Australian news and politics live: Angus Taylor, Jane Hume get to work on selling the new Liberal Party

New Deputy Liberal leader Jane Hume has accused treasurer Jim Chalmers of pulling out “nonsense numbers” from a “place where the sun doesn’t shine”.

Senator Hume’s sledge came as she responded to an accusation by Dr Chalmer that Angus Taylor has had a history littered with economic mismanagement.

The treasurer’s comments had come after the new Liberal leader penned a letter to the PM calling for a bipartisan task force to cut government spending.

Dr Chalmers had also released figures on Monday showing the budget deficit would be more than $14 billion worse off over the next two years and another $8.5 billion in extra interest in the medium term.

“I love the fact that Jim Chalmers has spent so much time looking at numbers that don’t exist, that are entirely irrelevant, when he could be looking at his own,” Senator Hume told Sky News.

“How about he looks at a trillion dollars in debt or deficits every single year for the next 10 years?

“But he’s spending his time attacking Angus Taylor, and attacking me, with nonsense numbers that he’s just pulled out of a place where the sun doesn’t shine.”

Liberal Senator Dave Sharma says Sussan Ley won’t get to “harvest the fruits” of the hard slog she endured as the leader after the party’s worst election result on record.

“I think she took over at a very difficult time, and I think there’s been a lot of soul searching since the 2025 election loss,” Senator Sharma told Sky News on Monday.

“I think Sussan presided over significant internal re-examination and reform. She didn’t get to harvest the fruits of that, but I think we can now. I am optimistic. I think it is up from here.

He said the past few months of internal division, policy disputes, breakups and reunification with the Nationals had “cost” Ms Ley and the party as a whole.

Senator Sharma said he would be happy to serve in any capacity on Angus Taylor’s shadow Cabinet but said he won’t preempt what team the new leader would assemble.

“I’m very committed to getting behind the new team, and I hope the rest of the party room is,” Senator Sharma said.

Liberal Senator Maria Kovacic says it’s important the new leadership team, Angus Taylor and Jane Hume, “reset” the party’s message and act quickly to turn around its standing.

The former Sussan Ley supporter told Sky News on Monday that the Liberals needed to clearly communicate their policies to be a credible alternative to the Albanese Labor Government.

“I’ve seen both Angus Taylor and Jane Hume go out over the weekend talking to Australians and trying to reset our message. I think it’s really important that they do that, because the task that we have at hand still remains,” Senator Kovacic said.

Senator Kovacic could not guarantee how long Mr Taylor would be in the helm before the party agitated again.

“You can’t guarantee anything, and a change of leadership alone isn’t going to change the problems that we face,” she said.

Reacting to the recent horror polls, which put One Nation on par with the Liberals as Pauline Hanson’s party sees a surge of support, deputy leader Jane Hume said that under her and Angus Taylor, Australians would be given hope again.

“The Liberal Party will never become a party of grievance or a party of reactionary politics,” Senator Hume told Sunrise.

“We want to make sure we don’t need to move to the right, we don’t need to move to the left. We just need to remind people who the Liberal Party stand for and who we fight for.

“That’s mainstream Australians. We speak for the unrepresented. We don’t look after sectional interest like big unions or big business, we look after Australian families, we look after small businesses.”

Senator Hume said the Liberal Party gives “reward for effort”, and is “a party of opportunity and aspiration.

“What we want to give is people that sense that next year is going to be better than last year, and they haven’t had that for so long under Labor.”

Angus Taylor says his Liberal Party will be open to all fuel sources to create policy that brings an end to Aussies paying for Labor’s failings.

“We need to open our energy system to all available technologies.

“The ideology we have seen from Labor, where they only like some fuels - they hate others - is leading to huge increases in prices, almost 40 per cent since Labor came to power. In my time as energy minister, they came down 10 per cent,” Mr Taylor told Sunrise.

Challenged on his inability to sell the Liberal Party’s energy policy at the last election, just nine months ago, Mr Taylor focused on the future.

“You will see policies from us on energy. We’ve already laid out were rejecting Labor’s net zero ideology,” he said.

“There will be more to say on where we go from here.

“But what I can say is we need every fuel source in the mix. This is so crucial. Labor is failing because they pick their favourites. It’s all ideological and Australians pay for it.”

New Liberal Leader Angus Taylor and new deputy leader Jane Hume have spent their Monday morning completing an enormous media blitz as the two desperately attempt to sell the concept of a new Liberal Party.

“We’ve got to admit the mistakes we’ve made in the past, but the priority has to be restoring the Australian standard of living and protecting their way of life,” Mr Taylor told Sunrise.

Mr Taylor said energy policy, which wasn’t ideological and actually brought prices down, restoring the Aussie dream of owning a home, and an immigration policy that “puts Australians first”, shutting the door to those who do not subscribe to our way of life, was key to the success of the Liberal Party.

On immigration, Mr Taylor said the people who should have the door shut on them are “people who don’t accept the most basic beliefs that have made us a successful country”, including following the law, allowing free speech and religious freedom.

Mr Taylor said it was vital that Australia’s intelligence agency was properly funded and resourced to ensure people who do not align with Australian values are kept out.