Determination of the GST Revenue Sharing Relativities for 2016-17 in Accordance with the Federal Financial Relations Act 2009

The statutory hook referenced is section 8 of the Federal Financial Relations Act 2009, which the instrument cites as the Treasurer’s enabling head of power for making a determination of GST revenue sharing relativities for a State and for a payment year. The instrument repeatedly uses the phrase “GST revenue sharing relativity” (the table header uses the longer form “GST Revenue Sharing Relativity Factor 2016‑17”). The text of the instrument does not provide a statutory definition of “relativity” or “payment year.” Those terms are presented as established concepts within the Act’s scheme; the instrument simply records numeric values for them for 2016-17.

Two features of the concept as presented in the instrument are immediate and factual:

• The instrument treats “State” as the class label in the table header while including both States and Territories in the rows. The table heading is “State,” yet the rows list New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania, Australian Capital Territory and Northern Territory. The instrument therefore uses “State” in a narrow administrative sense as the row header even though the entries include non‑State jurisdictions.
• The relativity values are presented as decimal factors with five decimal places. Values in the instrument both fall below 1.00000 (for example Western Australia 0.30330, New South Wales 0.90464) and exceed 1.00000 (for example Tasmania 1.77693, Northern Territory 5.28450). The instrument does not explain the meaning of values above or below 1.00000; the numbers are recorded as the determinative factors for the 2016-17 payment year.

The determination is an administrative instrument, not primary legislation. It is an instance of the Treasurer exercising a statutory discretion to set numeric parameters under the Act for a specified time window (a “payment year”). The instrument itself contains no procedural narrative (such as how the determination was reached), no cross references to schedules, and no implementation or enforcement provisions. It is therefore a focused, parameter‑setting action that will be read in the larger statutory and administrative context of the Federal Financial Relations Act 2009 and associated Commonwealth payment mechanisms.

Finally, the instrument contains one signature block and date (Scott John Morrison; dated 21 April 2016). The document is repeated in the provided text (the determination appears more than once in identical or near‑identical form), but each repetition contains the same table of numbers and the same signature block and date. The repetition appears to be a presentation duplication rather than additional or differing determinations.

Directly, the instrument identifies the jurisdictions that are the subjects of the determination: New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory. Those jurisdictions therefore appear as recipients (or at least as object jurisdictions) of the GST revenue sharing arrangement for the 2016-17 payment year insofar as the instrument records the numeric relativity factors applying to each.

The instrument names the Treasurer as the decision‑maker: “I, SCOTT JOHN MORRISON, Treasurer, hereby DETERMINE…” That states who decides, within the scope of the Act’s grant of power. The instrument does not specify which Commonwealth office or agency will perform downstream administrative tasks (for example, arithmetic application, payment scheduling or reconciliation). It therefore places the immediate decision‑cost and recording duty on the Treasurer as the decision‑maker but leaves operational duties to be inferred from the parent statute and administrative practice.

Practically and analytically, parties who are affected in the ordinary course include:

• State and territory treasuries and finance departments that must incorporate any change in relativity factors into their 2016-17 revenue projections and cash‑flow planning.
• Commonwealth budget and payments units that will apply the statutory framework to convert those relativities into dollar payments under the Federal Financial Relations Act 2009.
• Auditors and accountants who will reconcile actual GST payments against the statutory framework and the recorded relativities for 2016-17.
• Policy advisers and public finance researchers who monitor the distributional consequences of GST allocations across jurisdictions.
• Parliamentarians and departmental staff who may need the formal instrument on the record for budget and parliamentary appropriation processes.

The instrument does not itself impose duties on States, nor does it set out enforcement or review pathways for States unhappy with the numbers. The only express legal authority in the text is s 8 of the Federal Financial Relations Act 2009, invoked as the source of the power to make the determination. As a corollary, the instrument’s immediate administrative effect is to fix the parameter values that will be used under the Act’s allocation machinery for the 2016-17 payment year. Any consequential operational effect , payments being made to the jurisdictions , flows from the statutory scheme and the Commonwealth’s implementation of it, not from this document’s text beyond its numeric table.

The instrument records a single decision and the legal authority used to make it. The explicit duty it evidences is the Treasurer’s duty or power under s 8 of the Federal Financial Relations Act 2009 to make a determination of GST revenue sharing relativities for States for a payment year. The text reads: “Section 8 of the Federal Financial Relations Act 2009 allows the Treasurer to make a determination of the GST revenue sharing relativity for a State, for a payment year.” The instrument therefore documents the exercise of that statutory function in the form of the Treasurer’s signed determination.

From the instrument itself, the following duties and rights can be drawn as textual facts:

• The Treasurer (Scott John Morrison) has the authority to determine and did determine the relativity factors for 2016-17. That is an administrative act under the enabling legislation cited in the instrument.
• Each listed jurisdiction is recorded as having a specified relativity factor in the 2016-17 payment year. The instrument confers the recorded status of those factors; it does not confer broader rights within the instrument text (for example, it does not say that a jurisdiction must receive a particular dollar amount).
• There are no procedural or administrative duties stated in the instrument for other Commonwealth officials, nor are obligations imposed on the jurisdictions in question. No reporting, timing, publication or review requirements are set out in the determination.

The instrument does not itself create statutory entitlements to a specified dollar amount: it sets the relativity factors as parameters to be used under the Federal Financial Relations Act 2009 allocation machinery. Any concrete entitlement to dollar payments, timing, or reconciliation will arise from the Act and related administrative processes, which are not reproduced in the instrument. The instrument contains no provisions that articulate rights to challenge the determination, nor does it include steps for internal review, merits review or judicial review. Those pathways, if available, would be established by the parent statute, administrative law principles, or separate procedural instruments , none of which are present in the text provided.

In short, the determination records the Treasurer’s exercise of power under s 8 to set numeric parameters for the 2016-17 payment year; it does not itself set out operational duties for payment or enforcement nor specify procedural rights of the jurisdictions in the text of the instrument.

The determination contains no penalty clauses and does not create offences, fines, or criminal or civil sanctions. The instrument is a declaratory administrative act: it records numeric GST relativity factors and bears the Treasurer’s signature and date. Nowhere in the provided text does the instrument say that non‑compliance with the determination attracts penalties, nor does it set enforcement mechanisms for compliance.

Because the instrument is made under a statutory head of power (s 8 of the Federal Financial Relations Act 2009), enforcement of the instrument’s effect , meaning the application of the recorded relativity factors within the Commonwealth allocation processes , will be administrative rather than penal. Any practical enforcement consists of the responsible Commonwealth agency implementing the factors when calculating and making GST revenue sharing payments to jurisdictions for the 2016-17 payment year. The instrument provides no administrative timetable, no direction about how to implement, and no specification of which agency has the operational role; those matters are governed by the Federal Financial Relations Act framework and administrative practice, not by this determination.

If there is a dispute about the validity of the determination (for example jurisdictional error, lack of power, or procedural unfairness in the making of the determination), remedies would arise under administrative law and the Act rather than from the instrument’s text. The determination itself does not describe review or appeal routes. There are no compliance checklists or enforcement steps in the text.

For practitioners reviewing this document, the practical enforcement reality is that the instrument sets an administrative numerical parameter that will be implemented by payment machinery. There are no direct sanctions in the instrument. Any recourse for a jurisdiction or interested party that seeks to contest the determination’s legality would depend on external processes , judicial review or other statutory remedies available under the Federal Financial Relations Act or general administrative law , none of which are described in the instrument.

The instrument expressly invokes a single provision of primary legislation: section 8 of the Federal Financial Relations Act 2009. That citation is the only statutory cross‑reference printed in the instrument. The determination therefore sits as a subordinate, implementing instrument made under the authority of that Act. The document does not reference other statutes, subsidiary instruments, regulations, or schedules. It does not purport to amend the Act or any other law.

Operationally, determinations of this kind are inputs to the Commonwealth’s broader GST distribution machinery. The instrument’s explicit interaction with other law is therefore limited to the fact that it is an instance of a statutory power being exercised under s 8 of the Federal Financial Relations Act 2009. The instrument does not set out the mechanics of how the relativity factors will be converted into dollar payments, nor does it state how the factors interact with other statutory or regulatory rules (such as rules about baselines, offsets, or reconciliation). Those interactions will be determined by the Federal Financial Relations Act 2009 and associated administrative frameworks and processes, which are not reproduced in the instrument.

Two practical legal observations flow from the instrument’s form:

• The determination is most plausibly an administrative parameter that the Commonwealth will use under the Act. Any legal relationship that flows from the numbers in the table , for example, dollar entitlements or timing of payments , will depend on how the Act and subordinate administrative processes take these relativities into account. The instrument itself contains no statutory conversion rules.
• The instrument contains no conflicting statements about other laws. There is no express saving clause, no cross‑vesting direction, and no mention of supervening law. The absence of such text means that to understand how this instrument fits into the full legal landscape, a user must read the Federal Financial Relations Act 2009 (and any operative administrative rules or guidelines) alongside this determination.

For legal practitioners or compliance officers, the natural next step to understand interaction with other laws is to consult the Federal Financial Relations Act 2009 (including relevant definitions, formulae and payment rules) and any administrative guidance that sets out the conversion of relativities into payments. Those materials are not included in the instrument.

The instrument itself contains no amendment schedule and no indication of prior or subsequent changes within the text provided. It is a standalone determination for a single payment year (2016-17) and is dated 21 April 2016 with the Treasurer’s signature block. The provided text repeats the determination more than once, but each repetition contains the same content and the same date and signature. The text does not contain a note that it revokes or supersedes any prior determination; it does not say, for example, “this determination revokes Determination X made on date Y.” It likewise contains no note of future alteration, sunset beyond the single payment year listed, or amendment procedure.

Procedurally, the instrument is made under s 8 of the Federal Financial Relations Act 2009. The form of the instrument implies that any amendment or replacement of these particular relativity factors for a different payment year would ordinarily be effected by the Treasurer making a subsequent determination under the same statutory head of power. The instrument does not set out the mechanics for amendment because those mechanics are expected to be those provided by the Act: a further determination under the enabling provision. That process is not specified in the instrument itself.

Because no amendment trail is recorded within the document, users who require historical context (for example finance officers, auditors or researchers) must seek the sequence of determinations and any revocations through official channels: the Commonwealth’s Federal Register of Legislation, the Commonwealth Treasury’s publications, or departmental files. The instrument as provided is a snapshot , a single determination for 2016-17 , and the text does not provide a record of prior or subsequent administrative acts.

If a reader needs to know whether the numbers were amended, corrected or subsequently superseded, the instrument itself does not answer that question. The appropriate compliance step is to check the official legislative register or the Treasurer’s published determinations covering surrounding years for any later or earlier instruments that amend or replace these factors.

The determination contains no record of litigation, and the text supplied does not assert any judicial history or proceedings concerning the numbers or the making of the determination. There are no footnotes, no references to court decisions, and no statements that the determination has been subject to challenge. The text is purely the Treasurer’s exercise of the s 8 power recorded in a single document that lists the relativity factors and provides a date and signature.

Because the instrument itself does not record litigation, any inquiry into litigation history must proceed to external sources: court databases, administrative law reports, or legal research platforms. The instrument gives no indication of dispute, settlement, or judicial scrutiny. That absence in the instrument is a factual observation: there is no litigation history contained in the document as presented.

For practitioners, the absence of litigation in the instrument should be treated cautiously. It does not, in itself, mean there has been no challenge; it only means the instrument does not document any such challenge. If a client’s interests require certainty about whether these relativity factors or the Treasurer’s exercise of s 8 were ever litigated, a targeted search of judicial decisions, tribunal records and administrative law reports for the period surrounding or subsequent to 2016-17 is necessary. The instrument offers no internal signposting to any such materials.

There are multiple practical detail risks and interpretation points in this determination that can trip up practitioners who rely on the instrument in budget, audit, compliance or legal contexts.

1. Terminology in the header versus content. The table header uses the word “State” while rows include the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory. This mismatch between label and content can create confusion in automated processes or template‑driven reporting that filters for “State” only. Treat the label as a presentational heading and the row entries as the operative jurisdiction identifiers.

2. Precision and rounding. The factors are recorded to five decimal places. If downstream systems expect different precision (for example, three decimal places or whole percentage points) reconciling rounding practices becomes material. Ensure any conversion into dollar allocations uses the precise factor provided unless a legislative rounding rule exists in the Federal Financial Relations Act or other implementing rules.

3. Asymmetry in values. The Northern Territory factor is high (5.28450) and Western Australia’s factor is low (0.30330). Those extreme disparities are factual in the instrument and will have concentrated budgetary effects when the factors are applied. Parties relying on mid‑range assumptions should verify the impact of these particular numbers on their cash‑flow models.

4. Single‑year scope. The determination is expressly for the “2016‑17 payment year.” Do not assume continuity of the same numbers for other payment years. Payment‑year boundaries matter. Confirm whether the parent statute differentiates “payment year” from “financial year” and whether the jurisdiction’s internal accounts use the same terminology.

5. No explanatory material. The instrument contains no calculations, no schedule showing inputs and no indication of whether the numbers are provisional, corrected or final. That absence creates implementation risk: where administrative officials need to justify an allocation, they will need to refer to the parent Act or internal files for explanatory material.

6. Formatting and duplication. The provided text contains repeated blocks and HTML formatting fragments. Be careful when extracting numbers programmatically: the broken date string in the HTML (“201” “6” split) and duplicated content increase the risk of transcription errors. Treat the signed, dated instrument on the official register as the authoritative source.

7. No enforcement, review or appeal text. The instrument does not state how to challenge the values or set out review procedures. If a jurisdiction intends to contest the numbers, the instrument does not itself indicate procedural steps. Check the Act and consider legal advice on contestability and available remedies.

8. Dependency on the Federal Financial Relations Act 2009. The instrument’s legal status and application depend upon the statutory scheme. Any interpretation that affects entitlements or timing must be reconciled with the Act , the determination alone is not self‑sufficient.

Address these operational “gotchas” by using the instrument as a parameter sheet: verify values against the official legislative register, confirm decimal precision, ensure the correct jurisdiction mapping, and procure the statutory or administrative context for conversion to dollar payments.

For legal, accounting and finance teams that must integrate this instrument into operations, compliance is chiefly administrative and documentary. The instrument is not prescriptive about steps, so compliance means adopting an accurate, auditable process to use the recorded relativity factors in the jurisdiction’s 2016-17 payment year accounting. Suggested concrete steps are:

1. Source verification. Obtain the official copy of the Treasurer’s determination from the Federal Register of Legislation or the Commonwealth Treasury’s records. Confirm the signature block, the date (21 April 2016) and the exact numeric values as recorded: NSW 0.90464; VIC 0.90967; QLD 1.17109; WA 0.30330; SA 1.41695; TAS 1.77693; ACT 1.15648; NT 5.28450. Do not rely on secondary copies or OCR extractions without cross‑checking.

2. Record keeping. Document the instrument in the jurisdiction’s statutory instruments register and in the finance department’s revenue projection files. Tag the instrument as a “2016-17 payment year” determination and note the enabling provision cited in the instrument (s 8, Federal Financial Relations Act 2009).

3. Integrate into modelling. Use the exact decimal factors provided when modelling GST receipts and cash flows for 2016-17. Ensure spreadsheet formulas reference the recorded factors and that rounding rules are explicitly noted. Where system limitations force rounding, record and publish the rounding methodology to maintain an audit trail.

4. Reconcile with Commonwealth calculations. Coordinate with the Commonwealth payment authority (normally the Treasury or the relevant payments branch) to confirm how the factors will be converted into dollar allocations, timing of payments, and reconciliation statements. Obtain the Commonwealth’s calculation summary or payment schedule that shows the application of the factors to the GST pool.

5. Audit and internal control. Put in place an internal control checklist for the month(s) when GST payments are made that confirms the factor used by the Commonwealth matches the factor in the instrument. Require written confirmation from Commonwealth payment units if payments differ from projections.

6. Legal due diligence. If there are concerns about the determination’s validity or the process by which it was made, seek legal advice. The instrument itself does not list remedies; a lawyer should check the Federal Financial Relations Act 2009 and administrative law principles to identify possible review or challenge routes.

7. Communication with stakeholders. Prepare internal briefing notes for ministers and senior officials that set out the numbers, the date of the determination, and estimated revenue impacts. For public transparency, ensure any external communications use the exact figures from the instrument and direct users to the official published determination.

8. Contingency planning. Given the asymmetric factors (for example NT high, WA low), prepare contingency scenarios for material deviations between projected and actual receipts. That protects service delivery plans against cash‑flow misalignments caused by the distributional effect of the recorded factors.

9. Archive and reference. Keep an archived copy of the determination in both legal and financial records with clear metadata: source, date, citation (Treasurer’s Determination under s 8, Federal Financial Relations Act 2009), and signatures. Where systems require numeric IDs, attach an internal reference code to the instrument for traceability.

10. Continuous monitoring. Check for any subsequent Treasurer determinations that may amend or supersede the 2016-17 factors, noting that the instrument makes no amendment provision itself. Regularly inspect the Federal Register of Legislation and Commonwealth Treasury releases for follow‑up determinations or explanatory material.

These steps treat the determination as a binding administrative input that must be accurately reflected in internal accounting and external reconciliation. The instrument contains no obligations beyond setting the numeric parameters, so the compliance burden is to ensure faithful, auditable application of those parameters within the statutory framework administered under the Federal Financial Relations Act 2009.