Opposition Leader Angus Taylor says One Nation’s policies would smash the budget bottom line, force interest rates up 3 percentage points, almost triple the nation’s $1 trillion debt load and potentially spark a sovereign debt crisis.
The remarks, made in a speech to The Sydney Institute on Thursday evening, represent Taylor’s most pointed attack on One Nation to date and a key pivot to fighting the surging minor party on the budget and economy rather than on culture wars.
Taylor conceded that while the Coalition had “too many times let [voters] down”, the answer was not to embrace an attitude of “blow the place up”.
“To those who feel like lighting a match, believe me when I say that a moment of satisfaction isn’t worth the eternity of pain that will follow,” he said in the speech.
Meanwhile, Industry Minister Tim Ayres took a swipe at the business community for its criticism of Labor’s fifth budget, quoting former prime minister Paul Keating to suggest it needed to look beyond self-interest to what was best for the nation.
“It pays to stand back for a moment and restore a sense of proportionality in the public discussion of tax reform,” Ayres said in a speech to the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Thursday night.
The June Australian Financial Review/Redbridge Group/Accent Research poll showed One Nation leading the Coalition in the primary vote 29 per cent to 18 per cent. Labor was only slightly ahead of the Pauline Hanson-led party on 30 per cent.
Hanson was in Britain this week meeting former Neighbours star turned right-wing political activist Holly Valance at British TV personality Jeremy Clarkson’s pub, The Farmer’s Dog.
The One Nation leader also met controversial far-right activist Tommy Robinson to record a soon-to-be released podcast.
The Australian Financial Review on Sunday revealed Hanson was also due to meet with Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and attend the 2026 Conservative Political Action Conference in London.
Farage resigned this week from parliament after he was embroiled in a “sleaze inquiry” over an undeclared £5 million gift. He is now recontesting his seat of Clacton in an attempt to clear the air.
Taylor outlined three reasons not to vote One Nation: that the minor party lacked a coherent policy agenda; it did not have a team capable of governing; and the policies the party did have would send the nation broke.
“One Nation’s offering is a random grab bag of poorly defined, contradictory, and constantly changing positions that leave no clear sense of who they are or what they stand for,” said the Opposition leader.
“Australia is in the grip of an economic crisis. Fixing it is the single most important job of the next government.
“It will require a team effort – it is beyond any one person. Look at One Nation’s team. In the end, it is a one-person show.”
Taylor also said One Nation’s “true instincts” on the economy were more in line with Labor’s “big-government interventionism” without regard to the budget bottom line, debt or economic growth.
He said One Nation’s top four policies would cost “in the order of a trillion dollars over a decade”.
“If unfunded, these promises would generate a surge in inflation requiring the RBA to raise interest rates by around 3 percentage points to neutralise their effect,” he said.
“That would add around $20,000 a year in interest to the average new mortgage. And that’s on top of the $30,000 a year Labor has already lumped mortgages holders with.
“Our national debt, already nearing $1 trillion, would be on track to nearly triple.
“Rising rates would then create a compounding feedback loop. Down that road lies a sovereign debt crisis.”
One Nation has not released official Parliamentary Budget Office estimates for the cost of all of its policies.
As flagged by the Financial Review on Thursday, Taylor also sharpened his attack on Labor, accusing it of having a big-government policy agenda that was about redistributing wealth, not growing it, and was about “managing decline” in a “dangerous and deluded” way.
Source: https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/taylor-warns-one-nation-policies-will-send-interest-rates-skyrocketing-20260709-p60e29