Angus Taylor rejects seat-sharing deal as Labor targets Pauline Hanson’s economic policies
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor is strengthening his economic argument against Pauline Hanson as Labor prepares to contest elections against both One Nation and the Coalition in the next two years, as Opposition Leader Angus Taylor seeks to dispel rumors of a partnership with Hanson.
Coalition attacks Hanson’s confession Inside Politics In a podcast last week saying his party had been “infiltrated by extremists”, former prime minister John Howard told this imprint that he “totally agrees” with Taylor’s stance on One Nation.
Employment and Workplace Relations Minister Amanda Rishworth will launch a new push from Labor to portray Hanson as anti-worker when she delivers a speech to coal miners on Friday, saying Hanson will “support the Liberals and Nationals when they deliberately try to keep wages low”.
On a tour of Perth on Thursday, Hanson named Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke, the western Sydney MP and a group of other ministers as his targets in the next election.
Taylor was forced to turn off the alarm, which was triggered after his ally and frontrunner Tony Pasin called for a seat-sharing arrangement with One Nation that would make it harder for the Coalition to govern on its own and allow Labor to claim the parties would work as a united force.
Senior party sources said Taylor was angered by Pasin’s intervention and called the South Australian on Thursday to clarify.
“Those were Tony’s comments. We’re not going to do that,” Taylor told reporters in Perth when asked about seat sharing.
Asked about Pasin’s future, Taylor said his spokesman on government waste would remain in the shadow cabinet, before cutting his sentence short and moving on to a point about Labor.
At the beginning of the week, new party leader Tony Abbott made a general statement about preferring right-wing parties over left-wing parties. The statement reflected the preference decisions taken in the last elections, but was interpreted by some as opening the door to a more formal agreement with Hanson.
The same party sources said this week Taylor had asked Abbott to be more cautious as the Coalition’s decline in votes and the continued rise of One Nation had led to alarmist statements from opposition figures.
Abbott declined to comment on Pasin’s remarks. Some people close to Taylor worry that Abbott does not share his view that working more closely with Hanson would be toxic.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese took advantage of Pasin’s “extraordinary statement” on Thursday.
“To say that the Liberal Party should give up trying to win seats, that it should step aside, that is… One Nation cannot run in some of the seats that the Liberal Party wants to run in. This shows that the once mainstream Liberal Party…has almost given up with two years to go before the election,” Albanese said in Sydney.
Finance Minister Jim Chalmers slammed both parties at Labor’s national policy forum in Sydney on Thursday, saying it was absurd for the Coalition and One Nation to claim the government was moving “up the ladder” with budget reforms.
“Not everyone is born at the top of the ladder like Angus Taylor, not everyone fails their way up the ladder like he did,” he said.
“And unlike One Nation, we vote the way workers need us, not the way Gina Rinehart tells us to. The irony of their position is that they want to change the government to leave things as they are; a truly ridiculous proposition.”
Opposition defense spokesman James Paterson, a factional ally of Pasin, gave a firm “no” when asked about Pasin’s idea of switching seats. “I’m not interested in splitting the spoils,” he said on ABC Radio.
Paterson also echoed Hanson’s comments last week that party branches had been “infiltrated by extremists”.
“Pauline Hanson has publicly stated that she is concerned that she has been infiltrated by extremists,” Paterson said. “Pauline Hanson is worried about this. I think we all should be worried.”
Labour’s primary vote has fallen below One Nation’s in many polls. Party researchers are talking to voters to understand how they can win back financially strapped voters, some younger, who have swung from Labor to Hanson.
Rishworth, seen as a minister who resonates with the party’s remaining blue-collar supporters, will speak at the mining union conference in the Hunter Valley, where One Nation polled well in the last election.
Party sources said Albanese would focus more on the pocket impact of Hanson’s policy agenda in the coming months.
Rishworth will say that “the only way the Liberals and Nationals can return to government is with the support of One Nation”, creating “a unity ticket that will erode wages and working conditions”.
“Like the Liberals, Pauline Hanson said she wanted to ‘overhaul’ the workplace system,” he will say, according to speech notes.
“One Nation will support the Liberals and Nationals who seek to defeat our government’s efforts to improve the working lives of millions of Australians.
“And One Nation will support the Liberals and Nationals when they try to rewrite workplace laws in employers’ favour. Pauline Hanson herself has said she wants to make it easier for bosses to fire workers.”
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Paul Sakkal is the Chief Political Correspondent. He has previously covered Victorian politics and won the Walkley award as well as the 2025 Press Gallery Journalist of the Year award. Contact him securely on Signal @paulsakkal.14.Connect with: X or email.
