Prime Minister Tony Abbott has said he is “open” to preventing any state from having to hand over more than half of the GST it raises, following a tense meeting in Canberra.

The 50-cents-in-the-dollar proposal was raised after Western Australian Premier Colin Barnett complained his state is due to receive just 30 cents in the coming financial year.

“I’m not saying it’s going to be accepted, but we should be prepared to consider that,” said Mr Abbott of the proposal.

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“I do stress I have considerable sympathy for Colin … but we do have to resolve this issue in a way that is fair to every one.” Making changes “on the fly” was not fair, he said.

In the meantime, Mr Abbott said he had no intention of providing a $300 million hand out to the WA government, but said he was open to assisting the state on infrastructure projects.

Beyond that he gave no details.

After listening to the NSW, Queensland, Victoria and South Australia premiers talking enthusiastically about agreements on domestic violence, ice and counter-terrorism, Colin Barnett began his speech by saying: “I must have been at a different meeting.”

He said Western Australia feels “very poorly treated”, adding that the way GST distribution is decided, far from being equitable, is “exacerbating the cyclicle swings. It’s dysfunctional and time’s up.

“The reality is WA is effectively borrowing money to make payments to other states,” he said.

Mr Abbot said for the first time there would be a ‘COAG leaders’ retreat’ in July, at which deeper structural reform would be discussed, including reforms to the GST.

“I’m very conscious of the fact that for the next 12 months Australia has an election free-zone,” he said. This presented an opportunity to enact deep structural reform, “if we are prepared to grasp that nettle”.

Apart from the Mr Barnett, the state premiers were upbeat about following todays meeting, in particular finding common ground on domestic violence, which Victorian premier Daniel Andrews described as a “national emergency”.