Taylor defends his CV after Hanson calls him ‘smarmy management consultant’
My colleague Josh Butler asks Taylor about Pauline Hanson’s comments to CPAC disparaging the Liberal leader’s pre-political life as a management consultant. A “smarmy” one she called him.
Taylor says he makes “no bones” of his CV prior to joining the federal parliament in 2013.
I am proud that I am not a career politician. I make no bones about the fact that before politics, I turned around industries, I turned around businesses. I worked on our family farming business, that’s what I did before politics, and I’m a relatively relative latecomer to politics. But that gives me the experience to turn around our country.
Key events
Equality Australia backs Spender’s sex discrimination bill
Allegra Spender this morning introduced a bill to protect students and teachers in religious schools, stopping lawful discrimination based on sexuality or marital status.
Under the existing Sex Discrimination Act, a religious school can expel or fire a student or teacher on the ground of sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital or relationship status or pregnancy based on their religious believes and where the institution acts in good faith.
The government had committed to legislating a religious discrimination act to protect people of faith, and concurrently amend the Sex Discrimination Act to protect those vulnerable groups in religious schools.
Equality Australia has backed Spender’s bill, urging the government to work with the crossbench and Greens to pass it. The group’s chief executive, Anna Brown, said:
A gay student should not have to hide who they are to have a shot at leadership or live in fear of being expelled, and no woman should ever risk losing her job because she falls pregnant outside marriage. These are basic questions of fairness, and it is unacceptable that in Australia today people are still left without protections against this kind of discrimination.
Behind these legal carveouts are real people facing real consequences. We’re talking about people’s education, their livelihoods and their futures.
The government is unlikely to support it, even though it has considered other powers to protect people of faith from discrimination, because it’s politically tricky ground.
Jordan’s King Abdullah to meet Albanese in Canberra to discuss defence and security
Jordan’s King Abdullah will be visiting Australia for two days from tomorrow, meeting with Anthony Albanese to discuss defence, security and trade cooperation.
The two nations celebrated 50 years of diplomatic relations last year. The king’s last visit was in 2016.
So what do Australia and Jordan cooperate on, you might ask.
The prime minister says the countries work together on regional security, humanitarian efforts, countering terrorism and violent extremism, growing trade and strengthening cooperation on resources, energy, and the environment.
In a statement, Albanese said:
I’m looking forward to continuing the warm and productive relationship between our countries, particularly at a time where there are so many global challenges.
In a time of increasing uncertainty around the world, ongoing defence and security cooperation between Australia and Jordan is essential, as regional security partners.
Ima Caldwell
Doctors back push for independent watchdog for private health system
Federal crossbenchers and peak medical bodies are calling for an independent authority to oversee the private healthcare sector, warning that declining policy value is driving patients away and straining public hospitals.
Independent MP Andrew Wilkie will introduce a motion in federal parliament today, seconded by Dr Monique Ryan MP, calling for a new “Private Health System Authority”.
The proposed regulator would sit in the health portfolio to oversee contracts between insurers, hospitals and doctors, monitor sector finances and ensure insurer practices protect patient choice.
The Australian Medical Association (AMA) and the Australian Society of Ophthalmologists (ASO) backed the proposal.
The AMA president, Dr Michael Bonning, said an independent umpire is needed to fix outdated policy settings and remove government from its “conflicted role of regulator and policymaker”.
The ASO president, Dr Peter Sumich, said the sector currently follows “the law of the jungle”, accusing insurer lobbies of opposing oversight to push toward American-style models.
The only group voicing opposition is the private health insurer lobby, because they have plans for vertical integration and US-style managed care.
Australians who pay for private health insurance deserve confidence that the system is fair, transparent and working in their interests.
Stephanie Convery
David Chau replaces retiring Alan Kohler as ABC 7pm news finance presenter
David Chau will replace the retiring Alan Kohler as the ABC’s finance presenter on its 7pm news bulletins, the national broadcaster has announced.
Kohler, a veteran finance journalist, announced his retirement last month after 31 years at the ABC. He will present his final finance segment on Wednesday night’s 7pm bulletins, the ABC said in a statement on Monday.
Chau, who joined the ABC as a digital producer in 2017, will replace him. Chau began presenting finance reports on the ABC’s News Channel in 2019, and on Monday said he was “honoured for this opportunity to continue Alan Kohler’s legacy – the man is indisputably a national treasure”.
Read the full story here:
Taylor defends his CV after Hanson calls him ‘smarmy management consultant’
My colleague Josh Butler asks Taylor about Pauline Hanson’s comments to CPAC disparaging the Liberal leader’s pre-political life as a management consultant. A “smarmy” one she called him.
Taylor says he makes “no bones” of his CV prior to joining the federal parliament in 2013.
I am proud that I am not a career politician. I make no bones about the fact that before politics, I turned around industries, I turned around businesses. I worked on our family farming business, that’s what I did before politics, and I’m a relatively relative latecomer to politics. But that gives me the experience to turn around our country.
Taylor rejects Frydenberg’s GST pitch but welcomes political resurrection
Speaking to reporters at a local cafe in Canberra this morning, Angus Taylor has batted away Josh Frydenberg’s suggestion that GST should be raised, but said he’d welcome the former Liberal treasurer back to the party if he decided to recontest at the next election.
It’s pretty similar stuff to what he told Insiders yesterday.
Taylor tells reporters:
I welcome every Liberal who cares about the future of our nation, and I know Josh does, to put shoulder to the wheel in the coming months to get rid of a rotten Labor government and make the change that Australia needs happen.
Leeser pushes bill for universities to adopt IHRA definition of antisemitism
Julian Leeser says universities have been arguing over the definition of antisemitism rather than acting on it, urging the government to support a bill that would make the institutions adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition.
The government has said it has adopted the IHRA definition, working definition of antisemitism. But there are others who are concerned the definition conflates criticism of Israel with antisemitism.
Leeser tells the House the bill is a “circuit breaker”, asking how the country can fight antisemitism “if we do not even agree what the word means”. The bill would also require universities to prevent, combat and respond to antisemitism.
You [universities] have been told, unequivocally, by both sides of politics to clean up your act. To stop the antisemitism. And what has been the response? You have been arguing over the definition of the word! You can’t make this stuff up.
We now have the ridiculous situation where conduct that is antisemitic at one campus on one side of Sydney is acceptable on another campus on the other side of Sydney.
Liberals MPs asked to weigh in on Josh Frydenberg comeback speculation
Well we’re doing the thing Josh Frydenberg absolutely wants us to do, which is asking every Coalition politician whether they would welcome back the former treasurer to federal politics.
Frydenberg told 60 Minutes yesterday he wasn’t closing the door on the desire to one day be prime minister, and that the Liberal party was facing an existential threat and needed to change.
Liberal senator for NSW Dave Sharma was asked this on News24 morning:
Josh is … a friend, he’s a talented and competent politician and he’s been a great member of the Liberal party. And whatever way he wants to involve himself in the Liberal party’s affairs in the future, I would welcome that.
Angus is our leader and Josh is not in the contest, so I’m backing Angus.
Liberal frontbencher Dan Tehan told reporters on his way into parliament that he would welcome Monique Ryan (the independent who won the seat from Frydenberg in 2022) being ousted from the electorate, adding “So absolutely, bring it on.”
Benita Kolovos
One Nation to preference Liberals above Labor at Victoria’s November election
Former Liberal turned Victorian deputy leader of One Nation, Colleen Harkin, has told ABC Radio Melbourne that the party will preference the Liberals above Labor at the November state election.
She also said One Nation has a “list” of items for negotiation in exchange for confidence and supply should the Liberals find themselves without a majority in the lower house.
Harkin, who is running for One Nation in the upper house’s south-eastern metropolitan region, said the party would “100%” preference the Liberals above Labor:
We will work with anybody to remove Labor. Anybody so that of course means working with Liberals.
Asked what it would take for the Liberal party to get One Nation’s support in a minority government, she said:
If it comes to that, we will have a list of negotiating tools that we will need to walk through in order to give confidence and supply … Some of the things on there that shouldn’t be surprising.
Harkin gave the example of no longer running the curriculum past Indigenous advisers.
Josh Butler
Opposition leader Angus Taylor campaigns on credit cards at Canberra cafe
Angus Taylor and Tim Wilson have taken turns sipping from a smoothie at a Canberra cafe as the opposition keeps up the pressure on the Labor government over issues with the change to cars surcharges.
We’re standing by for a Taylor press conference shortly, after he joined his shadow treasurer to meet the owner of a popular Canberra breakfast spot, to discuss issues small business are facing.
Taylor tried his hand at making a smoothie with berries and honey. He confidently said it was quite tasty, an assessment shared by Wilson who took a sip of his own after locating a second straw.
For the record, a small flat white here cost us $4.70, which is reasonable in Canberra prices. No additional surcharge on the transaction.
Frydenberg’s election recollections ‘do not match with my own’, says Ryan
Monique Ryan says she disagrees with the characterisation of the 2022 election campaign in excerpts of Josh Frydenberg’s book published over the weekend.
The independent beat the former Liberal treasurer in his seat of Kooyong in 2022.
Frydenberg accused the Ryan camp of dialling the personal vitriol “up to 11” during the 2022 election in an extract provided to the Australian.
Ryan rejects the claims, telling the media at a press conference in Parliament House:
I did read Josh Frydenberg’s recollections of the 2022 election … It does not match with my own recollections or the recollections of more than 2,000 people who volunteered with me. We know that we conducted a campaign with equity and in a good spirit.
Josh Frydenberg did not characterise it in that way, and I reject the way that he has portrayed it in the media. And I think it’s important that I do that on behalf of the volunteers who came out with me … We were there. We know how it was.
Lambie accuses Labor of ‘financial coercion’ over FoI court fight
Independent senator Jacqui Lambie is accusing the government of “financial coercion” over its push to get former senator Rex Patrick to cover the commonwealth’s legal costs over a fight in court for access to freedom of information documents.
Patrick could be on the hook for up to $150,000 to cover the government’s legal costs if he loses a fight to access requested FoI documents on the Aukus agreement. She says that will set a dangerous precedent.
Lambie says the attempt to fight the FoI requests in court follows the government being forced to drop its controversial changes to FoI legislation last year.
Lambie is proposing a bill to force the government to meet a “citizen’s reasonable legal costs if it appeals a citizen’s FoI win to the federal court from either the information commissioner or the administrative review tribunal”. She says:
That bill had no friends! But thanks to civil society groups and the crossbench, the government shelved the legislation in March 2026. But the governments war on our FoI laws has gone on.
Australians know the term ‘coercive control’ – what the federal Labor government is doing is financial coercion.
The washup from CPAC
There will be plenty of chatter across the corridors of parliament after the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) this weekend which featured the leaders of the three main conservative parties – One Nation’s Pauline Hanson, the Liberal’s Angus Taylor and the Nationals’ Matt Canavan.
My colleague Josh Butler spent the weekend there and said the reception at the conference suggested Hanson was the preferred opposition leader.
Wondering what actually happens at one of these things? Take a look at Butler’s analysis below:
Tim Wilson lukewarm on Josh Frydenberg’s possible return to politics
The shadow treasurer, Tim Wilson, is pretty lukewarm on a potential Josh Frydenberg return to parliament and hints the former treasurer would have to sit within the pecking order.
Wilson is pretty adamant on RN Breakfast that any political resurrection would be under the Liberals’ current leader Angus Taylor.
He speaks pretty broadly on the question, and says he has “no issue with people putting themselves forward” – it’s not exactly a warm welcome.
I think it’s always good to have candidates who want to step up and run and make sure we pick up seats so that Angus Taylor can be prime minister of this country.
What we need is people who’ve got courage in their hearts and prepared to make the sacrifices necessary for public office. So, I have no issue with people putting themselves forward.
I encourage them to do so so they can be part of a winning team, so we can have an Angus Taylor-led government.
Host Sally Sara asks whether Wilson supports a reported idea from Frydenberg that the GST take should be increased and whether it’s helpful for the Coalition to have ex-pollies making suggestions from the sidelines.
Wilson says taxes should not be increased, but throws Frydenberg a bone:
Well, I believe we want a better country, and that’s through a contest of ideas. But in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, we’re not going to be increasing taxes. In fact, we want to do the complete reverse.
Mulino dodges question about Greens call to block livestream of US execution
Daniel Mulino doesn’t want to comment when asked whether Labor would support the Greens’ call to block the livestream of a firing squad execution in the US.
Earlier this morning, Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young said she wrote to the eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, and the communications minister, Anika Wells, to stop the live stream, and that the government should slap fines on any tech platform that showed the stream or didn’t take steps block the video later.
Mulino at first dodges the question completely and says very broadly that the government is “forward leaning” on tech safety. Obviously not satisfied with the answer, host Sally Sara tries again. Mulino replies he doesn’t want to comment on “domestic politics of any other country when it comes to matters like this”.
Sara then asks her next guest, the shadow treasurer, Tim Wilson, the same question. He’s a lot more forthcoming, but says it would be a challenge to block the live stream without it amounting to a “censorship ban on the internet”.
My basic principle is we shouldn’t be promoting that sort of violence. And so my fundamental view is yes, I think it’s enormously problematic to tolerate this type of behaviour. But the challenge is going to be: how do you do that in a way that doesn’t amount to a censorship ban on the internet?
If it’s going to be livestreamed, how are you going to do that without creating the artifice to be able to block content on the internet and create an online portal of censorship? And I don’t, the specifics of that, I’ll have to leave to others.
