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  It is history that Dr Hewson lost the unlosable election and Labor's Paul Keating was returned on the back of a GST scare campaign.

  Now the spectre of a GST has raised its head again with taxation reforms on the agenda.

  His intention was that a 15 per cent GST should replace all taxes, except income tax.

  That means no inequitable wholesale tax, fuel tax, payroll tax or the miscellany of taxes that bedevil business.

  Now discussions about a GST, which appears to have wider public support than in 1993, do not involve plans to replace payroll tax or fuel tax.

  A discussion paper, prepared for the States and leaked in South Australia, flags a GST -- now called a Value Added Tax (VAT) -- but suggests broadening State-based taxes such as payroll and land tax.

  "For as long as land tax and payroll tax remain under-exploited, State claims about Vertical Fiscal Imbalance (VFI) will ring hollow," the bureaucratically-prepared discussion paper says.

  For readers not schooled in the language of government treasuries, VFI is the increasing gap between what the States give to Canberra and what they get back.

  The High Court decision in August which made illegal State taxes such as those on alcohol, tobacco and fuel robbed the States of 17 per cent of their tax base.

  But it did accelerate debate on the need for long-overdue tax reform.

  However, in seeking ideas, treasury officials have been unleashed to put together discussion papers which would pose increased taxes rather than streamline and reduce the tax burdern.

  The leaked SA document found land tax, which will yield WA $168 million this year, the most efficient tax.

  It rationalised that this form of wealth tax allowed communities to share in wealth from increases in land values.

  And it found payroll tax, which accounts for 25 per cent of the States' taxation revenue, should be broadened.

  Yet this year WA will still increase its receipts from this tax from $682 million to $737 million.

  As well as broadening the base for payroll and land tax, the SA paper wants to implement State VATs, which could be as high as 21 per cent.

  And it wants States to be able to levy income tax.

  Equally controversial, the WA Treasury has proposed a 15 per cent wealth tax on people earning more than $1 million (already ruled out by Premier Richard Court) and a carbon tax -- possibly $80 per tonne -- on carbon dioxide emitted by industries.

  It also proposes a 14 per cent income tax and a 12 per cent VAT, if the Federal Government agrees to relinquish some of its taxing powers to the States.

  Opposition Leader Geoff Gallop supports handing income taxing powers to the State but not a VAT or GST or whatever guise the consumption tax may take.

  Equally important as a referendum on the Constitution, people should get a chance to put their views on taxation changes.

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