The Liberals face old problems with no new answers

Summary

7am Podcast Summary
Episode: The Liberals face old problems with no new answers
Date: July 17, 2026
Host: Daniel James (A)
Guest: Natasia Chrysanthos, Federal Political Correspondent (D)

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the ongoing identity crisis within Australia’s Liberal Party, examining its attempts (or failures) to modernise in response to persistent issues with membership, youth, women, and multicultural voter engagement. It delves into Angus Taylor’s fraught navigation around potential alliances with One Nation, the Coalition’s mimicking of One Nation’s migration policies, and internal tensions driven by influential figures like Tony Abbott. The episode also covers One Nation’s tumultuous recent events and the economic consequences of proposed immigration cuts, before closing with a discussion on the troubled state of aged care reforms.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Liberal Party’s One Nation Dilemma

• Angus Taylor’s Reluctant Clarity
  • Taylor “rules out” a coalition with One Nation after sustained media and internal party pressure, but only after significant hesitancy in interviews.
    • “Taylor in particular has found it very difficult to land the right notes here.” (D, 01:37)
    • Quote:

      “I’m ruling it out. There’s no plan. There’s no plan.” (C, 01:44)

    • This wavering is seen as weak and has been a source of frustration for some in the party, especially as the coalition loses ground to One Nation in polls.
  • Taylor’s stronger statement is perceived as overdue and potentially “too little, too late.” (D, 02:14)
  • Internal party debates pit those considering a “collaborative approach” with One Nation against hardliners (“the hasty camp”) advocating for a clear separation.
    • Outgoing campaign director Andrew Hirst:

      “One Nation are not our friends and we can’t treat them as such.” (Reported by D, 03:25)

  • The struggle is about whether to stop electoral bleeding to One Nation or try to expand to wider demographics.

2. Liberals’ Enduring Structural Problems

• Lack of Progress in Rebuilding
  • The latest party discussion paper acknowledges the same problems highlighted for years: failure to attract young people, women, and multicultural communities.
    • “Year after year after year, really … nothing new to see here.” (D, 04:43)
  • The immediate strategy has shifted from growing the base to desperately consolidating what’s left, particularly in light of One Nation’s voter surge.

3. Multicultural Voters and Tony Abbott’s Presidency

• Credibility Gap on Multiculturalism
  • New party president Tony Abbott releases a video, “Diversity Is Not Our Strengths,” criticising multiculturalism and advocating assimilation.
    • Abbott:

      “For many years, migrants to Australia were expected to integrate from day one and to assimilate as soon as possible. Lately … migrants have been encouraged to keep their culture.” (C, 06:26)

  • This position undercuts the party’s claims of wanting to reach multicultural voters, creating a “credibility gap.”
    • “That's what the Liberals have kind of been dealing with for the last many years … commentary that have undermined that over time.” (D, 06:49)
  • Previous outreach attempts, such as Susan Ley’s work with the Indian diaspora, are now overshadowed by harder rhetoric on immigration and multiculturalism.
  • “Multicultural leaders across the community … feel kind of targeted or disparaged by that rhetoric.” (D, 08:01)

4. Coalition and One Nation Migration Policies: Economic Realities

• Costs of Immigration Cuts
  • Parliamentary Budget Office costing shows major cuts to migration (as proposed by both Coalition and One Nation) would cost tens of billions of dollars.
    • “In general, migration is good for the economy … over their lifetime, tend to pay more tax than they receive in government benefits.” (D, 09:22)
    • Drastic immigration cuts must be “offset elsewhere” in the budget, raising hard economic questions that neither the Coalition nor One Nation appear ready to answer.
    • Political tension: How can promises to end “bracket creep” (lost tax revenue) square with losing billions from fewer migrants? (D, 10:43)

5. One Nation’s Public & Internal Turbulence

• Luxury Holidays vs “Battler” Image
  • Pauline Hanson's holiday with Gina Rinehart in Italy undermines her battler persona.
    • “It’s not exactly the battler image that Pauline Hansen’s been trying to portray for herself, is it?” (A, 11:00)
    • “Lounging on a several thousand dollars a night Sicilian deck … hasn’t really seemed to hurt her.” (D, 11:17)
  • Reports of internal strife, including Hanson discussing her daughter as a potential leader and frictions with National Party figures like Barnaby Joyce, raise questions about party unity.
    • “Are we beginning to see the wheels fall off One Nation or is it too early to tell?” (A, 11:52)
    • “It’s certainly getting bumpy and I think this was always going to happen.” (D, 12:12)
• Scrutiny and Fringe Politics
  • One Nation’s new prominence attracts tougher media and political scrutiny, especially around conspiracy-minded comments from Senator Malcolm Roberts.
    • “No one’s really applied the blowtorch … but that dynamic's now changed.” (D, 13:16)

6. Aged Care System Reform Stalls

• Mixed Results for Labor’s Aged Care Overhaul
  • Outgoing aged care watchdog criticises new “user pays” model, arguing it may backfire by deterring people from seeking early help at home—potentially leading to costlier, later residential care.
    • “Once you make people pay for things they’re less likely to take those things out ... eventually, much older and sicker people need more expensive residential care.” (D, 14:35-16:23)
  • Ongoing issues:
    • Huge backlog and demand for home care packages
    • Not enough workforce for aged care expansion
    • Deeper demographic challenges as the population ages
    • Government and regulator at odds on solutions; need for a rethink of consumer co-contribution model

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Leadership and Internal Debate
  • “He wants to appeal to as broad a voter base as possible. But … it has seemed somewhat weak.” (D, 01:50)
  • “Election’s not for another couple of years. We can’t throw in the towel now.” (D, 02:14)
• On Liberal Party Demographics
  • “It’s rehashing a lot of these structural issues … nothing new to see here.” (D, 04:43)
• On Multiculturalism
  • “That’s the question, isn’t it?” (A, 06:42)
• On Immigration and Economic Logic
  • “If you are a party that does come with a policy of cutting migration … that does need to be offset elsewhere.” (D, 10:43)
• On One Nation’s Image
  • “It's not exactly the battler image that Pauline Hansen's been trying to portray for herself, is it?” (A, 11:00)
• On Aged Care Reform
  • “You’d need to be building an aged care facility every three days to keep up with demand.” (D, 15:26)
  • “The Aged Care Inspector General was saying that fatalism doesn’t serve anyone.” (D, 16:40)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:01–03:03: Coalition-One Nation alliance debate; Taylor’s reluctance to rule out partnership
• 03:03–04:43: Internal Liberal Party leadership tensions and policy positions
• 04:43–06:07: Liberal Party’s structural ‘identity crisis’
• 06:07–08:48: Tony Abbott’s stance on multiculturalism; party’s credibility with multicultural communities
• 08:48–11:00: Fiscal implications of migration cuts; Coalition mirroring One Nation
• 11:00–14:14: One Nation’s image issues, internal discord, and increased scrutiny
• 14:14–17:03: Aged care system under Labor – user pays, bottlenecks, regulator’s concerns

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Tone and Style

The conversation is candid, critical, and lightly cynical, especially in its coverage of party politics and personalities. There’s ongoing skepticism about the sincerity and effectiveness of the major parties’ repositionings—and an explicit highlighting of disconnects between rhetoric, policy, and political strategy. The hosts also inject humor, particularly when describing Pauline Hanson's Italian holiday and One Nation’s recent public missteps.

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Final Takeaway

This episode underscores a prevailing mood in Australian politics: the Liberal Party finds itself recycling old diagnoses but offering few new cures, while One Nation’s fortunes and focus bring them (for better or worse) into the national spotlight. Meanwhile, major policy judgments—on migration and aged care—reveal uncomfortable gaps between politics, economic reality, and outcomes for Australians.

Transcript

[A]

I'm Daniel James and you're listening to 7am The Liberal Party has begun asking what it needs to do to modernise. Its answer so far is Tony Abbott. As Angus Taylor tries to put some distance between the coalition and One nation, Pauline Hanson's party has had a week that looks less like a political revolution and more like a holiday gone wrong. Meanwhile, away from the political theatre, do the economics of cuts to migration number economically stack up at a time when one of the country's most important systems is still failing the people it's meant to care for? Today, federal political correspondent for the Age and Sydney Morning Herald, Natasia Chrysanthos on the Liberal Party's identity crisis. One nation's fortunes and an aged care system still not fit for purpose. It's Saturday, July 18th. Natasia. This week, Angus Taylor finally ruled out a coalition with One nation, although Sarah Ferguson on 7.30 really had to push him hard to do it.

[B]

Don't Liberal voters have a right to know that this party that would cause, as you describe it, an eternity of pain is one you would never form government with under any circumstances?

[C]

Well, as I say, we've got absolutely no plan to form government with a party.

[B]

Well, I think it's the same as ruling it out. That's what I'm looking for, you know,

[C]

as I say, I want a coalition. Where? With the National Party.

[A]

Why do you think he's been dancing around the question for so long?

[D]

I think Taylor in particular has found it very difficult to land the right notes here.

[C]

I'm ruling it out. There's no plan. There's no plan.

[B]

You're ruling it out.

[C]

Well, there is no plan. I can tell you right now.

[D]

I think we've seen a lot of the kind of one nation attack lines outsourced to other members of the party. And I think part of that is, as the leader, you know, he wants to appeal to as broad a voter base as possible. But I think what people have picked up on is it has seemed somewhat

[C]

weak and I have been very clear about this a hundred times. I don't know how many times, but many, many times.

[D]

And I think the other thing we've seen is it hasn't really been working. The coalition's continued to lose ground to One Nation in the polls. I think there's been a lot of internal kind of push to take a harder line against one Nation. You've obviously had some coalition MPs entertain this idea of an alliance. For example, Tony Pasan, the South Australian front bench, and then you've had a lot of other people quite frustrated by that tactic, saying, you know, the election's not for another couple of years. We can't throw in the towel now. So I think we've seen Taylor kind of this week adopt that stance. Whether it's a little too little too late to be fully compelling at this stage, I'm not sure. But I think it was probably time for him to articulate a stronger position and I guess now at least we've seen that definitive stance from him.

[A]

Yeah. How much have the internal machinations within the Liberal Party played on Angus Taylor coming to this position? Particularly around Andrew Hastie's position, a potential rival to the leadership who has been very hard line on his stance against One Nation. How much do you think that is driving this shift, not only for the Liberal Party, but particularly for Angus Taylor?

[D]

I think for the party and for its MPs, it is a really active debate. Right. Like there's no blueprint for them in how to get through this. I think you've had competing views. You've got the side that, that thinks a more conciliatory or collaborative approach with One Nation might be the way to go. And then you've got the hasty camp, which is this language of we don't bend the knee. You know, it's Taylor's decision as the leader to, to chart those waters and to figure out the best way to do it. And I think they've ob. Come to a position that they need to be firmer. The outgoing campaign director, Andrew Hirst a few weeks ago as well made that very clear in his final address to the Liberal Party when he said, you know, One Nation are not our friends and we can't treat them as such. So I think those warnings have been coming from different parts of the party quite loudly. And then I think both, you know, with Taylor finally ruling that out and also a speech he gave about One Nation where he kind of explained, you know, how much One Nation will cost the nation.

[A]

They'll blow up the joint.

[D]

Yeah, exactly.

[A]

The Liberal Party has been doing some further soul searching this week with the release of a discussion paper throwing around some ideas to rebuild the party after back to back election disasters. What does the paper identify as the party's biggest problem?

[D]

The things that it's identified year after year after year, really. This paper has picked up on the theme of the last election Review. It has long term structural issues with membership, with young people, with women, and also the issue with multicultural communities. And I think previous election reviews have picked up Specifically on, you know, the Chinese diaspora and that being a problem for the Liberal Party. So in some ways it's kind of nothing new to see here. It's rehashing a lot of these structural issues. I think the problem for the coalition in the last six months in particular is this one nation vote in the polls has soared, is that it's kind of become clear that young people, multicultural communities, women go to how do we grow our vote share and grow our party and its support? The one nation phenomenon changed that dynamic and the question instead became how do we consolidate our support base and stop it bleeding? And I think in some ways they're actually quite different questions with quite different strategies. And that's why I think we've not seen this active effort from the parliamentary Liberal Party in the last six months to chase those other demographics because it's been so concerned with shoring up what remains of its support base.

[A]

And so Natasi, while this has been happening, all these discussions are taking place, including around how the party engages better with multicultural communities and gets their support. The party's new president, Tony Abbott, released a video called Diversity Is Not Our Strengths, arguing that multiculturalism has failed now

[C]

for many years, migrants to Australia were expected to integrate from day one and to assimilate as soon as possible. Lately, though, under the doctrine of multiculturalism, migrants have been encouraged to keep their culture.

[A]

How can the party rebuild trust with multicultural voters when its own president is making that argument?

[D]

That's the question, isn't it? We had Angus Taylor kind of dance around this question of multiculturalism a couple of weeks ago, kind of came back to it with, you know, what is now a stated support for Australian multiculturalism. But I think then you get to a credibility gap, right? And I think that's what, what the Liberals have kind of been dealing with for the last many years is you can talk the talk at certain points and say we support a version of multiculturalism, et cetera, but there have obviously been moved commentary that have undermined that over time. The other thing that is interesting to me is, you know, we had Susan just talking about some of these issues, you know, women, multicultural communities, younger people, you know, the sensible center, if you like. When Susan Lee came into the leadership a year ago, that was very much where she was pitching herself. We had her kind of trying really hard with a charm offensive in the Indian diaspora community. For example, after the turbulence with the Jacinta Price comments. And we had Susan Lee and her front bench kind of go forward and really try to engage with the Indian Community. Now, we're so much kind of further beyond that with Angus Taylor, you know, and Angus Taylor's also made very strong comments on immigration and multiculturalism. He's kind of repeated commentary about, you know, standards being too low, what he says about migrants from liberal democracy backgrounds being better fits for Australia. I think all of that does probably create a sense of unease and we've heard it from multicultural leaders across the community that they do feel kind of targeted or disparaged by that rhetoric. So, again, it doesn't seem like that's what the party's really trying to do at this point in appealing to those voters.

[A]

Coming up, the politics of migration meets economic reality. Natasha, policy wise, an area that the coalition is mirroring, one nation is migration, promising a lower intake. But you've done some excellent reporting on the economics of cutting immigration this week, and you found that cutting immigration could actually cost billions. What did the costings show?

[D]

Yeah, so these are the costings from the Parliamentary Budget Office, which has basically modelled the fiscal impact of migration. I think the key takeout is, in general, migration is good for the economy because migrants tend to be working, age, they've kind of done their education abroad, they come in and they, over their lifetime, tend to pay more tax than they receive in government benefits. So that's kind of one lens, and it does show that if you were to implement, you know, a drastic cut to immigration, the coalition's position could be about 100,000 people less than what we've got now. You know, that would run in the cost of tens of billions over the forward estimates. One nation's kind of got a net zero migration figure.

[A]

The net zero they believe in, the

[D]

one net zero they believe in which. Which would cost even more. Now, of course, budget impact isn't the only reason. You've got to look at infrastructure, capacity, demographics, social cohesion, and that's obviously part of the picture and it's an important part of the picture. But even so, if you are a party that does come with a policy of cutting migration, I think it just shows that that does need to be offset elsewhere. And so there's a budget management question there for one nation and also for Angus Taylor, at the same time that he's promising, for example, to end bracket creep, that's another very costly policy. So the question closer to the election will be, how do you pay for all of this stuff? And I think that's an issue that Peter Dutton ran into at the last election as well, was making this lower numbers immigration policy square with economic reality.

[A]

Basically, Natasha, this week Pauline Hanson was seen holidaying with Gina Rinehart in southern Italy in what could only be described as the worst series of White Lotus ever. It's not exactly the battler image that Pauline Hansen's been trying to portray for herself, is it?

[D]

No, no, it's not. Lounging on a, on a several thousand dollars a night Sicilian deck, fresh from

[A]

an interview with Tommy Robertson.

[D]

Yeah, you know, she has kind of flaunted this relationship with Gina Rinehart and her pen plane and all of this stuff over the last six months that hasn't really seemed to hurt her. I do wonder if the bigger issue maybe with this European trip and the questions being raised around political judgment, if it whether Europe is where Hanson should be right now, jaunting around, or whether she should be consolidating her lead in the polls and speaking to Australians. And I think maybe that is more of the perception issue.

[A]

There's also been some reports of some internal ructions, particularly with Pauline Heston describing her daughter Lee as a potential future one nation leader, which apparently put Barnaby Joyce's nose out of place. Are we beginning to see the wheels fall off One Nation or is it too early to tell?

[D]

I think it's too early to tell, but it's certainly getting bumpy and I think this was always going to happen. I, you know, I remember when post the Farabai election when ump David Farley came to Parliament, there was a press conference that Hanson held with her new expanded team. And it was the first time that I'd ever seen a one nation press conference attract a full court of press. And it got very messy very quickly.

[E]

Senator Roberts, in an interview on a YouTube channel a couple of weeks ago, you were asked about whether you thought the Bondi terror attack was a false flag. You said, I doubt it was a false flag. But you went on to say I don't have the facts yet.

[D]

I'm not ruling it out because as we've seen and especially with Malcolm Roberts, you know, this is a senator who's been espousing some quite fringe views and talking about conspiracies for quite a few years now.

[E]

Sure too. First of all, it's an absurd proposition. Second thing is that I make reinforce the fact that I make decisions and statements based on data and I don't have data on that.

[B]

Sorry, there was no justification I can speak up from Senator Roberts with regard to this. No, because it was totally taken out of context.

[D]

We have shown no one's really applied the blowtorch to that because it hasn't seemed electorally relevant, but that dynamic's now changed. And so, you know, the questions are coming from all over the place when it comes to Hanson and her crew. And I think, you know, reining that in, keeping it tight, keeping it focused and then looking like a party that could form government is going to be a challenge. And I think we'll see more of that probing. And the other thing is, you know, in Parliament, everyone's in competition. It's usually, you know, labor and the coalition turning their focus to each other, but now both those parties are also turning their focus to one nation. Like, we will continue to see quite a lot of scrutiny placed on one nation and given, you know, a lot of its. Barnaby Joyce is a very experienced politician, the rest not so much. So how they kind of stand up to that increased level of scrutiny, it will be really interesting.

[A]

We'll be here for it. Before we let you go, Natasha. Labor inherited an aged care system that had been condemned by a royal commission, made fixing it one of its central promises. But this week, the outgoing aged care watchdog said she believes Labor's reforms are harming some of the older people. They were designed to help what's going wrong with aged care.

[D]

So Labor's attempted a kind of funding reset or overhaul, if you will, of the aged care system. The impetus for that is that we do have an ageing population who will demand more care, particularly in the next decade, and that's a huge demographic shift. So what Labor's done is kind of introduce a user pays model where for some elements of home care and aged care, now people with the means are expected to pay more for their care. We're also seeing a trend broadly of people wanting to stay at home as they age. Part of that is, you know, it's a lot of people's preference. And for the government, that's also important because there's not residential aged care beds for everyone. I think the Health minister says that you'd need to be building, you know, an aged care facility every three days to keep up with demand. What we heard from the aged care inspector General who's leaving her post at the end of the month, so she was kind of free. Free to speak as candidly as she wanted a rare opportunity for a public servant. Her take was that the. The focus on residential aged care in the first place is. Is not right. She thinks that home care, home care, that kind of centres the rights and independence of the individual is where policy needs to be. And argument was that this New user pays model, which is affecting a lot of pensioners and semi pensioners, risks having a detrimental effect in the long run because once you make people pay for things, they're less likely to take those things out. And so what she thinks that will do is disincentivise people to seek care at home until the point that you do end up pushing everyone into residential aged care. At that point, they are older and sicker and residential aged care is more expensive. So it's also more expensive to the tax. There has been this issue with home care packages as well, this huge bottleneck because there is so much demand. The government's argument is there's not really the workforce there and that they are bringing hundreds of thousands of home care packages online, so they're doing something to a system they say has been neglected. But, you know, there are these kind of broader structural trends and challenges that I think perhaps the government talks about in a way that does frame it as a problem. I think the Aged Care Inspector General, we're saying that that fatalism doesn't serve anyone. So she wants to see, you know, more investment and a rethink of that, that consumer co contribution model.

[A]

If we do have problems with an aged care workforce, where will we get that workforce from? Natasha, it's a rhetorical question, you don't have to answer it. But thank you so much for coming.

[D]

Realign 20 minutes to our migration conversation and we can keep going in circles.

[A]

Hey, Natasia, thank you so much for your time.

[D]

Thank you.

[A]

7:00am is a Daily show from Solstice Media. It's made by Ariel Richards, Atticus Bastow, Chris Dengate, Crystal Keller, Renee Auckland, Ruby Jones, Travis Evans, Zoltan Fetcho Jr. And me, Daniel James. Our theme music is by Ned Beckley and Josh Hogan of Envelope Audio. Have yourself a great weekend and if you haven't already, you can follow 7am on Instagram and subscribe on YouTube. And if you're feeling particularly generous, you can also leave us a review. It helps other people find the podcast.