Government calls off drought, health and education discussions while it finalises new positions

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Scott Morrison has cancelled a Coag gathering with the premiers scheduled for October, with officials telling their state counterparts various reforms are not yet ready for detailed discussion.

The prime minister has communicated that position to the premiers and officials conveyed the commonwealth’s decision to state counterparts in Sydney on Tuesday night. A meeting scheduled for December is expected to proceed.

Guardian Australia understands a summit scheduled to run with the October Coag meeting focused on reducing violence against women will go ahead, with the minister for women, Kelly O’Dwyer, heading that two-day discussion.

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But senior officials confirmed the broader discussion would be deferred until the new government settled its revised position on health and education funding. The new federal education minister, Dan Tehan, is working up a political fix on Catholic schools.

The new government also wants to do more work on a package of measures to reduce power prices, and on the closing the gap strategy on Indigenous disadvantage.

It also wants the states to persist with implementing the reliability component of the now dumped national energy guarantee. Canberra has junked the emissions reduction component of the scheme.

State energy ministers were also supposed to meet later this month. It is unclear whether or not that meeting will proceed.

The October Coag meeting was originally supposed to consider drought, health funding and measures to reduce family violence – but the leadership change in Canberra has blown the schedule off course, and also affected normal parliamentary business, with the Senate this week on something of a go-slow.

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Morrison is enduring another difficult week attempting to stabilise his government after the leadership eruption, with another marginal seat-holder, Ann Sudmalis, confirming on Tuesday she will not stand at the next election.

Sudmalis used parliamentary privilege to blast a state Liberal MP, Gareth Ward, accusing him of “bullying, betrayal and backstabbing” and flexing “his vengeance on strong Liberal women” – claims Ward denies.

The prime minister used the regular party room meeting on Tuesday to encourage his MPs to settle, and to rally, telling them the government was everyone’s government – not his government, or new treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s government – “and we have to own it”.