Eight years after a political compromise reshaped how Australia distributes its goods and services tax, the nation's Productivity Commission has concluded that the arrangement struck to appease Western Australia has cost the federal budget $23 billion and quietly undermined the foundational principle that every Australian, regardless of postcode, deserves comparable government services. The 2018 floor deal — born of a genuine grievance about how resource wealth was penalising a prosperous state — has instead created a two-tiered fiscal order where improvement is rewarded for one and punished f