Aussie PM rules out early polls as coalition works on reform plan

Canberra

AUSTRALIAN Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has two options as he seeks re-election this year - the short game, or the long. He's chosen the long. Instead of capitalising on his personal popularity among Australian voters and calling an early election, his Liberal-National coalition government is taking time to craft an economic agenda including overhauling the tax system - and isn't planning to go to the polls before the third quarter.

"We have to lay out our economic reform programme, we have to lay out all of our policies," Mr Turnbull said in a radio interview on Friday. "We have to present them, explain them, and then we have to take them to the people. That takes some time."

While Mr Turnbull has catapulted the government to an election-winning lead in opinion polls since taking the helm in September, voters are waiting for him to flesh out an economic vision that he said predecessor Tony Abbott was lacking when he ousted him as leader in a party-room vote. A key policy he's yet to deliver is taxation reform - which the government says is needed to boost growth that's run below average for six of the past seven y…