When One Nation leader Pauline Hanson addresses the National Press Club on June 17, there will be landmines everywhere.

It’s her first formal speech to the club in her 30-year (on and off) parliamentary career. How times have changed. When she spoke at a One Nation meeting there in July 1997, a contemporary report said the gathering was held at the club “after being refused permission to use other venues. The Press Club decided to host the meeting on the basis that it is a forum for ‘free speech’”.

For Hanson, this month’s address a big opportunity. It’s also a big risk.

Come across well, and it’s another step forward for one of the most unlikely major political figures of our time. Stuff it up, and all her flaws will be on national display.

And there are multiple potential pitfalls. Making a thin address that lacks any credibility. Giving bad answers to questions, or not being able to answer them. Most dangerous of all, a firecracker loss of temper with journalists, for whom she has disdain.

A leader appearing at the NPC faces a higher-than-usual bar. Those who have to prep Hanson, including Barnaby Joyce, have their work cut out.

There’ll be a few landmines for the journalists to avoid, too. They’ll be detonated if questioners come across as snide or arrogant.

It’s the time for the deep dive not just on Hanson but, importantly, on how her rapidly expanding party is behaving on the ground.

Margo Kingston, who as a reporter covered Hanson in the 1990s, last month attended a One Nation branch meeting in Taree, New South Wales. Margo is (sort of) retired but old habits die hard, and she recorded proceedings and took some photos of what had been advertised as a “public event”. She was accosted (she hadn’t realised she was supposed to register) and a branch official gave her a hard time.

This comes after the ABC was banned from a press conference in Farrer.

With One Nation surging past Labor in polling published this week, Hanson’s role as a disruptor in federal politics has echoes – despite the very many differences – of the “Joh for Canberra” push by then Queensland premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen. Finally that imploded, but not before it split the Coalition and helped Bob Hawke win his third term in 1987.

While Labor is increasingly concerned about the potential longer-term threat of Hanson, this week its attention was squarely on more immediate problems.

Attacks on the budget have not abated. (In a sort of black joke, former treasurer Joe Hockey was one of those taking pot shots; Hockey knows a thing or two about unpopular budgets, having delivered a doozy in 2014.)

Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ task is to get the legislation through for the shakeup of capital gains tax and negative gearing before parliament rises on July 2 – while keeping compromises as limited as possible.

The debate currently centres on what carve-outs will be made to the new CGT regime (still being discussed with stakeholders), and the discretionary powers the legislation gives the treasurer (the government stresses their use can be disallowed by parliament).

The government’s big budget pitch was promoting home ownership for the young. But this has been muddied by the falls in auction clearance rates. The earlier preoccupation with rising prices suddenly switched to talk about the danger of falling prices that could mean those who’ve borrowed with small deposits (thanks to government help) could find themselves with negative equity in their property.

The legislation passed the House of Representatives on Thursday. There’s a brief Senate inquiry, but with only two days for public hearings and a report that will be written along party lines. There could be some haggling at the margins with the Greens in the Senate.

With the furore over its tax changes, and very ordinary economic growth figures in Wednesday’s national accounts (0.3% for the March quarter, 2.5% annual), the re-eruption of the AUKUS issue was unhelpful for the government.

Former minister Ed Husic urged that AUKUS be reconsidered, after an announcement Australia will receive three used (pre-loved?) Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines rather than the earlier expected two used and one new boat.

The predictable criticisms of AUKUS that followed from the usual voices might be less noteworthy than how the issue again demonstrated the government’s commitment to secrecy (or its lack of command of detail).

Appearing on the ABC on Wednesday, Defence Minister Richard Marles confirmed that the Australian government had all along preferred the three ships to be secondhand – “it makes it easier”.

There would be a difference in firepower between new and old boats. No matter, it seems, because “there is a big premium on the consistency” (interchangeable crews and the like).

Old boats have shorter lifespans than a new one. So what will be the lifespan of the old ones? “I can’t go into the specifics of that,” Marles said. Ten years, 15 years of life left? “More than that, but I’m not going to go further than that in answering your question.”

The used boat will be cheaper. So how much will be saved? “I’m not in a position to go into the detail of that. […] There’s a process to be worked through here.” The third boat will be “significantly cheaper” than a new one but that will make little difference to the cost of the overall $368 billion AUKUS program, Marles said.

Husic would be happy to see Marles on the spot. The deputy prime minister was central in ousting Husic from the ministry after the election, in a factional power play. Husic at the time called Marles a “factional assassin”.

Albanese can’t control Husic, but he retains, for the most part, his tight grip on the rest of his caucus. One of Albanese’s greatest strengths is his ability to keep his troops in line. Without that solidarity, the government would be in much more trouble.

A number of caucus members have reservations about aspects of the budget but have held their tongues.

Husic on Thursday said that a lot of colleagues had privately welcomed his AUKUS comments.

But “all these ministers lined up this week to respond to the things I’ve said, and it’s designed to sort of put a heavy blanket, heavy layer, to stop people from doing exactly what I’ve done,” he told the ABC. ´ “I think the sort of emphasis on rigidity and the emphasis on compliance is not healthy for the party.”

And, in a well-directed jab, he added that he didn’t think Albanese “would have tolerated this when he wasn’t leader. You know, he often spoke up on things that he cared about, and good on him, when it was big enough for those calls to be made.”

Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Despite One Nation having only two House of Representatives seats, politically-savvy observers now believe it is possible the insurgent party could be the de facto opposition that Labor faces in 2028.

Two Redbridge polls have carried this message.

The first, a seat-by-seat mapping of the country, published by the Australian Financial Review last month, suggested that in an election held now, the Coalition would be almost wiped out by the One Nation surge.

The latest poll, taken in the wake of the budget and published by the AFR on Sunday, has One Nation ahead of Labor (for the first time) and the Coalition continuing to languish. One Nation’s primary vote was 31% to Labor’s 28% with the Coalition at 20%.

One Nation, it seems, is the party that’s received a “bounce” from an unpopular budget, up four points in a month, while both Labor and the Coalition went backwards.

As preferred prime minister, Pauline Hanson trails Anthony Albanese 25% to 31%, with Angus Taylor on 14%.

The day Taylor set foot in parliament in 2013, or indeed before that, he was seen as a potential leader, a possible future prime minister. When Pauline Hanson arrived in the House of Representatives in 1996, she was regarded as a political outsider, disendorsed by the Liberals for racist comments.

Now Hanson is being asked – seriously – if she wants to be prime minister.

When that question was put to her on Sky by Andrew Clennell on Sunday, Hanson repeated it, rhetorically, before answering:

Do I want to be prime minister?

Well, I’ll tell you what, I won’t knock back the job Andrew, because I believe that I have the ability to do it. I’m not going to underestimate myself or say ‘no, I can’t do it’ because you know, have a look at what we’ve got now. Really? Honestly?

She echoed her self-confidence on Monday.

Most leaders in Hanson’s situation (a senator, leading a party with just six seats in total, including both houses) would probably have demurred, saying “we’re a long way from talking about that”.

But in that answer we see the unvarnished Hanson – a woman who both believes in herself, and thinks – and resents – that she has been underestimated all her political life. Of course she’s convinced she could do the job – and she has reached the stage of saying that outright.

Taylor must have difficulty believing things have come to their present pass. A senior minister in the Morrison government, which had won a “miracle” election victory, he now presides over a party that appears to be declining by the week, with its supporters and some of its rank-and-file members jumping to Hanson.

Albanese, for his part, can’t quite get his head around the fact that a woman who does not even bother turning up for parliamentary business when she doesn’t feel like it, and used to be a near political pariah for her more extreme views, is now, according to the polls, in line to win a heap of lower house seats at the next election.

The attention has been on the threat One Nation poses to the Liberals and Nationals, but within Labor, the strategists are taking seriously the rapidly changing political landscape.

Although the election is two years off and everything could change, Labor planning is underway for the contingency that come 2028, the main fight could be between the government and One Nation, with the Coalition a secondary player.

In 2025 Albanese had to adapt, and adopt appropriate tactics, to combat what appeared to be a surging Coalition (in retrospect that was probably never as real as it looked at the time). Next election, a similar adaptation to new circumstances might be required.

The challenge for Labor, while being mulled over currently, is in the future. For the Liberals, things are desperate now.

In this situation, the wisdom of installing Tony Abbott as their federal president is still an open question for Liberals.

Shadow Treasurer Tim Wilson said Abbott’s role would be “administrative”.

Abbott’s take certainly seemed more expansive. “I don’t expect to be in the media every day,” he told the ABC.

“But on the other hand, I do think that my presence now, in this senior role will demonstrate to people who might have been sceptical that the Liberal Party is fair dinkum about abolishing net zero, fair dinkum about cutting back mass migration, fair dinkum about scrapping taxes - because my government was actually very good at that.

"My presence, I think, is an indicator that the Liberal Party hasn’t forgotten how to be a very, very good government.

"Look, the party president, is the organisational leader, not the political leader. But I don’t think there’s ever been a party president who’s taken a vow of silence, and I’m certainly not going to start.”

Taylor’s problem is that Abbott is better media talent than he is, and their mutual problem is that Abbott loves the spotlight.

Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Liberal frontbencher Andrew Hastie has become a special target for One Nation over his willingness to give evidence against Victoria Cross winner Ben Roberts-Smith, who has been charged with five counts of the war crime of murder.

One Nation used the Roberts-Smith issue in the Farrer byelection, with corflutes declaring HE FOUGHT FOR US. ONE NATION STANDS WITH HIM".

James Ashby, Pauline Hanson’s top adviser and a long term leading strategist in the party, on Tuesday delivered a very direct political threat to Hastie.

“We stand by all of our defence force members, and that is one thing that Andrew Hastie is forgetting.

"What I will say to Andrew Hastie is that we’ve got 430 One Nation members in his electorate [of Canning in Western Australia]”, Ashby said on Sky.

“I did seek the number from our office before coming on air tonight.

"So we’re a strong 430 registered, paid up members of One Nation in that seat, and they expect us to run a very strong candidate.”

Ashby said One Nation would stand by Roberts-Smith “right to the very end, despite what the allegations are.”

He dismissed a rumour that Roberts-Smith (who is subject to strict bail conditions) could run in Canning. “He’s not standing for us, but we will stand by Ben Roberts-Smith.”

Canning was one of four WA seats Pauline Hanson named at the weekend as campaign priorities. The others were Forrest, Hasluck and Pearce.

Hastie, who was in the Special Air Service Regiment (SAS) and served in Afghanistan with Roberts-Smith, gave evidence for the defence in Roberts-Smith’s failed defamation case, and expects to be called in a trial.

He has been the target of a ferocious social media campaign for his stand. The Roberts-Smith issue has divided former SAS colleagues (some of whom made allegations against him), and also split Liberals. The furore has been a major political setback for Hastie, who has his eyes on the Liberal leadership.

Hastie said when Roberts-Smith was arrested: “As a qualified member of the SAS, I was present on one of the operational missions in 2012 that was examined by the Federal Court. I gave testimony under oath, as required by law.

"Mr Roberts-Smith is now facing criminal charges in relation to this operational mission, so it is possible that I will be called as a witness to this trial. I urge every Australian to respect the rule of law, the criminal justice system, and the accused’s right to a presumption of innocence and a fair trial. Therefore, I will not prejudice this trial by making any further comment.”

Hastie said on Wednesday: “I don’t live in fear of threats made by political operatives.

"My mission is simple: to defeat the Albanese government at the next election.

"If One Nation shares the same mission, why are they targeting a centre-right MP like me? Their strategy makes no sense. Who is pulling the strings in the background?

"I will fight hard, and I won’t be deterred.”

Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

At the 2022 election “integrity” was a big-deal issue. Then after winning government, Labor ticked off a promise when it set up the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC), which began officially in July 2023.

By now the NACC should be a well-functioning, well-respected body, kicking goals, enjoying public trust.

But, in an extraordinary irony, the NACC has become best known for “own goals”, rocked by internal scandals and attracting a litany of complaints. This week things reached the point where its commissioner, Paul Brereton, announced his resignation – two years short of serving his five year term – declaring he had become “a distraction”.

A former New South Wales Supreme Court judge, Brereton came to the job with a formidable reputation, including having conducted the inquiry into allegations of Australian war crimes in Afghanistan. He looked an ideal candidate.

But at the commission he became embroiled in not just one, but two, conflict-of-interest issues.

In 2024 the Inspector of the NACC found he had committed “officer misconduct”, because he failed to adequately recuse himself when the commission was dealing with referrals from the Robodebt royal commission. Brereton had had a professional relationship (through his senior position in the Army Reserve) with one of those referred, Kathryn Campbell, a former senior public servant.

Now another report from the Inspector of the NACC is soon to drop. It deals with Brereton’s undertaking consultancy work for the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force while in his NACC post.

“I think everyone contributes to their own downfall […] in some ways and I am sure I have contributed to this in some ways” Brereton told a Senate estimates hearing on Tuesday. The surprising thing is that Brereton, with his vast legal experience, could land himself in such obvious pitfalls.

But personal misjudgements have not been the only problems under Brereton’s leadership. Critics say the NACC doesn’t just need a new head – it needs a “reset”. They believe it has had too low a profile, and too few big hits.

It is also notoriously slow. For example, former Liberal senator Linda Reynolds in August 2023 referred to it the role of then attorney-general Mark Dreyfus in the payment that was provided to Brittany Higgins in the wake of her alleged rape in Parliament House. It took until June last year for the NACC to dismiss the matter.

At the Senate estimates hearing Greens senator Barbara Pocock said she had, on NACC’s first day, referred a matter relating to a consultancy firm, PWC. Nearly three years on, she had not been given any information about her complaint. When she confronted him, Brereton obfuscated, during an evidence session in which he did not disguise his displeasure at the questioning.

Pocock said later: “Australians’ faith in the NACC has been undermined by the slowness of progress on significant matters and the lack of communication about these matters and the general operation of the NACC has not helped.

"The Commissioner’s tone [at the hearing] was consistent on this in my view: his belittling of citizen’s complaints and his haughty response to concerns about conflicts of interest and untimely outcomes like the PWC matter. Time for a reset, that’s for sure.”

After the NACC declined to investigate any of the Robodebt referrals, there was an avalanche of complaints from the public. The commission, amid the conflict of interest issue, had to bring in an independent person to redo the work.

The NACC is overseen by a multi-party parliamentary committee, chaired by Labor with independent Helen Haines (who fought hard for an integrity body to be set up) as deputy chair. Its most recent report, tabled this month, is damning.

It said the NACC needed to reduce the backlog of referrals, explore ways to communicate more effectively with those making referrals, and focus on “building public trust in its systems and processes”. Given its concerns, the committee said, it had launched an inquiry into the NACC’s performance.

In a pointed message, the committee said “the NACC has a duty to adhere to the highest level of integrity, accountability, and performance to ensure that Australians have confidence” in it.

There’s now unease around the process for selecting the head of the NACC. Crossbench senator David Pocock said, “The appointment of the next commissioner must occur through an independent and merits-based process, that provides Australians with transparency”.

Brereton’s appointment was on a recommendation to cabinet by Dreyfus, following advice from a selection panel. But there was an important check. The appointment had to be cleared by the parliamentary committee. That gave the opposition and crossbench a look in. The parliamentarians asked plenty of questions at the time, but they then unanimously approved Brereton.

Attorney-General Michelle Rowland told parliament on Wednesday, in reply to a question from crossbencher Sophie Scamps about the process for choosing Brereton’s successor, that there was already a merit-based process including advertising and a selection panel. But Haines says there should be more visibility at the start of the process, specifically that the membership of the selection panel should be public.

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Read more: We need a new anti-corruption commissioner. Here’s how to pick the right one

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While problems with the commissioner might, in retrospect, be put down to choosing someone who proved a poor fit, the problem with the excessive secrecy that characterises the NACC is a structural issue, and a difficult one to fix.

When the NACC was being set up there was a big debate about whether, or in what circumstances, it should have public hearings.

Government and opposition were united in wanting to keep things as private as possible.

The legislation provides for public hearings in “exceptional circumstances”. Government sources now claim this was not intended to mean no public hearings, as the commission appears to have taken it. To this point there has not been a single public hearing.

While it’s vital the NACC does not become a place for show trials, any serious “reset” would need to look again at this issue.

Haines says: “The clearest thing to do would be to amend the legislation to remove the exceptional circumstances test. At the very least, the commissioner should publish guidance about exceptional circumstances so the public has a better understanding of the factors considered for a public hearing”.

Whether things are loosened and some public hearings are encouraged will be a key test of how much of a “reset” the NACC will undergo.

Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

This year’s federal budget has been the most controversial since the Abbott government’s 2014 budget, with Labor struggling to sell its new capital gains tax changes and crackdown on trusts.

Its changes have produced howls of outage from those potentially affected, and criticism from some experts.

But there have been notable supporters of the changes. Those in favour find some echoes of past tax reform from the Hawke-Keating and Howard-Costello years.

We’re joined on today’s podcast by Graeme Samuel, the former head of the national competition watchdog, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. He’s a long-time participant in and observer of economic reform, including helping, as the head of a business group, usher in the goods and services tax (GST) back in the 1990s under the Howard Coalition government.

Samuel says the latest budget’s reforms “are actually quite mild” compared to how much Australia was transformed in the 1980s and 1990s.

What Treasurer [Jim] Chalmers has done here is to try and remove the distortions that have been built into the [tax] system through successive governments – I have to say primarily Coalition governments – which have feather-bedded, if you like, those that have got vested interests. For example, in investing in capital and taking capital gains at an extraordinarily generous 50% discount rate.

Samuel says the fierce criticism of the Labor changes shows why politicians have been scared of real reform for too long.

For decades now, we have asked, urged, exhorted, pleaded with our politicians to bring about tax reform. So Treasurer Chalmers does it in this budget – and look at the hue and cry and the cries of woe and doomsday that have flowed. The problem with tax reform is that it’s very complex. It’s very complex indeed.

And probably the best economist that’s been able to explain it in all this has been Saul Eslake. And he puts it […] very, very simply: why should wage earners pay more, bear a greater share of the burden, for the provision of our hospitals, our schools, our police force, and our defence, than those who have got the benefits of capital gains, tax concessions, and the use of trusts?

Samuel says some media outlets had given people with “vested interests” against the budget too much uncritical coverage.

They’re ably assisted, unfortunately, by sections of our traditional media. And we know who they are at present. As you read the traditional media, particularly the financial press and The Australian, you don’t actually have to read the articles. You look at the byline, you know immediately what’s going to be said. It is quite extraordinary.

It reminded him of the “end of the world” claims he heard back more than two decades ago, when he was the National Competition Council’s president and helping the Howard government introduce the GST.

When we did that, there were esteemed (or self-esteemed) economists who said that this was going to be the end of the world, that what it will do is to bring in rampant inflation. And small businesses will fail, like a tsunami had hit them. It didn’t happen. Didn’t happen. We’ve got the GST today.

On supermarket competition

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has taken legal action against supermarket giants Woolworths and Coles. Last month, the consumer watchdog had a win when a court found Coles had misled shoppers with its “Down Down” discounts.

Asked about the supermarkets’ public reputation, he agreed they’ve “copped a reputation battering” – but argued some of that has been unfair.

The real problem that Coles and Woolies have had to face has been the slagging of them by a combination of politicians and […] at least one of my predecessors [… Yet] there’s been the opinion expressed by Justice O'Bryan in the federal court that says there’s no price gouging here, there’s been no excessive pricing.

A 2025 ACCC report found “the supermarket industry is highly concentrated”, with two-thirds of supermarket grocery sales made at Woolworths and Coles, leaving only a small share for competitors such as Aldi and independent stores.

But Samuel said there’s now stronger competition than many people realise, including from online retailers.

Amazon is proving to be a very significant competitor in this area […] What we’ve got now is some very vigorous competition occurring, to the point that Aldi now is having to reduce prices to ward off the competition coming from Coles and Woolworths. Who would have thought that would occur?

On fuel prices

The ACCC was given another $67.7 million over four years in last month’s budget to strengthen competition and consumer law enforcement, with much of for monitoring petrol pricing.

Yet Samuel said there’s nothing the ACCC can do to significantly change petrol prices.

I’m sorry, I have to laugh every time I hear about petrol price monitoring. Because, you know, we used to do it back in when I was there as chair, and I had a full report on petrol prices and the like.

There is nothing the ACCC can do about petrol prices, other than to be sure that there is proper competition occurring, that there are no price fixing arrangements occurring between retailers and the like. But in the end, petrol prices are set by international factors.

Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Yet another poll and yet another result showing Pauline Hanson’s One Nation ahead of Labor at a national level, with the Coalition way behind.

The latest Newspoll has confirmed the trend is clear. Labor is becoming increasingly alarmed, while the Coalition has long been in panic.

Meanwhile, at a state level, polling by Freshwater for the Herald Sun shows Labor running third in Victoria behind the Coalition and One Nation. Almost two-thirds (62%) of the 1,034 people polled also backed replacing Jacinta Allan as premier before the November election – including 39% of Labor voters surveyed.

To discuss why the Victorian election matters nationally, as well as the ongoing federal budget fallout, we’re joined on the podcast by pollster and Redbridge Group director Simon Welsh.

He’s spent more than 20 years in market and social research, including doing qualitative research for the Daniel Andrews Labor government’s successful re-election campaign in 2018.

The Victorian election will be the next electoral test of One Nation’s recent rise – and Welsh predicts it will be “very, very messy” to watch.

On Victoria’s ‘messy’ three-way contest

Welsh said Labor’s vote in Victoria has now fallen “down to its base”. Given One Nation and the Coalition are both polling slightly higher, he understands why many people assume the Allan government will lose the election.

But it’s not quite that simple.

He said One Nation and Coalition had more support statewide, but their votes fall mainly in the same regional or outer suburban areas.

For now, Labor’s vote is holding up middle suburban seats in and around Melbourne, where the most seats are, still giving Labor

a foundation to potentially get close to majority government, even with the polls sort of sitting where it is now. [Labor’s] overlay of its primary vote on the political geography of Victoria is much more favourable than the other two parties, being the Liberals and One Nation […] I think all parties are going to have their challenges and work cut out for them in this election. I think it’ll be very, very messy.

On a possible leadership challenge in Victoria

Amid speculation about Allan’s future as premier, Welsh said swapping leaders just five months before the election would “only do One Nation and even the Liberals a hell of a service”.

I think the one thing that is very clear is that what voters hate, absolutely hate, is when politicians seem to act with surprising urgency on things that threaten their employment, when they don’t seem to actually have the same urgency on things that threaten [voters’] employment. So, in other words, if they were to roll Jacinta Allan now, it sends entirely the wrong message […] It would be disastrous.

One of the things that voters really like about Pauline Hanson – the kinds of voters that are coming off the Labor pile and moving towards her – is her consistency. She stuck it out.

One of the big critiques always on the major parties, particularly over the last sort of decade or more, has been this inconsistency of leadership, this chopping and changing for their own political survival, their own interests ahead of the interests of ordinary Australians like me.

Why One Nation appeals to some Labor voters

Looking at the national picture, the May 12 federal budget brought a sharp backlash from investor groups and business interests.

But Welsh said many voters he’s heard from in focus groups simply saw it as a missed chance to do something to help their straitened living standards.

Probably the defining response to the budget was just a sense of lost opportunity. So again, people going back to these immediate material stresses in their lives. People are literally struggling to put food on the table. We hear this in focus groups all the time: that the picture in that outer suburban regional area of Australia – I can’t convey strongly enough just how deep the economic stresses are in people’s lives right now.

And the feedback on the budget was really […] ‘gee, there wasn’t much in it’ to affect that. You know, we had this tiny little tax cut that’s not really going to touch the sides – if they’d even heard of that. It was really an absence of perception, an absence of anything they felt made a material difference to their lives.

So where did these disaffected voters go? Well, some of them went left, so some of them went to the Greens and other minor parties […] But some did go to One Nation. And that’s kind of the giveaway […] These were voters that just saw, again, [a] major party missing the opportunity to do something for their immediate economic plight.

Labor is losing votes to One Nation. It may not be as much as the Liberals, it may not an existential problem. But it’s enough to make majority government a problem.

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Read more: One Nation takes primary vote lead in Newspoll as Albanese’s ratings slump to record low

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Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Tony Abbott, the Liberals’ new activist federal president, is preparing to convene meetings around the country in an effort to drum up membership and support for the struggling party.

After the Newspoll published at the weekend showed the Coalition falling to 18% (down 2 points), with One Nation on 31% and Labor on 30%, Abbott acknowledged the threat of the insurgent party as well as the Liberals’ difficulty with credibility.

In a Tuesday email to supporters he wrote:

“Like you, I can read the polls.”

“While the majority of Australians now would like a change of government, there’s an unprecedented split on what’s the best alternative.

"And while many of you have noticed Angus Taylor’s determination to stop the toxic taxes, end mass migration, abolish Net Zero, and put Australia first, some are sceptical about the extent of the party’s change of heart or its willingness to do much about it in government.”

Abbott’s foray into a national tour may alarm some in the party who already fear he will overshadow Taylor, even though he has indicated he’s aware of that problem and knows he should tread carefully.

Abbott wrote: “While it’s the parliamentary party’s job to set and to implement policy, and to provide strong political leadership, you can be confident that the new federal executive will support Angus and his team to continue to be bold and resolute.

"We certainly won’t win the next election as slaves to focus groups and being a little bit less ‘woke’ than Labor.

"As well, you can be confident about our collective determination to work constructively with others who also want a change of government.”

This last point reinforces Abbott’s advocacy of the Liberals co-operating with One Nation in relation to preferences, a view Taylor shares.

Abbott told the Australian Financial Review on Tuesday: “As a general rule, it makes sense for parties of the right to preference each other just as parties of the left have always done”.

Meanwhile Taylor told a news conference: “We will work […] with whoever we can to get rid of this rotten Labor government.

"I want Australians’ first preferences, but I know to get them I have to rebuild trust with those hard working Australians who are angry, because they have been dudded.”

Taylor was facing questions about the Western Australian Liberal leader Basil Zempilas’ comments, who in a Monday speech reflected the pragmatic attitude many Liberals are now taking to One Nation.

Zempilas said One Nation “are a rising political movement, and because of that, One Nation deserve respect”.

“If their support holds, inevitably it will be people in my position’s job to find a way to work with, or alongside, One Nation. That will be important.

"And it’s something that at this stage, almost three years away from our next state election, I have an open mind about,” he said.

Abbott wrote that the meetings he planned would be to give members and supporters the chance to learn from each other and “recommit to giving our country the better government a great people deserve”.

He urged the letter recipients to bring along family and friends who might be supportive.

In his recent speech accepting the presidency Abbott lamented the party’s small membership of about 50,000, saying on a comparison with the Conservative Party in Canada the Liberals should have at least 250,000 members.

He conceded in his email that it “might take some time to persuade sceptical voters” that the Liberal party was their best hope.

Meanwhile ALP national president Wayne Swan has used the spectre of One Nation to drum up donations.

In an email to supporters a week ago, Swan said: “Powerful vested interests are already spending millions to make a Liberal-One Nation Government a reality. That’s why I’m asking for your support today. Every donation helps Labor invest early in the people, technology and campaigning needed to counter the hard right.”

The Liberals could not form government without One Nation, Swan wrote.

He said Hanson had argued “workers should be easier to sack and questioned whether Australians deserve higher wages”.

Labor is also running Facebook ads asking people “to donate to Labor’s campaign because One Nation is polling at record highs”.

Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Internal dissent within Labor over AUKUS has erupted again, with former cabinet minister Ed Husic suggesting there should be a fresh caucus vote on the controversial agreement.

Meanwhile, critics have launched a public inquiry into AUKUS headed by former Labor minister Peter Garrett (of Midnight Oil fame), and crossbenchers have joined a call for the government to be “transparent with the Australian people about the risks to the delivery of the AUKUS submarine program and how they will effectively manage those risks”.

Husic raised AUKUS at Tuesday’s caucus meeting after a weekend announcement that Australia will now receive three secondhand Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines from the United States instead of the earlier plan for one new and two used boats.

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Read more: Australia has been the victim of an AUKUS ‘bait and switch’

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Defence Minister Richard Marles met his US and British counterparts on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore at the weekend, when the revised arrangement was announced.

The changed arrangements are providing another opportunity for the critics.

The new outbreak comes as Labor’s national conference looms in July, where the pact, and questions around its submarines, will be a divisive issue that will require careful management by the factional leaders. AUKUS was contested at the 2023 national conference.

In his question to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Husic asked whether, given the recent changes relating to the submarines, Albanese thought the previous caucus resolution of support, taken in opposition, still stood.

Albanese pushed support for the AUKUS agreement through caucus immediately after it was announced in 2021, with minimum opportunity for consideration. He was anxious not to allow the issue to derail Labor’s 2022 election chances.

At Tuesday’s caucus, Husic was slapped down by Albanese and Minister for Defence Industry Pat Conroy.

Albanese said AUKUS was about more than submarines.

Conroy said that at the time of the caucus decision, there was no deal on the Virginia-class submarines. That was dealt with after Labor came to government because of an identified capability gap, Conroy said. The decision in opposition had dealt with whether or not caucus would permit a nuclear-build within Australia, he said.

Conroy also said the revised arrangement would be much easier to manage because the three submarines would all be of the same type.

Outside caucus, Husic said the changed arrangements raised questions about Australian sovereignty in the future.

“We are not going to get the deal that was promised,” he said on Sky. He said he had reservations about Australia’s ability “to exercise sovereignty in the way that we will want to, given how transactional the Trump administration is”.

“You know, you can almost imagine them saying, ‘We give you these, you will do this with them’. And so there’s an active sovereignty question there.”

Launching the inquiry, Garrett said AUKUS “was the most significant, and by far the most costly decision made in secret by an Australian government, tying us to two other sovereign governments, and taking out an extraordinary amount of taxpayers’ money on a proposition which has got a lot of distinct and very difficult complexities and potential problems lying up ahead”.

As well as Garrett the panel includes former federal Labor minister and former Western Australian premier Carmen Lawrence and former chief of the Australian Defence Force Chris Barrie.

Barrie said he was joining the inquiry because he wanted to be assured AUKUS would be in Australia’s best interests.

A statement on the inquiry, which is backed by a number of unions and other groups, said: “There has never been a more critical time to get the truth about AUKUS and what it means for our nation”.

“The Federal Government is planning to spend an unprecedented $368 billion-plus of our taxes on submarines without answers to basic questions like: will Australia receive the submarines we’re paying for, where will the high-level nuclear waste be stored, how many Australian jobs will this create and at what cost?”

The most important question was: “will this make us safer — or turn us into a nuclear target?”

The inquiry will be taking submissions from the public and experts and holding public hearings in most capital cities. It is being crowd-funded and is to report by October 30.

Crossbencher Allegra Spender moved a “Matter of Public Importance” in parliament calling for transparency. Her call was supported by six other crossbenchers and by Barrie. She said in a statement:

Recent developments are highlighting escalating risks to the delivery of the AUKUS project and Australia’s ability to manage those risks.

The USA is continuing to fail to produce submarines at the rate that is required for the President to be able to commit to giving Australia Virginia-class submarines.

The government has just agreed with the USA that Australia will not get any new Virginia-class submarines, reducing Australia’s capability, with no justification that this is in Australia’s interests. The government has admitted there are changes to the program based on the Colby Review but have not been transparent about what the review said and what changes are coming from it.

Other crossbenchers expressing concern were teals Monique Ryan, Kate Chaney, Nicolette Boele, Zali Steggall and Sophie Scamps. The list also included non-teal independent Dai Le who said, “If the government can scrutinise disability support down to the dollar, it can scrutinise a $368 billion submarine deal”.

Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

New Liberal federal president Tony Abbott has sought to rally the party at “this time of existential crisis”, labelling it “the patriot party” and declaring it must boost its membership.

While not directly mentioning the threat from Pauline Hanson, One Nation’s surge was clearly in Abbott’s mind when he addressed the Liberal federal council in Melbourne after being elected president unopposed on Friday.

“My fellow Liberals, our challenge is to persuade the sceptical public that we remain the most credible alternative party of government in this country,” he said.

Abbott said he owed the Liberal party “big time”. “That’s why I regard it as my duty to serve the party in this time of existential crisis.”

The council meeting comes as the party has been encouraged by the backlash against the budget, with the government having a fight on its hands over its capital gains tax changes, and being forced to look to some carve outs.

But more generally, the Liberals are fearful of the dramatic rise in One Nation support and the plunge in Coalition numbers, with a recent poll suggesting it would be nearly wiped from parliament in an election held now.

Among Liberals there are mixed feelings about the Abbott presidency, with some saying he will bring enormous energy to the job and others worried he will overshadow opposition leader Angus Taylor.

Abbott said that as the last successful Liberal federal leader of the opposition “I do believe I have the ability to help Angus Taylor to be the next successful federal leader of the opposition and to become our 32nd prime minister”.

He praised Taylor for policy leadership but said he had to be backed by a strong organisation.

That meant, “first and foremost”, increasing party membership. Even on the most optimistic figures, Abbott said, the party only had 50,000 members – the same as 30-40 years ago when the population was scarcely half its present number.

The Conservative party in Canada had 400,000 members. “On a per capita basis we would have at least 250,000 members.”

“And that’s what we need to do, to mobilise the good people of Australia in a good cause – the cause of better government based on our values.

"We are the freedom party, the tradition party, but above all else we are the patriot party, which is why, at our best, we should be absolutely unbeatable.”

The Guardian reported on Friday that Abbott was stepping down from his advisory role to the right wing advocacy group Advance, on becoming Liberal president.

Former foreign minister Alexander Downer won one of the vice-president positions.

Taylor, addressing the council on Saturday, will heavily target the integrity of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in a personal attack.

He will denounce Albanese as the prime minister whose “word is never his bond”, turning the PM’s own word-is-my-bond description of himself back on him.

In his address, released ahead of delivery, Taylor describes Albanese’s pre-election ruling out of changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax as “the mother of all lies”.

“No Australian can trust another word that comes out of this bloke’s mouth,” Taylor says.

He says Albanese doesn’t want to “empower people” but wants “power over people, often saying he wants Labor to be "the natural party of government”.

“That statement is as entitled as it is illiberal. For Anthony Albanese, political life has always been about entrenching Labor rule. His main interest is to consolidate and centralise power.”

Taylor also labels Albanese “unashamedly socialist”. “We must fight and defeat Labor’s socialist vision if we’re going to restore our standard of living and protect our way of life,” he says

Many Australians “feel like second class citizens under Labor,” he says.

“Many of these Australians – who have never been political – are speaking up for the first time.

"We will never have a better opportunity than this. To rally people to our cause To encourage Australians to join us in the fight against Labor by joining the Liberal Party.”

Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

The Liberal Party is now “fighting for its existence”, according to one of its own former federal MPs.

After the low of the 2025 federal election defeat, the party’s position as the major force in Australian conservative politics in under threat from an ascendant One Nation.

This weekend’s meeting of the party’s federal council in Melbourne will install former prime minister Tony Abbott as federal president. Behind the scenes, it will also see some internal soul-searching, whatever brave face the party seeks to put on publicly.

Former MP Keith Wolahan was one of the victims of last year’s election rout, narrowly losing his Melbourne seat of Menzies. Wolahan is a rare creature in today’s Liberal Party: a moderate, and an outspoken one at that.

He joined the podcast to talk about issues facing the Liberals, the party’s future, and how it should deal with One Nation.

Wolahan said his party was now “fighting for its existence” and shouldn’t have been surprised by a recent Redbridge poll, showing One Nation could win more than a third of the 150 seats in the House of Representatives, with the Coalition predicted to win just 12.

I think that poll is one of a long line of wake-up calls for the party. I think 2022 results, in terms of metropolitan seats, was a massive wake-up call for the Liberal Party. I thought the by-election defeats in Aston and Dunkley were wake-up calls. I thought that 2025 result obviously is a wake-up call. South Australia is a wake-up call, Farrer is a wake-up call. So the temperature has been turned up for so long now, I don’t think any frog in the water should be surprised that it is now boiling.

Working with One Nation to avoid ‘permanent opposition’

Asked whether the Liberals should preference One Nation, Wolohan said they should be open to it if that helps form a future Coalition government.

This isn’t an easy decision. It should be done on a seat-by-seat assessment because sometimes whatever party someone is in, there are extraordinarily bad candidates with a terrible track record and that should be assessed seat-by-seat.

Politics is also about maths. And you have to recognise that while the Liberal Party – its mission is to defeat all other parties, including One Nation – it has to do that in a way that focuses primarily on forming a Coalition majority. And so whatever the decision is, it has to be made with that in mind.

[…] The Liberal Party should be principled, but it should also be aware of the raw politics of maths, because you are not advancing this nation or your cause if you are in permanent opposition.

Proposed changes for permanent residents

On Angus Taylor’s migration plan to deny future permanent residents access to welfare benefits, Wolahan said Australian citizenship should “mean something’:

I’ve looked at the social media scare campaigns that have been run on this. And what is missing from all of Labor’s talking points is that the proposal by Angus Taylor is grandfathered. No one here who is a permanent resident is losing anything.

[…] I think the focus on the negative is missing the point. Citizenship means something. Australia’s not just an investment destination, it’s not a shopping centre, it’s not a place you just put on your delivery address with Amazon. It is a nation that binds us all together. And the way that it binds us together is through citizenship. If this leads to more people becoming citizens, I think that’s a good thing.

The ‘huge gap of voices’ inside the Coalition

Asked about the shrinking proportion of moderate Coalition MPs, Wolahan said he was more struck by how few metropolitan seats the Coalition now holds – despite the majority of Australians living in cities.

I actually think the bigger divide that we’re seeing is that there’s less metropolitan members in the [Coalition] party room. When I went there, I noticed that the metropolitan members were a minority. So we started our own little breakfast to share metropolitan concerns. There’s now only a handful, hardly any.

So the Liberal Party, when Tony Abbott was elected, had 44 metropolitan seats. It now has nine, and only two of those are inner metropolitan. So what’s missing from the party room is more about the type of Australia that you represent. And given that that is the majority, at 57%, that is a huge gap of voices being heard in the party room.

‘No mandate’ for Labor’s housing tax changes

On the negative gearing and capital gains tax (CGT) changes in the budget, Wolahan condemned Labor for breaking election promises not to make changes.

Yet he has also previously written about the need for some negative gearing reform, noting that 82% of investor loans went to existing housing, rather than helping build new homes.

I think negative gearing is very important, but if you could tilt it and shift it, in a way to new stock, you should do that. That said, you should either always put that to the people at an election, or seek a mandate from the opposition, do it together. Both of those weren’t sought.

[…] So I don’t have many problems with the negative gearing proposal. But I do have a problem with the way that it has been done; it hasn’t been put to Australians.

I think there is no mandate for the CGT changes. And the fact that it is being sold as a way to solve the housing crisis, but expands to all asset classes, including shares and businesses […] I think that is one of the most egregious breaches in politics in recent times. And it is no surprise that there has been […] outrage from Australians.

Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.