Both the Liberals and One Nation refuse to see the contemporary world as it really is

July 23, 2026 — 3:00am

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Bitter rivals? Brothers and sisters in arms in the cause of the political right? Frenemies? How best to characterise the relationship between the Coalition parties and One Nation? It’s not easy to land on the right description. Are they opposed profoundly to each other on policy grounds and their respective visions for Australia or are the areas of overlap more considerable than the differences?

Angus Taylor gave an important speech to the Sydney Institute this month in which he excoriated One Nation. After dancing around awkwardly for five months as he avoided speaking negatively about One Nation and Pauline Hanson, Taylor found a new groove and warned of “an eternity of pain” for the nation should they get anywhere near the reins of power. One Nation would make “things worse” because the party is a “column of smoke”.

Was he speaking from a position of conviction or desperation? It’s not as if Hanson was some new phenomenon with a hitherto unrevealed worldview and set of prescriptions. If he’d come to the leadership in February speaking with such force and certitude, his new stance would be more credible. Instead, at the start he echoed Hanson on immigration and the rejection of climate change as a serious problem. Later, he promised to deny welfare and the NDIS to non-citizens residing in Australia. He was unbothered by preference swaps with One Nation, as were the recently installed Liberal federal president Tony Abbott and the Liberals’ spiritual leader John Howard.

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