Wednesday 13 May 2026

Transcript - Doorstop interview, Press Gallery Parliament House, Canberra

Topics: Federal budget

E&OE...

Tim Wilson: Last night the Treasurer handed down his fifth budget. This budget is a bad faith budget. It’s an assault on the Australian dream, it’s built on a house of broken promises, it is lowering living standards, increasing taxes, and it’s building fewer homes. Young Australians will be looking at this budget and asking what’s in it for us, when the government is building fewer homes, increasing costs, increasing taxes, and most importantly, taxing their aspiration and their capacity to be able to get ahead. This government’s budget is in complete disarray as people see through the paper-thin weight of it. It’s not focused on how you build a better Australia, build growth and opportunity for the next generation of Australians. It won’t get more Australians into buying their own first home, but it will whack new taxes on the aspiration and dreams of young Australians who want to simply get ahead. We should have a nation where hard work pays off, where Australians are more in control of their own lives. And instead, what we have is a government that disrespects Australians and treats them with contempt, particularly when they so nakedly, brazenly lied and now have broken promises to the Australian community. The Treasurer likes to dress this up as some sort of reform budget. There has never been a bigger tax-raid budget in the nation’s history. And it’s been done because the government simply does not know how to lead Australia through challenging times and has no focus on how it’s going to build future economic growth for the next generation.

Journalist: Tim, you talk about young people and not doing enough for them. But when you speak with young people these days, all they want is changes to capital gains and for negative gearing to be scrapped. It’s exactly what the government’s done. So why doesn’t that help?

Tim Wilson: What young Australians want is to be able to work hard, save, and be able to buy their first home. And what the government has done, and by their own projected figures, is increase, overshoot migration levels so there’ll be more demand, and concurrently, they’re going to build fewer homes. By their own budget documents, it confirms that 35,000 fewer homes were built over the next phase explicitly because of the government’s measures. Rents will increase according to the government’s own documents. So think about it. If you’re a young Australian, you are renting because you can’t afford your own home. You’re saving, and the government is now going to tax your house deposit, and then there are going to be fewer homes at the end to be able to go on and buy. Everything about this budget is an assault on young Australians and their dreams.

Journalist: By that measure then, what do you want to see with Australian house prices? Should they be going down?

Tim Wilson: I absolutely want to see a pathway where young Australians can afford to buy their own home. And that’s by making sure they’re affordable, we see actual real improvements in real wages. What’s happened under this government is that wages, real wages have gone backwards by 3% over the life of this government. This government is knee-capping the ambition and aspiration of young Australians and making it harder for them to be able to afford their first home.

Journalist: Tim, is the Coalition going to oppose the tax rises on all three of these measures: negative gearing, capital gains, and discretionary trusts?

Tim Wilson: We’ll absolutely be opposing all three tax measures, which are designed to knee-cap the ambition and aspiration and it’s an assault on the Australian dream and young Australians to be able to save to work ahead and to be able to improve their own lives. Look at what the government has done. They’ve lifted up the ladder of opportunity before young Australians have got their first foot on the rung while they are protecting the existing arrangements in many cases for older generations and those who have secured their own safety and financial security. This government is not interested in helping young Australians; they’re directly attacking their pathway and their opportunity to get ahead.

Journalist: Tim, if these are legislated as the Greens will probably support them in some shape or form, would the Coalition be able to unwind these measures at the next election?

Tim Wilson: Well, our objective is to make sure these measures are defeated, that these new taxes built on a house of broken trust, lies, and broken promises are defeated. And of course, if necessary, we’ll look at pathways to do so. But our focus is defeating them now because you cannot build out the trust of the Australian community by starting before an election saying these taxes will never be introduced. The Prime Minister was at odds with journalists, red hot with rage, saying fifty times over in his own words that he was not going to introduce new taxes on housing, on rentals, and of course on capital gains. He’s now just not just lied, he’s broken that trust with the Australian community and has then gone on to introduce a budget built on that house of lies.

Journalist: So you would consider repealing that if you got into government?

Tim Wilson: We’d absolutely consider repealing bad measures that lead to fewer homes being built in Australia, which is precisely what the government’s budget documents show. The government budget documents show fewer homes being built and higher rents, and it’s knee-capping young Australians from their pathway to get ahead. That’s why this is a bad faith budget in every design measure because it’s built on broken promises, it leads to higher taxes, it leads to lower living standards, and it’s going to build fewer homes and higher rents.

Journalist: What about when it comes to debt and deficit? The government’s talked a lot about intergenerational equality, but I mean at the end of the day, it’s younger people who are going to be paying back this debt.

Tim Wilson: Today’s debt is tomorrow’s taxes. And so the government documents project out to $1.25 trillion in debt that is going to be handed on to the next generation of Australians with little attempt to try and reduce the volume of public spending by this government. They’ve been complete passengers when we’ve discussed the importance of cracking down on fraud and corruption and the NDIS, phantom children being enrolled in childcare or home-aged care packages. They still won’t even bother to order, audit the $15 billion which was given to the corrupt CFMEU and organized crime. In fact, the government is doubling down on handing money to corrupt and organized crime in Victoria by reallocating money from road projects across the country to prop up the Victorian Allan government and their CFMEU mates.

[ENDS]