Angus Taylor addresses One Nation rumour that has dogged him since Pauline Hanson's party surged in popularity

By ASHLEY NICKEL, NEWS REPORTER, AUSTRALIA Published: 15:34, 14 July 2026 | Updated: 15:45, 14 July 2026 Opposition leader Angus Taylor has poured hot water on suggestions the Liberals would form a coalition with One Nation to topple the Albanese government.  The Liberal-National Coalition has been copping a battering in the polls this year and is well behind both Labor and the Pauline Hanson-founded party, but Taylor appeared on the ABC's 7.30 on Tuesday to say he is sticking with the arrangement. 'I'm ruling it out. There is no plan to form any kind of coalition with One Nation,' he said when questioned by host Sarah Ferguson. Taylor argued a Hanson-led government would send the country into a financial meltdown. 'They have a grab bag of policies, where even just a small subset of them would take this country into a fiscal crisis, higher inflation, higher interest rates, higher mortgage costs. 'That's not something Australians can afford when we are in the midst of an economic crisis of Labor's creation.' The Coalition is returning to it's stronghold of the economy, following a devastating election wipeout under Peter Dutton last year, in an effort to turnaround its nosedive in the polls. 'There is a plan to do is to get rid of a Labor government that has put us into an economic crisis where Australians are poorer, where taxes are higher ... and young Australians are losing hoape of owning a home,' Mr Taylor said. Host Sarah Ferguson asked Angus Taylor whether he would form a coalition with One Nation Taylor shot down the rumours saying Pauline Hanson's policies were irresponsible 'Australians in small business are losing hope of their dreams with small business as we see the highest rate of insolvencies ever in this country. 'We've got a housing bureaucracy that is spending billions and billions and billions of dollars on housing. 'We've got a climate bureaucracy that is spending billions and billions and billions and yet emissions are barely moving. 'These are programs that are failing this country. If we are to have a smaller government, they are programs that can go and should go.' He also slammed Labor for claiming it had tamed inflation and interest rates would drop. 'If you're a young home buyer, first home buyer, the thing that matters is whether you can afford to buy a house. And the most important factor in that is interest rates. They are too high.'  Persistent inflation has also caused Australians' real wages to decline 5.1 per cent since March 2021, the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development revealed in its annual employment outlook. That represents one of the steepest declines among OECD countries. Pauline Hanson and Malcolm Roberts of One Nation outside Parliament House last year Across the OECD's 37 member countries, excluding Colombia, median real wages grew by 1.2 per cent over the same period. Only New Zealand, Italy, Sweden and Czechia have experienced similar declines. 'This sustained erosion of purchasing power points to persistent pressures on household incomes, even as the labour market has remained broadly solid,' the report said. Over the past year, Australians' real wages fell 0.8 per cent. Real wages growth is a rough driver for living standards, given it represents how much more income workers have relative to prices.