Australian news and politics live: Teals' party future as independents consider banding together

Malcolm Turnbull has joked that Tony Abbott is “clearly a masochist” for jumping back into the political vanguard as the new Liberal Party president (executive council meeting pending, but he’s running unopposed).

“He’s got a strong commitment to politics, so good on him,” Mr Turnbull said of the man he deposed as prime minister, before going on to air his long-running grievances about Mr Abbott and his former chief of staff, Peta Credlin, dragging the party to the right.

“They’re basically arguing that the Liberal Party’s mistake has been not being right-wing enough … They’ve been saying this, despite every election sending them the message that a significant part of the electorate feel they have gone too far to the right.

“Insanity is, the definition of that is when you keep on doing … the same thing and expecting a different result, and this constant move to the populist right is only building up One Nation.

“The Liberal Party’s got to steer back to the centre and focus on economic management, it’s got to focus on things like innovation, on productivity, on growing the economy and stay out of the culture wars.”

Malcolm Turnbull has insisted he is not involved in setting up a new political party, although concedes he does speak with independents, including Allegra Spender and Zali Steggall, frequently.

The two Sydney-based independents are reportedly the driving forces behind a push to create a new centre-right party that could continue to recruit and fund community-based candidates under the new electoral donation laws.

The former prime minister told Radio National there was “absolutely an opportunity there” to create an alternative to the Liberal Party.

“People feel the Liberal Party has, you know, moved away from the centre, that is why the Teals were elected,” Mr Turnbull said.

“The more the Liberal Party tries to chase and emulate and copy One Nation, the more it builds up the vote for One Nation, because if you essentially … legitimise and validate One Nation’s platform, people will always go for the real deal.

“This is exactly the mistake that the Tories have made in the UK with Reform – in fact, I was talking to (Reform leader) Nigel Farage about this in London just recently. It’s a real phenomenon.

“If centre-right parties abandon the centre, they will get overwhelmed by the party that is to their right.”

Australia’s domestic intelligence chief will give evidence to the Royal Commission into anti-Semitism on Monday, as tensions between ASIO and the Government intensify over counter-terrorism funding.

The inquiry has received more than 12,000 submissions since being established following last year’s Bondi massacre.

Fifteen innocent people were killed when gunmen opened fire at a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach in Sydney on December 14, 2025.

Mike Burgess, ASIO’s director-general, is among five witnesses due to give evidence on Monday.

Jane Hume, the Liberal Party Deputy Leader, says reports of a teal party, unifying independents as one, is the “worst-kept secret in Canberra”.

On Sunday, the SMH reported that teal independents Allegra Spender and Zali Steggall were leading efforts to get the unaligned politicians aligned under a new party.

“For a number of years, we’ve been saying that if it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, it’s a duck,” Senator Hume told Sky News on Monday morning.

“The teals have been a party since they began, they’ve had the same funding sources, they’ve had the same campaign teams, they’ve worn the same colours, but worse than that, they had the same slogan, and the slogan was about integrity,” she added.

Questioning how independent teals are in Parliament, Senator Hume said: “I’m sure it’s great news for the Greens and for the Labor Party, because let’s face it, the teals have supported their positions around 70 per cent of the time.”

Teals, as independent Federal politicians, could soon sit together under a new party, as reports grow of a push to cooperate as one against One Nation.

On Sunday, independent Senator David Pocock, who rejects having a Teal label despite receiving backing from Teal backer Climate 200, said the “big question” for independents was to band together or remain unaligned amidst the “current political climate” as Pauline Hanson continues to make a run for dominance.

“I think there’s so many ­people in politics for the right reasons and when you’re in there, you want to say, well, how do we actually ensure people can elect people that are going to come here and really deal with the root causes of the problems we’re facing, because we haven’t seen that,” Senator Pocock said on ABC’s Insiders program.

“At the moment, the thing I’d love to see at the next election is every electorate actually (having) a viable independent, someone from the community.”