Australian news and politics live: Labor coy on Greens future relationship, One Nation soars again

One Nation Leader Pauline Hanson has revealed she has not spoken to Opposition Leader Angus Taylor for years, despite there being a likelihood the parties may need to work together to form a government.

“I haven’t spoken to Angus for years,” she told Sunrise on Tuesday.

“I haven’t seen him since about 2019, 2020.”

However, she indicated she hoped the two parties could eventually work together, saying she wanted to remove what she described as a “toxic Labor Greens, Teals government”.

“In time, I’m sure we’ll get to talk and strategise about preferences,” Senator Hanson said.

Read the full story.

Richard Marles has stopped far short of confirming that Labor will need the Greens to form Government in the future, instead saying Labor is the captain of the ship.

Following a fresh Roy Morgan poll putting One Nation ahead of Labor, (and miles ahead of the Coalition), Richard Marles refused to accept that the Greens have a major influence over the Government.

“We are governing Australia,” he told Sunrise, after being pushed on the Greens having Labor over a barrel on NDIS funding and tax reform.

“What we are doing is putting forward a Budget. We will work with the Senate to see (it) passed.

“The Greens are completely separate from the Government. We are governing Australia in the national interest.”

Following the long-awaited resignation of UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and amid Labour’s fall in the polls as One Nation soars, the Government has been asked whether Anthony Albanese will be rolled and someone new will take over.

After a chaotic few years of rolling PMs for a new leader in Australia, something done by both Labor and the Coalition, there’s been somewhat of a calm under Albanese, holding strong as PM.

However, as the polls slump and the outrage over the Budget continues to burn almost five weeks after it was handed down, Labor has been forced to defend the PM’s job.

“I think there are different circumstances here,” Defence Minister Richard Marles told Nine.

“Having lived through this in the earlier part of my career, the way politics plays out is very specific to particular parts of the world.”

“We’ll keep focusing on the challenges of cost of living in Australia, and Pauline Hanson and Angus Taylor will keep working together to get in the way of all of that.”