Maybe I owe Malcolm Turnbull  an apology – and he’s not as ‘understandable’ as I had thought? Could state income taxes have simply been his attempt to show the right wing of his party he had ‘tried’ to promote their preferred tax reform?

As Michael Pascoe noted on The Drum yesterday, it was passing strange that if the PM was genuinely promoting income taxes for the states he hadn’t discussed it earlier with the premiers, instead of simply springing the idea upon them.

Could the following have been Malcolm’s real agenda? THE AGE this morning reports (page 4):  “However, Turnbull was able to claim some wins after extracting a commitment from states to embark on genuine internal reform of their revenue raising and transparency measures. This would include beginning the reform process and the shift from inefficient taxes such as stamp duties, to more efficient ones such as land taxes.”

That would certainly be a move in the right direction!