Hounded by Western Australian journalists to lock in the Morrison-era funding arrangement, which the Productivity Commission said in a recent report should be scrapped, the prime minister was unequivocal.
"WA is a major driver of our national economy, and they deserve their fair share of the GST," he told reporters in Perth on Monday.
"I've said it multiple times. I've signed people's body parts, for goodness sake."
Mr Albanese was referring to a 2024 press conference in which he took a permanent marker and inscribed "no change to WA GST" on the arm of a newspaper reporter, before adding his signature.
The reporter - Dylan Caporn - is now a media adviser to WA Premier Roger Cook, who has been outspoken in his defence of the deal.
When the Productivity Commission released its report calling for an end to the 2018 GST deal earlier in August, Mr Cook called them "east coast clowns" who don't get WA .
Mr Albanese, who has been a frequent visitor of Western Australia since securing nine out of 15 seats in the state in 2022, "gets WA", Mr Cook said.
"I think every Western Australian is both relieved and pleased to hear the words from the prime minister today that Western Australia's arrangements for the GST will remain," he said.
"You don't come to Western Australia on 45 occasions without appreciating that the Western Australian economy is driving the national economy, and we are very pleased that the prime minister has backed WA."
But Nationals leader Matt Canavan said Mr Albanese's assurance that WA would receive its fair share were "weasel words", calling on him to get his pledge tattooed on his own arm.
"What the Western Australian people want, what businesses want is certainty that there will be no change," the Queenslander told reporters in Ipswich.
NSW Treasurer Daniel Mookhey acknowledged that the other states were facing an uphill battle to persuade federal parliament to change the GST system.
But every state and territory bar one, including Senator Canavan's LNP allies in Queensland, agreed that the current system rewarded some Australians more than others and that needed to change, Mr Mookhey said.
"Our proposition here in New South Wales is really straightforward," he told News24.
"An Australian that lives in Cairns, an Australian that lives in Cabramatta, is entitled to the same services as an Australian who lives in Cottesloe in West Australia, and that is the principle that we're arguing for."
The Productivity Commission's report found that the "perverse" deal had cost federal taxpayers $23 billion in top-up payments since it was struck, with $22 billion of that flowing across the Nullarbor to prop up the WA government's budget surplus.
The federal budget forecasts the deal will cost $6.6 billion in 2026/27 and $60 billion in total by the end of the decade.
Instead of the current method, which means WA's per capita GST share can effectively go no lower than NSW's, the Productivity Commission recommended returning to a system similar to the pre-2018 method which apportions GST revenue to states based on need.
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