Coalition preferencing One Nation in Farrer to stop ‘teal policies’, Angus Taylor says
The opposition leader, Angus Taylor, says the Coalition has directed its preferences to One Nation ahead of the independent in the Farrer byelection to prevent “teal policies”.
The Liberals and Nationals have both placed One Nation before independent Michelle Milthorpe, who has received a small proportion of her funding from the “teal” independent fundraising group, Climate 200.
Polling suggests One Nation will win the New South Wales seat on Liberal and National preferences. Asked why the Coalition parties had put One Nation first, Taylor told ABC program Insiders:
If you vote teal you get Green. And so whilst preferences, beyond preferencing the National party, are picking the least worst option, and we want people to vote for the Liberal party and the National party, the truth is we don’t want to see teal policies for Farrer or for this country.
Asked about One Nation’s threat to the Coalition in regional electorates, Taylor said:
I think teal policies, Labor policies are absolute existential for the regions and the Labor government right now. If you get out into these regions, you see what it’s doing to them.
Key events
Taylor says government should not give Syrian camp detainees passports
Angus Taylor has claimed the Albanese government could choose to avoid giving passports to Australians detained in Syria or block them from re-entering Australia.
Four Australian women and nine of their children and grandchildren left the al-Roj camp in north-east Syria, seeking to return to Australia, earlier this week.
The wives, widows and children of jailed or dead Islamic State fighters held at the camp have not been charged with a crime. One woman has been issued a temporary exclusion order seeking to prevent her return to Australia.
Taylor this morning suggested the government should not be issuing passports to the Australians citizens, as it typically would be required to do. He told Insiders:
The government should be making every possible effort to not accept these people back into the country. That includes both the issuing and distribution of passports, where that’s possible. … There’s a lot of discretion or some discretion with the minister, as there is with temporary exclusion orders.
The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (Asio) advised the government to block one of the people from entering Australia. Asked whether he trusted Asio to advise on the others, Taylor said:
I don’t trust the government. … All I’m saying is [what] we need to know is when the last security assessments were done, what we know from that and why only one temporary exclusion order has been issued.
Taylor also claimed, without evidence, that the government is supporting Jamal Rifi, a Sydney doctor and community advocate, to help repatriate the women and children. The government and Rifi have repeatedly denied this.
Read about the development this weekend here:
Angus Taylor says welcome to country should be used less
The opposition leader, Angus Taylor, has called for welcome to country remarks to be used less often, saying he is frustrated they have been “devalued” by “overuse”.
Taylor said a welcome to country should be “special when it happens” and condemned those who booed during Anzac Day events on Saturday. He told Insiders:
Can I say, booing, whatever the cause, on Anzac Day, [at] Anzac Day ceremonies, is absolutely inappropriate and un-Australian. It shouldn’t happen. It simply shouldn’t happen.
I can understand the frustration Australians feel about over use of welcomes to country. I feel that at times. Often actually. I think it is overuse and as a result they are devalued.
I would like to see them used less and therefore not devalued, as I think they have been over time.
It’s up to individual organising committees to decide whether they want to do it or not. But the general principle should be: let’s do this less and make it more special when it happens.
To which, the Insiders host, David Speers, said: “And don’t boo?” Taylor responded:
Absolutely not boo, absolutely.
Taylor says ‘higher risk’ of ‘bad people’ coming from ‘bad countries’
Angus Taylor has said “bad people” could migrate to Australia from “bad countries” without detailing which countries would be considered “bad” under a government he leads.
Taylor earlier this month said migrants would be more likely to adopt Australian values if they were from liberal democracies than from “places ruled by fundamentalists, extremists and dictators”.
Asked whether migrants from China and Vietnam would disagree, Taylor told the ABC’s Insiders:
Some of the great Australians have come from countries that were bad countries at the time. But there is a higher risk that some bad people come from those bad countries.
Asked if China was a bad country, he said:
We have bad countries around the world. I mean, to claim that Iran is a good country right now, seriously, and the government itself has put legislation in place to make it harder for people to come from Iran.
We have seen terrible acts of atrocity coming from Gaza.
I mean, we know they’re in the Middle East and elsewhere, there that have committed great atrocities on their own populations. So there is real risk with people coming from those countries. It’s also true that many great Australians have come from bad countries, and this is why the discrimination shouldn’t be based on … race or religion; it must be based on Australian values.
When pressed, Taylor said Iran was at present one of those “bad countries” he was talking about, but China was not.
Coalition preferencing One Nation in Farrer to stop ‘teal policies’, Angus Taylor says
The opposition leader, Angus Taylor, says the Coalition has directed its preferences to One Nation ahead of the independent in the Farrer byelection to prevent “teal policies”.
The Liberals and Nationals have both placed One Nation before independent Michelle Milthorpe, who has received a small proportion of her funding from the “teal” independent fundraising group, Climate 200.
Polling suggests One Nation will win the New South Wales seat on Liberal and National preferences. Asked why the Coalition parties had put One Nation first, Taylor told ABC program Insiders:
If you vote teal you get Green. And so whilst preferences, beyond preferencing the National party, are picking the least worst option, and we want people to vote for the Liberal party and the National party, the truth is we don’t want to see teal policies for Farrer or for this country.
Asked about One Nation’s threat to the Coalition in regional electorates, Taylor said:
I think teal policies, Labor policies are absolute existential for the regions and the Labor government right now. If you get out into these regions, you see what it’s doing to them.
Welcome
Good morning and welcome to our live news blog today. I’m Luca Ittimani, and I’ll be taking you through Sunday’s breaking stories. Angus Taylor, the federal opposition leader, will be up on the ABC’s Insiders soon.
Let’s get stuck in.
Victorian motorists to get rego rebate in pre-election budget sweetener
Kelly Burke
Motorists in Victoria could save almost $400 a year on driving costs under a cost-of-living rebate in the Allan Labor government’s 2026/27 budget.
In a move designed to buffer the impact of soaring fuel prices linked to the conflict in the Middle East, the state’s premier, Jacinta Allan, has announced a 20% rebate on light vehicle registration.
With annual registration fees for standard vehicles costing as much as $930.70, a single-car owner stands to receive $186, while a two-car family could see up to $372 returned to their pocket.
The scheme only applies to personal-use vehicles under 4.5 tonnes, including cars and utes. The rebate will be backdated to cover registration payments made for the 2025/26 period, but Victorians will only have a two-month window from 1 June to 31 July to apply.
Car owners can only claim the rebate for a maximum of two vehicles registered under their name
The government estimates the scheme will cost $750m, with Allan saying the state would absorb the cost while maintaining a budget surplus.
Victorians have already seen the announcement of free and half-price public transport schemes, and the announcement of the rego discount is expected to ignite fresh criticism against the NSW premier, Chris Minns, from his state’s opposition, which is calling on him to cut the fuel excise and provide free public transport over long weekends to ease the pain at NSW bowsers.
Shadow treasurer says welcome to country hecklers ‘unworthy of the Anzac legacy’
The shadow treasurer, Tim Wilson, has condemned the booing of welcome of country remarks at Anzac Day events on Saturday.
Wilson offered some of the strongest criticism of the hecklers from a Coalition frontbencher. In a post on X yesterday, he wrote:
Thank you to all our veterans who fought for our country. Anzac Day is a day to honour all those who fought and died for our country. Booing any Australian who served or their story is unacceptable, disrespectful and unworthy of the Anzac legacy.
The story of this land began thousands of years ago. Project Australia is a continuing story of one land, one people with one destiny. Let us be worthy of our full inheritance, and those that sacrificed for respect based on our common humanity and the equal dignity of all people.
Liberal frontbenchers James Paterson and Jonno Duniam have called the booing “inappropriate” and said those opposed to the welcome to country should express their views at places other than an Anzac service. Paterson told Sky News:
It is incredibly disappointing and completely inappropriate to boo at an Anzac Day service. Whatever your views on a welcome to country, Anzac Day is our most sacred day … If you have strong views about that, there are many other ways in a free country that you have an opportunity to express your views.
