A Legislative Council committee examining the impact of the system of GST distributions on the state's expenses and ability to deliver essential services will resume on Monday.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
It will also examine the impact of a rearranged GST distribution method.
The committee will hear from representatives from Treasury and independent health policy analyst Martyn Goddard.
Treasury has submitted to the committee expenditure assessments made by the Commonwealth Grants Commission, which is responsible for GST distributions to states, were not intended to be a measure of what a state should spend on particular service areas.
"Comparisons have been made between Tasmania's actual and assessed expenditures and, based on these comparisons, have erroneously argued that Tasmania is underspending in certain service delivery areas such as health," it said.
It said the assessed per-capita expenditure and actual per-capita expenditure was $10,997 compared to $10,086 between 2015-16 and 2017-18.
Data provided by Treasury over that period showed a dip in per-capita expenditure in housing, health, welfare, services to communities, roads and transport but a lift in expenditure for schools.
Mr Goddard said the state's per-capita health spend in 2016-17 was $176 million less even than the national average.
"Tasmania has the nation's oldest, sickest and poorest population," he said.
"Over the seven years from 2010-11 to 2016-17, the health system was underfunded by $2.73 billion."