"I think for the first time we have a conservative leader, Mike Baird, who has actually been prepared to stand up and say what needs to be said about the fact that there is a revenue deficit in this country," Mr Weatherill told ABC radio on Tuesday morning. South Australia Premier Jay Weatherill. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen "We have never had a conservative leader stand up before and say that we need to lift taxes rather than just cut them and hand them back to their mates in business." Mr Weatherill said he would only support the hike on strict conditions and certainly not for "Joe [Hockey] to hand over some tax cuts to his mates." "It can't be frittered away on other things, certainly not on tax cuts," he said. "There are a lot of details that we would have to be satisfied with before are prepared to sign up to this.

"What we want to do is to use the revenue that is raised from this to protect an important public service, that is the funding of public hospitals and also public education." Mr Hockey on Sunday said he hoped to take a series of tax cuts to the next election. Mr Weatherill said the public health care system was one of Labor's great policy projects. "If we can't fund it and it collapses it is going to devastating for the sort of people who rely on Labor governments," he said. But the federal Minister for Health, Sussan Ley, said the Coalition doesn't like to raise taxes and that she certainly didn't approve of raising taxes to fund an inefficient health system.

It can't be frittered away on other things, certainly not on tax cuts "The best approach is to make that health system as efficient as possible before we even consider adding more dollars," she told reporters in western Sydney on Monday. "It's not always about paying dollars. "In all of the consultations I've had with doctors, with clinicians, with patients, they've all come back to me with ideas of where we can save money in the health system," she said. Mr Baird on Monday proposed lifting the GST to 15 per cent to provide enough revenue to fund the national health system and prevent the federal-state financial system from "tumbling over a fiscal cliff". Mr Baird will put his proposal to a tax summit attended by Prime Minister Tony Abbott and state and territory leaders on Wednesday.

The summit has been called to address the $80 billion funding cuts that were announced in Mr Hockey's first federal budget in 2014. with Sean Nicholls Follow us on Twitter