It’s becoming increasingly difficult to believe much of what Treasurer Scott Morrison says on tax. First he pitched a GST increase, only for that to be taken off the table. Then he spoke of negative gearing “excesses” before they too were removed from the agenda. Then income tax cuts, so necessary to address the scourge of bracket creep, vanished as well. It’s as if Morrison’s advocacy is the kiss of death for any reform proposal.

As part of the tax debate, Morrison has been adamant that the states and territories will not be given extra funding — buckets of money, he called it repeatedly — to make up for the significant cut in future funding for health and education imposed by the Abbott government in 2014 when it reduced the level of indexation for payments to the states.

Now, media reports suggest that the government — doubtless with one eye on the election — is looking at ways to strike a funding deal with the states and territories to at least partly address that cut.

The broader policy issue in all this for the Commonwealth is that health and education are vitally important economically, fiscally and in terms of employment. One in five Australian workers is employed in health, education or social care. But these sectors are also the hardest to measure in terms of efficiency and effectiveness. The Gillard government made significant improvements to the funding models for both health and education, to better encourage efficiency and transparency. This was at the cost of increasing funding to the states, but given the importance of these sectors, it was a price worth paying. Turnbull should follow Labor’s lead.