Taylor, Hume and the Liberal circus are easy prey for hungry journalists. Policy critique is suffering because of it

share_windows This article appeared in Crikey on April 29 2026.

Liberal leader Angus Taylor’s interview with David Speers on the ABC’s Insiders over the weekend was a bit like one of David Attenborough’s nature documentaries, where one animal attempts to prey on the other.

Speers takes as his starting point the Liberals’ decision to preference One Nation in Farrer ahead of all candidates except for the Nationals’ Brad Robertson and independent candidate Roger Woodward, who lives in suburban Sydney. Speers has clearly prepared a couple of holes for Taylor to dig himself into.

First, he tries to get the opposition leader to respond to Pauline Hanson’s immigration policy, asking, “Do you agree with her policy?” Failing to get a straight answer, Speers circles back a few minutes later, this time asking, “Has she got it right or wrong?”

Taylor dodges this hole, only to face another one. Speers reads out what Taylor said in his announcement of the Liberal Party’s new immigration policy — “People who migrate from liberal democracies have a greater likelihood of subscribing to Australian values” — while simultaneously arranging to have the statement projected on the television screen.

Speers follows up:

“Are migrants from China, from Vietnam, less likely to fit in than British migrants?”

Careful not to further cruel the Liberal Party’s chances with Chinese-Australian voters and risk angering Australia’s biggest partner, Taylor responds by obfuscating:

“Some of the great Australians have come from countries that were bad countries at the time, but there’s a higher risk that some bad people come from those bad countries.”

Gotcha!

Seizing on Taylor’s new “bad countries” utterance, Speers tries a different tactic, this time asking, “Are you saying China is a bad country?” He asks the China question four times during the interview, and clearly enjoys watching Taylor slide into contradictions of his own making, intervening only just enough that his prey’s attempts to climb out seem to send him further down.

Nine Entertainment was not going to let the ABC monopolise the hunting ground though. Soon after Taylor’s interview on Insiders, Liberal deputy leader Jane Hume appeared on the Today show to defend her boss.

Armed with ammunition offered by Taylor, Today’s co-host Sarah Abo goes for it. She starts by asking Hume to give an example of Taylor’s “bad countries”. Hume, careful not to step into the same hole, plays it safe and nominates Iran. In response, Abo asks, “So, is everyone from Iran a bad person?” This launches Hume into a frantic toss of word salad, including phrases such as “high numbers”, “low standards”, “values” and “the Australian way of life”. Hume is clearly rattled.

The interview, taking place on a slow news day, becomes a news story in both the Murdoch and Nine media outlets, describing it as “tense”, a clash and a grilling. Superficial as it may be, it’s clear that doggedly pursuing a tricky question with quick repartee and improvised ambushes makes newsworthy fodder in its own right.

Journalists like to dig holes for politicians. Or better still, they like to entice politicians to go back to the holes they have dug for themselves and watch them dig further. They patiently circle the edges, waiting for the moment when a politician’s own words send them sliding back in, and then ensuring that every scramble for footing only loosens more earth beneath them.

Let’s face it: although the change of leadership from Sussan Ley and Ted O’Brien to the new dynamic duo of Angus Taylor and Jane Hume has failed to bring a breath of fresh air to Australian politics, it has certainly injected a slew of fresh opportunities for attention‑grabbing headlines. For journalists thirsty for a shock reaction, both the deposed Liberal leader Ley and the Albanese‑Marles‑Wong Labor leadership are little fun to interview. In most cases, their answers tend to be predictably scripted, consistent and, well, dull.

In contrast, the new Liberal leadership seems to promise an era of more “interesting” journalism. This is not because Taylor and Hume have exciting policy ideas, but because they’re trying their hand at “Pauline‑speak” (“bad countries”), while also arguing that they have a moderate mainstream political sensibility (e.g. prioritising values over race and religion). This penchant for “muddying the message with explanations of convoluted policy” is bound to play itself out as public rhetoric that is confused/confusing, incoherent and self‑contradictory. It exudes a “make it up as you go along” feeling — a weakness that journalists will ruthlessly exploit only too happily.

Motivated to favour amplification over dissection, the media prefer short clips, viral quotes and rapid responses over detailed analysis. This means that serious critique (e.g. unpacking the framing, metaphors and implicit assumptions in media coverage) is less visible and less rewarded — or often non‑existent.

While the media relish the potential for shock value, to mount a serious critique of the Liberals’ policy rhetoric is maddeningly difficult. Confronted with deliberately blunt, provocative, norm‑breaking language that aims to grab attention and siphon off One Nation voters, journalists and commentators tend to react with disbelief: Did he really say that? How can they say that? This discourages serious efforts to understand or question the ideological assumptions and political motivations underlying this rhetoric.

Also, since the new Liberal leaders’ rhetoric often mixes slogans (e.g. the “rotten Labor government”) with shifting claims and apparently off‑the‑cuff remarks, it is harder to aim at such a moving target. In the absence of a stable, coherent argument, what critique can you offer other than to say that their policy is incoherent, contradictory, half‑baked and ultimately self‑defeating?

A charitable reading of journalists’ attempts at “gotcha” moments might argue they are simply allowing politicians to hoist themselves on their own petards. But audiences may not be as easily entertained as journalists, and while the details of any particular skewering of a politician may vary, the formula is tiresomely familiar.

Can this be the pinnacle of contemporary political journalism?