Kate Emery: Australia has a problem when it comes to neighbourly disputes

There’s discontent in the suburbs.

That’s the view of the head of WA’s Citizens Advice Bureau, chief executive Dion Dosualdo.

Mr Dosualdo knows what he’s talking about: CAB received 688 calls about neighbourly disputes last year. And 2023-24 is shaping up as its biggest year yet, in part because it’s hoping to boost awareness about what it does.

When it comes to neighbourhood disputes CAB’s role is to offer advice — and potentially mediation. For some, that can be an alternative to going it alone with legal action, where the biggest winners tend to be lawyers and the friends of lawyers who enjoy using their Eagle Bay beach houses.

Basically, before you take a chainsaw to your neighbour’s overhanging tree branch or start brainstorming plans to silence their yappy dog on a more . . . permanent basis, you should talk to them.

Unfortunately, WA is currently part of the kind of neighbourly dispute that CAB can’t help with because it doesn’t involve dodgy fences and late night EDM. It’s been playing out this week with the predictability of a neighbour’s Lilly Pilly tree dropping its berries onto your back deck.

On one side of the Colorbond is the NSW Premier Chris Minns, loudly complaining that his State is getting screwed on GST. Premiers love to complain that their State is getting screwed on GST, by the way, because it’s the closest they can get to cosplaying a political John Wayne.

Mr Minns is angry that money is seemingly being chucked over the fence one way to WA, which apparently doesn’t need it because we’re “chock full of cash from the mining boom” (will someone let my bank balance know?) and chucked over the fence the other way to Victoria, which he dismissed as a “welfare State”.

That’s because the latest Commonwealth Grants Commission recommendation includes a $310 million cut for NSW’s share of the 2024-25 GST pot ($188m once “no worse off” payments kick in). High coal prices are driving it, with Queensland also about $469m worse off.

If the idea of getting screwed on GST because commodity prices are going through the roof sounds familiar it’s because we’ve heard this song before, it’s just that WA is usually the one clutching the microphone.

However, WA’s GST deal now includes a 75c in the dollar floor.

With that floor, WA will pocket an extra $830m, up to $7.25 billion. Without it, WA’s GST share would be falling faster than the youth vote for US politicians (last seen moving towards a ban on TikTok), down to about $1b.

What started as a bit of passive aggression at the letterbox has devolved into a full-on shouting match over the fence. So to speak.

Talking before an at-times fiery meeting between Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers and State and Territory treasurers on Friday, Mr Minns said: “At the end of the day, NSW just can’t eat last every single time,” he said.

Nobody could accuse WA of responding with a dignified silence.

Premier Roger Cook found time to shout “whingers!” back over the fence at Mr Minns. He thinks it’s a bit rich for the NSW Government to cut up rough about parting with 14c in the dollar, when WA will hand over 25c in the dollar.

Treasurer Rita Saffioti joined in with the world’s smallest violin and the trumpet of schadenfreude.

“We’ve been facing it year in, year out, to a much bigger degree before the floor came in,” she said. “No one sympathised with us. They said, ‘Oh, you’ve got royalties, good luck.’ Now they have the same situation.”

If NSW and WA were the kind of neighbours who shared a curb, this might be the moment to turn to CAB (instead they’ll continue rattling sabres and watching two GST reviews in the works).

What I’d like to see, for those of us out in the suburbs and in Parliament is for Australia to copy the UK’s approach to neighbourhood disputes, which must be disclosed by anyone trying to sell a property.

A similar requirement here would be a game changer, not just for anyone who may not want to live next door to a deaf Finnish death metal enthusiast but for WA politicians.

Veteran pollies would need to disclose the reality of political life so political aspirants know what they’re in for: a career spent fending off arguments from the rest of the country about why they deserve more of our GST. Every. Damn. Year.