‘Concerns about his capability’ and ‘zero economic policy’: Liberal senator lashes Angus Taylor
Angus Taylor is not capable of leading the Liberal party, fellow party member Hollie Hughes has said, and she would not be voting for him if he put his hand up for the leadership.
Here are her comments in full:
I have concerns about [Taylor’s] capability. I feel that we have zero economic policy to sell.
I don’t know what he’s been doing for three years. There was no tax policy, no economic narrative, and the fact that we’re in a massive cost-of-living crisis and Jim Chalmers has basically skated through unscathed, and I was receiving that feedback even from Labor MPs who were like: are you serious? What’s going on? The economy’s in a pretty bad state and Jim has had no challenges put up to him.
Now, whether that was Angus thinking that his role was to try and go up against Albanese in an early bid for leadership, I have no idea.
To be the opposition leader, you need to be very capable in the media. You need to be able to sell a message. You need to be able to put the narrative together, and you need to be able to bring the team together.
I have concerns about his capabilities, but that is shared by a huge number of my colleagues, and frustration that they didn’t have economic narratives that they could push and sell during the election. And, you know, going from shadow treasurer to opposition leader, I’m not quite sure that’s going to change.
Key events
Reducing Hecs debts first item on government’s agenda, Plibersek says
Tanya Plibersek has said it will be “straight back to work” for her and other members of the Labor party, reiterating that reducing Hecs debts is the first piece of legislation the party has on its agenda for the new term.
Plibersek told Seven’s Sunrise this morning:
We will be straight back to work to make sure that we are absolutely focus on bringing down the cost of living, reducing those pressures on people.
The prime minister’s already said the first legislation will be about dropping that Hecs debt on students. And longer term, we really want to make sure we return people’s faith in us. We’ll continue to work to make sure that we’ve got great services that people can rely on, that we deal with the international challenges that we’ve got.
PM promises to build on business and community relationships
Anthony Albanese has promised to make good on the relationships developed over his time in office so far, saying he is a man of his word.
In comments to Triple M this morning, the PM said:
I’ve had enormous support, and from the entire labour movement, I’ve got to say, as well, and from a whole range of people in the business community, in different communities that make up our great multicultural Australia as well, all backing us and being very supportive. I have such good relationships. There’s an advantage of being around a while and developing those friendships and that trust, so that people know I am a man of my word, and that begins here today.
Luca Ittimani
Share of borrowers falling behind on debt slips to 1.36%, Westpac reports
Following on from the previous post: Westpac’s loans generally have grown healthier as households receive relief from cost-of-living concerns.
Releasing the banks’ half-yearly report, the chief executive, Anthony Miller, said:
The resilience of customers who have navigated significant cost-of-living challenges over the past few years is impressive … and RBA rate cuts are now also providing welcome relief. This resilience is reflected in the improvement in credit quality metrics indicating we may have passed the low point in the cycle
The share of borrowers falling behind on debt slipped to 1.36%, lower than it had been six months ago but stable compared with a year beforehand, measured by stressed exposures as proportion of Westpac’s total committed exposures. That was helped by the share of borrowers more than 90 days behind on repayments falling, but the share who have defaulted has not fallen.
The share of Westpac’s Australian mortgage borrowers more than 90 days behind on repayments fell from 1.12% six months ago to 0.86%, while 90-day repayment delays on other consumer loans also fell to 1.30% from 1.47%.
The bank expects things to keep improving in 2025. In the report, analysts wrote:
Relief finally arrived late in the First Half 2025 when the RBA cut rates for the first time in almost five years. Housing credit growth recovered shortly after interest rates peaked. We expect housing credit growth of approximately 5% in 2025.
That could be a good sign for the bank, as increased household saving instead of borrowing had contributed to its lower profits.
Australian household deposits were up by 9% from a year ago and the bank earns less from savings accounts. Customers also looked for better deals elsewhere and Westpac narrowed the gap between the rates it lends and pays on deposits, it said in its half-yearly report. That saw the bank earn a net margin of 1.88% interest on its loans, similar to a year ago but much lower than six months ago.
Luca Ittimani
Westpac reports slide in half-year profits
Westpac’s profits slid in the six months to March even as the bank’s customers have become more likely to repay their debts and loans to businesses increased.
Net profits were $3.3bn, just 1% down on the same period last year but 9% lower than reported six months ago. Part of that six-month reduction related to peaking global uncertainty, chief executive Anthony Miller said in a statement with the bank’s half-yearly report:
Geopolitical uncertainty is a key risk that’s as high as it has been for a very long time. Changes to global trade policies have impacted markets and funding for the bank. Despite the volatility, it’s important that we look through the noise and avoid reacting to the headlines. Australia is well placed to handle the instability.
That meant the bank set aside more money in case geopolitical instability and international trading relationships left some of its customers unable to make repayments. Together with an increase in write-offs to $279m, that saw Westpac shave back its profit margin by $250m to cover extra credit impairment provisioning.
Australian businesses had also struggled as wage costs and inflation rose, particularly for services, Westpac said. The share of local businesses defaulting on loans ticked up from 0.47% a year ago to 0.54% by March, as measured by gross impaired exposures to total committed exposures.
Despite that, lending to Australian businesses had risen 14% over the year, particularly to firms working in health, agriculture and professional services, and the bank expects private credit growth of 6% over 2025.
Greens put on brave face after poll losses
The Greens have been doing the rounds of the media this morning, trying to stay upbeat even though they’ve lost two seats in Queensland and are still waiting on the final call in the Victorian seat of Wills.
Senator Larissa Waters told ABC TV this morning that the outcome was “bittersweet”, and the collapse in support for the LNP has resulted in a shift in vote to Labor:
We’ve got a record high national vote, but we’ve lot two of our wonderful people here in Brisbane in Stephen [Bates] and Max [Chandler-Mather]. Now, our vote held in those seats, but we’ve seen such a collapse in support for the LNP that it’s meant our people haven’t been able to retain their seats.
Sarah Hanson-Young, meanwhile, told RN that “more people across the country voted for the Greens or other minor parties and independence than in any other time of history”, and that the party would be using its balance of power in the Senate to push for progressive change:
It would be a mistake for anyone to take out of this election that Australians overwhelmingly are not concerned about climate and environment, the cost of healthcare like dental, and to deal with the urgent and immediate issue of housing. And we’ll be looking at how we can use our balance of power in the Senate, which is stronger than it’s ever been to deliver reform, progressive reform, on those issues.
Teal Zoe Daniel’s seat on knife-edge
We need to talk about the Melbourne electorate of Goldstein briefly, because what initially looked like it would be a pretty comprehensive win by “teal” independent Zoe Daniel is now on a knife-edge.
Daniel’s lead massively narrowed yesterday, with a resurgence by Liberal candidate and former Goldstein representative, Tim Wilson.
There are literally 95 votes between the two candidates at the moment, according to the AEC tally room, with Daniel maintaining just a sliver of a lead as counting resumes today. It looks like this will go down to the wire.
Goldstein is not the only seat where the competition is fierce and ongoing, either – we’ll bring you more on these shortly.
‘Concerns about his capability’ and ‘zero economic policy’: Liberal senator lashes Angus Taylor
Angus Taylor is not capable of leading the Liberal party, fellow party member Hollie Hughes has said, and she would not be voting for him if he put his hand up for the leadership.
Here are her comments in full:
I have concerns about [Taylor’s] capability. I feel that we have zero economic policy to sell.
I don’t know what he’s been doing for three years. There was no tax policy, no economic narrative, and the fact that we’re in a massive cost-of-living crisis and Jim Chalmers has basically skated through unscathed, and I was receiving that feedback even from Labor MPs who were like: are you serious? What’s going on? The economy’s in a pretty bad state and Jim has had no challenges put up to him.
Now, whether that was Angus thinking that his role was to try and go up against Albanese in an early bid for leadership, I have no idea.
To be the opposition leader, you need to be very capable in the media. You need to be able to sell a message. You need to be able to put the narrative together, and you need to be able to bring the team together.
I have concerns about his capabilities, but that is shared by a huge number of my colleagues, and frustration that they didn’t have economic narratives that they could push and sell during the election. And, you know, going from shadow treasurer to opposition leader, I’m not quite sure that’s going to change.
Liberal senator says party had ‘complete lack of policy narrative’
Hollie Hughes offered a scathing assessment of her party’s machinations prior to the election, saying fully developed policies “disappeared into some form of vortex” that left candidates heading into a campaign with nothing to say.
Speaking to RN earlier, the Liberal senator said the biggest issue that plagued the party was “just a complete lack of policy and economic narrative” which made it “incredibly difficult for everyone out on the ground – people just had nothing to sell”.
Even the parliamentary team had “very little idea what was going on”, Hughes said. In her portfolio of shadow assistant minister for mental health and suicide prevention, Hughes said she had submitted seven “fully costed policies” around suicide prevention and mental health in October last year.
She continued:
And they disappeared into some form of vortex and we never heard anything about anything back from anybody … It’s not just me, I’ve spoken to plenty of other shadow ministers who had the same experience.
… It’s hugely frustrating. For me some of the things I proposed that got no feedback … one of them was a men’s mental health policy, I’d actually identified some savings that could fund it … but then to see during the campaign Albanese to announce a men’s mental health package that was not the same as I had proposed but to not then have anything to say was really frustrating.
Bragg regrets One Nation preference deal
The Liberal party ought to avoid making preference deals with One Nation, Andrew Bragg said.
At the end of that interview on RN just now, following from his comments about how the Liberal party ought to avoid culture war, Bragg said:
I don’t think preferencing One Nation is a good idea for the Liberal party. John Howard was right about that … It’s a very bad optical position for our party … We need to recapture the centre. Elections in Australia are won in the centre.
Liberals ‘fundamentally misread’ Australian society – Bragg
We’ve now heard from Senator Andrew Bragg, as the postmortem on the Liberal party’s catastrophic loss in the election on Saturday continues.
Bragg’s perspective, as he has described it to RN just now, is that the party did not sufficiently focus on the economy:
Ultimately you’ve got to give people something to vote for … and I don’t think we had enough strong economic policies to win the day.
It would be wrong to blame the campaign itself, Bragg said, when “the substantial point of a political party is to develop policies that help people’s lives”. He offers some examples of what those policies could have been:
We could have done more to help households decarbonise, we could have done more to help households with mortgages, we could have done more on deregulation – and I think the deregulation piece is potentially very big for small and large businesses to help them to invest … There’s a lot of things we could have done better.
Another fundamental problem, he said, was that the Liberal party didn’t really understand what Australians wanted.
You’ve also got to understand the society in which you want to lead … I think the work from home is a good example of fundamentally misreading Australian society or picking issues that are focused on one minority group … [Australians] don’t want to see division. It’s important that we focus on economic issues and avoid these culture war issues at all costs.
Sharma says Liberals face ‘existential crisis’
The Liberal party is facing “an existential crisis”, Liberal senator Dave Sharma said on ABC radio this morning.
He told RN:
There is no way we can ever hope to be the party of government unless we rebuild our appeal and our offering to those populations in the big cities, and then that will have to be our mission and will have to be, I think, probably our overwhelming focus as a party.
While the Liberals have a coalition agreement with the Nationals, Sharma said he believed they understood – “and we need to be clear on this” – that they appeal to “different parts of Australia with different priorities and different values at times as well”.
The membership of the party was “less representative of how Australia stands today”, Sharma said, and the new leader and candidates would need to better represent more of the country.
Sharma refused to be drawn on the merits of any of the mooted candidates for replacement leader after Peter Dutton lost his seat on Saturday, but said the candidate:
… would be expected to demonstrate and understanding of the reasons why we lost, quite a comprehensive diagnosis of that, and offer not just a viewpoint but a set of mechanisms and structures that will help us address those challenges. And I don’t pretend that that will be an easy or indeed an appealing task for many people.
Welcome
Good morning.
It’s day two of the post-election wash-up, with counting set to resume and the Labor party looking to extend its majority. There are still some seats in the lower house to be determined, including the Melbourne electorate of Goldstein, where Zoe Daniel is facing off against a resurgent Tim Wilson. We’ll have more on that soon.
Meanwhile, there’s a lot of soul-searching being done in the Liberal party, with senior figures warning that it must urgently reconnect with traditional supporters, women and younger Australians if it is to find a pathway back to relevance, describing John Howard’s broad church as “broken” after Saturday’s election drubbing.
We’ll bring you all the news, analysis and updates as they come in today, so grab a coffee and let’s get stuck in.
