Australian news and politics live: Sussan Ley, Ted O’Brien make first speech since Liberal leadership vote

Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles is the next Labor politician that the Governor General swears in, before the remainder of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s Cabinet steps up.

The order will then be: Senator Penny Wong, Treasurer Jim Chalmers, Senator Katy Gallagher, Senator Don Farrell, Tony Burke, Mark Butler, Chris Bowen, Catherine King, Amanda Rishworth, Jason Clare, Michelle Rowland, Tanya Plibersek, Julie Collins, Clare O’Neil,, Madeleine King, Senator Murray Watt, Senator Malarndirri McCarthy, Anika Wells, Pat Conroy, Anne Aly and Senator Tim Ayres.

Following the Cabinet swearing in, the outer ministry will be sworn in.

The official proceedings are expected to take a little longer than usual due to the large number of seats secured in the 2025 Labor landslide election win.

Not that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been sworn back in, Labor MPs are next up.

Governor General Sam Mostyn will welcome the Labor MPs to Government House in Canberra, where they will make and subscribe an oath or affirmation of allegiance.

The process must be completed before a politician can take their seat.

MPs have a choice between an oath, which includes religious wording, or an affirmation.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has resigned and then been sworn in again as Prime Minister at Government House after his historic win over the Liberal Party.

Alongside Governor General Sam Mostyn, Mr Albanese said: “I, Anthony Norman Albanese, do solemnly and sincerely affirm and declare that I will well and truly serve the Commonwealth of Australia, her land and her people in the office of Prime Minister.”

The Prime Minister was then invited to sit down and signed the official paperwork.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has called the Liberal Party leadership contest between Angus Taylor and Sussan Ley a “battle of the duds”, saying the party “haven’t learnt a thing” following its historic loss.

“The two people that are up for election today show that the Liberals haven’t learnt a thing from the debacle which was the election campaign,” Dr Chalmers told Sky News.

“Whoever wins the battle of the duds today, the Liberal Party will still be the party of lower wages, higher income taxes and nuclear reactors.”

Dr Chalmers went one step further, saying neither Ms Ley nor Mr Taylor should be asking for votes.

“Sussan Ley and Angus Taylor should be asking their colleagues for forgiveness, not for their votes,” he continued.

“These two are two of the three people most responsible for the Liberal Party’s failure at the election, failure over the past three years to come up with anything that resembles a credible, coherent economic policy, and so I find it bizarre that the Liberal Party members are being asked to choose between two of the worst performers in Opposition in the last three years.”

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has welcomed the de-escalation in tension between the United States and China after a bitter trade war erupted, however, said there is still “a little way to run yet”.

“I think anyone who is watching the way that markets have been extremely volatile in recent months would welcome this development, but we also need to recognise that there is still a lot of uncertainty, still a lot of volatility in the global economy that we all have to deal with, and a lot of that volatility is still unresolved, even though this was a welcomed development in the last day or two,” Dr Chalmers told Sunrise.

“We will continue to engage with the Americans as we have been. We have got a good story to tell. This is a relationship of mutual economic benefit.

“We are very pleased to see some of these tensions de-escalate over the last day or two, but these negotiations have probably got a little way to run yet.”

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has declared that the PBS is not up for negotiation, brushing off speculation that US President Donald Trump’s latest executive order to lower prices of medicines for Americans could make prices rise in Australia.

“We have seen the announcements out of the US and we will work through them in the usual way, but we have made it really clear, and I make it clear again today, that our Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme is not up for negotiation,” Dr Chalmers told Sunrise.

“We are making medicines cheaper in this country, not more expensive.

“The PBS is a really proud creation of Labor in government. It is something that we cherish. It is something that we are advancing with our policies and it is something that we will do everything to protect.”

Dr Chalmers said although Mr Trump has made an announcement, the implications of what it would mean were not yet clear.

“We will work through that,” Dr Chalmers said.

“But this Albanese Labor government is making medicines cheaper, not more expensive.

“We have made it very clear, publicly and privately, that we won’t be changing the PBS at the behest of another country, and that remains our position.”

The Liberal Party are set to meet at 10am AEST on Tuesday.

About 50 Liberal politicians are expected to vote on the party’s future, including recently returned MP Tim Wilson, who also considered throwing his hat in the ring.

Moderates have urged the Liberals to abandon culture wars and return to the centre but some critics warn that might not solve the party’s problems.

On Monday, The Nightly revealed an exclusively obtained list that was circulating among the Liberal Party that revealed voting intentions.

That list puts Angus Taylor ahead of Sussan Ley.

Read the full analysis of voting intentions.

The winner of the Liberal leadership could be handed a poisoned chalice as they are tasked with resurrecting the party from its post-election ashes.

Liberal politicians will choose their next leader on Tuesday after Australians handed them a bruising election defeat that decimated their ranks and took out Opposition Leader Peter Dutton.

Deputy leader Sussan Ley will face off against shadow treasurer Angus Taylor, while senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has teamed up with Mr Taylor in a bid to become his second-in-command.

There is no reason to assume whoever takes the job won’t last until the next election, and the absence of a deep bench could bode well for them, Australian National University politics lecturer Jill Sheppard said.

But leading the coalition when it holds less than half as many seats as Labor is a tough ask, and there is a reason other contenders such as Dan Tehan and Andrew Hastie were quick to rule themselves out.

“It does feel like a bit of a poisoned chalice,” Dr Sheppard told AAP.

“Usually, they at least pretend to want to run for a few days.

“The most important day-one job is to keep the party united, and that’s not going to be easy when there’s a lot of recriminations to be had.”

Read the full story.