more. But he also assured any changes would not be
retrospective to maintaining the stability of the super
system.
"I think the superannuation system has to have stability
and certainty," Mr Morrison said on the issue of
retrospectivity," Mr Morrison said.
"So if people have been investing under particular
rules, then I think if you change those rules
retrospectively then that really can undermine
confidence in the superannuation system.
"I mean, if you're 27 years old today and you saw
something like that happen, now it may not impact you
directly but you'd be thinking 'Gee, should I be putting
more money in super, they could just change the rules on
me later'. So I think governments have a responsibility
to have stability in the system."
Mr Turnbull did commend Mr Weatherill for having a royal
commission into the nuclear industry and said Australia
should get involved in the nuclear fuel cycle insofar as
it could produce fuel rods, export them, and then bring
them home once spent and store them in outback waste
dumps.
"That is a business you could well imagine here," he
said, saying it was "worth looking at closely".
The Howard government tried to establish a waste dump in
South Australia to take spent fuel rods from overseas
and faced a bitter backlash, forcing it eventually to
back off.
Mr Turnbull said he did not envisage Australia moving to
nuclear power only because it had abundant affordable
sources of renewable energy and fossil fuels.
Source:::
The Australian Financial Review, dated
28/10/2015.........