Taylor Rejects One Nation Alliance, Vows Small Business Action

Federal Opposition Leader Angus Taylor has firmly ruled out any formal arrangement with One Nation, declaring the minor party lacks the policy substance needed to form a credible alternative to Labor — as he toured Queensland's Gold Coast to hear directly from struggling small business owners.

Speaking on 4BC Brisbane, Taylor dismissed calls from conservative voters for a so-called super coalition or joint venture with One Nation, describing it as a one-person operation without the breadth of team required to turn the country around.

"I absolutely disagree that the only way to defeat Labor is a coalition with One Nation," Taylor said. "I just don't think they have the solutions to these problems." He pointed to fresh One Nation spending commitments reported in the media as evidence of a contradictory approach, arguing it made little sense for a party that criticises Labor's expenditure to pledge even more of its own.

Taylor's Gold Coast visit centred on consultations with small business operators he says are being crushed by the current economic environment. Australia is now recording roughly 30 commercial insolvencies per day — a figure Taylor described as unprecedented — with family-run enterprises failing at a record rate under the weight of rising costs and new taxes introduced in the recent federal budget.

"The Australian journey — aspiring to build a career, start a business, buy a home, raise a family — that dream is disappearing for so many Australians," he said. "Small business is right at the heart of that problem."

Taylor acknowledged the pressures extend well beyond taxation. Changes to award wages, the removal of junior pay rates in hospitality and cafes, surging electricity bills and rising insurance premiums all compound the burden on smaller operators. He singled out the National Construction Code — now running to more than 2,000 pages — as a striking example of regulatory overreach, arguing that experienced tradespeople are being told how to perform work they have done for decades.

"You haven't got an HR department, you haven't got lawyers you can call on every day," Taylor said. "This is what's killing our economy."

On energy and migration, Taylor restated Coalition commitments to scrap net zero targets and wind back what he characterised as mass immigration that fails to deliver the skilled workers small businesses actually need.

Taylor also defended the Coalition's marquee budget-reply announcement: a proposal to index personal income tax brackets and end the quiet erosion of real wages through bracket creep, where inflation nudges workers into higher tax bands without any legislated increase. The policy is estimated to cost around $22.5 billion over four years — a commitment Taylor framed not as a handout but as a correction to a system that effectively imposes an invisible annual tax rise on working Australians.

Critics have drawn comparisons to Malcolm Fraser's indexation policy in the 1970s, which was ultimately abandoned. Taylor was in the process of outlining how the Coalition intended to fund the measure when the interview wrapped, but his broader message to Queensland's conservative voter base was unambiguous: the pathway back from Labor runs through the Coalition alone, and any alliance with One Nation is off the table.