3 hours ago
3
Opinion
June 4, 2026 — 5:00am
We have been here before, in uncertain times with deeply familiar people in familiar places. Tony Abbott running the Liberal Party, Pauline Hanson dominating politics, Anthony Albanese looking like he could be reduced to a minority or even lose the next election.
As the great philosopher sportsman Yogi Berra said, it’s deja vu all over again. Except this time, life is much more precarious for the major parties – particularly the Coalition – which prefers rewind over reform, continues to kneel before Hanson, and submits to death by a thousand cuts, each wound self-inflicted.
So many angry, frustrated and pessimistic voters are threatening to desert the majors that it is conceivable One Nation, a party whose defining credo is both racist and bigoted, will end up the official opposition. It is less likely, but in a world where anything is possible, One Nation could become the governing party in a new coalition with the remaining rump of the present Coalition.
After a plethora of polls and persistent urging by Sky hosts, much to the dismay of Barnaby Joyce, Hanson finally said yes, she was ready, willing and able to become prime minister. Despite witnessing Donald Trump’s chaotic rule, and despite grave doubts she is fit for the job, almost one in three Australians agree with her.
If there are enough teals to support them, Labor could still govern. How many teals remain depends on whether new donation laws – which are clearly designed to inhibit the emergence of new parties, stem the growth of independents and leave the elected ones at a financial disadvantage – are struck down by the High Court after its hearing in October or November of the challenge by former independent MPs Rex Patrick and Zoe Daniel.
Also whether the teals retain their most valuable asset – their independence.
Right now, the most improbable outcome at the next election is a victory for the Coalition, which insists on spurning almost every cohort it needs to rebuild. That brings us to the one big “yeah, right” moment, after Abbott, now the number-two de facto opposition leader – that is, the one after Hanson – was unanimously elected federal Liberal president and pledged not to run for a seat “at the next election”.
Abbott has never renounced his dream of a comeback. The man pledging to rid Australia of its spiritual malaise lives in hope of redemption. If an opportunity arose to get back into parliament – and he is said to be eyeing off the NSW Central Coast seat of Shortland – he would grab it in a heartbeat.
This would be the same Abbott who couldn’t make it to his second anniversary as prime minister, not because of any undermining by Malcolm Turnbull, but because of his own ineptitude.
Even Liberals who like him know his resurrection carries risks. They know he will be a tireless advocate at branch meetings, could help recruit donors and might restore some of the party’s lost base. He energised the Liberal Party’s federal council last week (you could feel it in the room, according to one person there) and he always gets his message across.
They also know once he flicks the on switch, he can’t turn it off. Abbott says he won’t take a vow of silence and, on this at least, he can be believed. The titular opposition leader, Angus Taylor, will shrink under his shadow.
Abbott wants to help, then he will want to take over. He will either make Taylor look more ineffective than he does already or remind people why he failed so spectacularly in his first incarnation as prime minister. Either way, it’s bad.
Abbott came prepared with four new slogans. Stripped to the bare bones, or down to the budgie smugglers if you prefer, they were: stop taxes, demonise migrants, wreck the planet and only ever wave one flag.
OK, so he didn’t say that exactly. That’s my interpretation of what he said, given 75 per cent of his plan is built on culture wars over patriotism, welcomes to Country, migration and climate change, and the other 25 per cent is a scare campaign on tax, a formula unlikely to regain old heartland seats including the one he lost in 2019.
Labor’s poll slide has come sooner this term, thanks to its longevity, its accumulation of enemies and its attempts to change negative gearing and the capital gains tax.
The tax changes have incited the usual predictions of Armageddon, as happened when Paul Keating introduced the fringe benefits tax and Howard/Costello the GST.
While the government is uneasy about the slide, few MPs are surprised. After the Farrer byelection less than a month ago (remember that actual poll where the Libs barely got a primary vote in double digits), Labor war-gamed a worst-case scenario: the country slides into recession mainly thanks to Trump’s Iran war, and Hanson wins every National Party seat, every regional Labor and Liberal seat, plus a clutch of outer-suburban seats, reducing the government to minority and turning One Nation into the official opposition. Exactly what the Redbridge poll later showed.
The prime minister, the treasurer and others believe, rightly, that it probably would have been worse if it had been a do-nothing budget. They have time after tweaking – a cave would be deadly – to bed down the changes and to devise monster tax cuts for the next election.
In normal times, the debate would then turn to how the opposition intended to pay for tax indexation, reversing Labor’s changes, boosting defence spending to 3 per cent of GDP and so on.
If Hanson maintains her status as the numero-uno de facto opposition leader, Albanese will have to change his approach. For starters, he won’t be able to establish psychological ascendancy over her in parliament. Apart from the fact she is hardly ever there, she is in the other place.
Even if the characters are familiar, it promises to be an unconventional campaign against an unconventional opponent in an unconventional environment.
Niki Savva is a regular columnist and author of award-winning book The Road to Ruin: how Tony Abbott and Peta Credlin destroyed their own government.
The Opinion newsletter is a weekly wrap of views that will challenge, champion and inform your own. Sign up here.
