Monday, 13 October 2025

EO&E

Oly Peterson:  There are some new allegations being levelled at the CFMEU. You'll recall that last year, administrator was brought in by the Federal Government to clean it up. Now there are some shady meetings occurring with some of the top brass and those who shouldn't be there anymore. Tim Wilson is the Shadow Minister for Industrial Relations. Good afternoon.

Tim Wilson: Good afternoon, Oly.

Oly Peterson: Do you think that Jim Chalmers has been spoken to by the Prime Minister here? He's rolled him about this super tax back down on unrealised gains?

Tim Wilson: I think the Australian people have rolled him, to be frank, because this is a tax that nobody voted for, they couldn't figure out how to do it, they hadn't done the work and Chalmers has been brought back down to reality by the Australian people and frankly has been humiliated.

Oly Peterson: Is it a bit of a win for what you and the Opposition have been saying over these last couple of months Tim about the proposed changes?

Tim Wilson: It is a win because at the end of the day this proposal never stacked up, they banked all the savings they claimed they would get all the revenue they'd get from this tax. Of course they're not able to get it now so the budget's got a black hole in it and they don't know how they're going to fill it. But it also shows you just how dodgy a lot of their work has been to date. And all it means is they're going to borrow more from the future, push inflation up today. Which means costs are going to rise and interest rates are going to rise on every Australian.

Oly Peterson: The Treasurer is saying it's going to increase the low-income superannuation tax offset by $310 to $810 from July 1 2027, raise the eligibility threshold from $37,000 to $47,000 and it's gonna help low-income workers earn more, keep more of what they earn, says Treasurer Chalmers and retire with more too. So is there a bit of a win for the lower-income earners here Tim?

Tim Wilson: Ah look, that's all the spin at the end of the day. They're trying to find a way to back down from what's a pretty humiliating position for the Labor Party. They're facing a choice, which is they took big policies to the election that they claimed would be the basis for how they're going to find a better sense of balance for the Australian community. They've had to back-down. Now they're going to have to face a choice about how they're going to fix their budget black hole. And we all know it's just going to be by borrowing more and pushing up inflation and interest rates on Australians, so what they give on one hand they're going to take another.

Oly Peterson: Are you happy that the Treasurer Jim Chalmers is back down on those plans? 133 882, I'm speaking with Tim Wilson this afternoon right here on Perth Live. Now part of our group, the Nine Entertainment Company, there's been some very interesting revelations that I've been following closely by our colleague Nick McKenzie there at The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and of course you can read his content through WA Today. He's been right on a lot of the shenanigans and goings on within the CFMEU. And just to refresh listener's memories, you will recall that last year, an administrator was put into the CFMEU and claims from the Federal Government was going to clean it up. But Tim, it now appears that we've got some underworld figures and people who've been disgraced out of the CFMEU catching up with the current top brass of the CFMEU. What in the world is going on?

Tim Wilson: Well that's the question that everybody's asking. So the whole of the CFMEU is put in an administration because John Setka and his cronies were organising criminal gangs, bikie gangs and organised crime onto public projects through the union. They put it into administration to crack down on this behaviour. We've now found out that the head of the CFMEU in Victoria, Zach Smith, the Prime Minister's hand-picked union head, has been catching up with John Setka and it's going on like nothing's changed. Separately he's been organising meetings with other CFMEU officials and Mick Gatto. I mean this is just absurd. So we now have a situation where everything we were told was going to be fixed, has actually just been going on and in some cases the administrator seems to be ticking it off and giving it the green light.

Oly Peterson: And the executive of the CFMEU have been calling for these meetings to be in places where nobody could see them. So there's a bad whiff about this. Why hasn't the administrator called something in about it? And where is the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Amanda Rishworth?

Tim Wilson: Well, the Minister is in hiding because she can't answer for it. She keeps saying she's got full confidence. She strapped herself to the administrator and said that's the way forward. So it's really now down to the administrator to answer the question. So we've submitted a list of questions to the administrator for him to answer because it's not on. Public confidence requires transparency, honesty and for him to be forthright and explain what's happening. If they're going to clean up the CFMEU, we need him to do it and we need him to do it now because every time the CFMEU's engaged with criminal gangs, organised crime and bikie gangs on public projects, it means pushing up costs, it means we're getting a poorer value for money and it means that these projects cost us more, increasing taxes, debt and of course goes on to impact inflation as well.

Oly Peterson: Does it worry you that the administrator and the Government are not taking these allegations as seriously as they made the Australian public believe last year?

Tim Wilson: I don't think they're taking them seriously at all. I think the administrator was appointed because it enabled them to keep all the power structures in the CFMEU in place, but take it out of the headlines. Because the Labor Party is built off the power structures in the unions and they didn't like the attention it was getting. You need a bright light shone on the corruption inside the CFMEU if you want to have a proper crackdown. But Labor wants to keep the spotlight off the CFMEU and that's what the administrator is doing. It's looking more and more like they're running interference rather than a crackdown.

Oly Peterson: One other for you today Tim. Lidia Thorpe's passionate speech over the weekend threatening to burn down Parliament House. Step too far?

Tim Wilson: Resolutely a step too far, but is it really a surprise that, whether it's the CFMEU and corrupt and criminal organised gangs, whether it's the volume of crime in Victoria and the State Government struggling to crack down on it, or Federal Senators claiming they're going to burn down Parliament House for political reasons... That people feel like the country is out of control, their state is out of control and you can't take the Federal Government or State Labor Government seriously on these basic things of criminal conduct. Leadership matters, you got to call this stuff out and instead what we've got is Tony Burke the Home Affairs Minister saying there's nothing to see here. There is something to see here. It's despicable, it's disgraceful and to see a federal Senator say things even rhetorically even if she wants to dismiss it, is deeply disturbing.

Oly Peterson: Well you have an extra level of responsibility. People can always respectfully disagree and you all come from different political persuasions, fine. But you take an oath, you swear an allegiance to the country as a member there of the Lower House like you are, as a Senator there of the Upper House of Australia, and it is just a very misguided comment to be making. I realise Lidia Thorpe is quite a radical headline-grabbing MP or Senator I should say, but that is deeply disturbing.

Tim Wilson: It is deeply disturbing and it means that, what it does it says to other Australians that this is an acceptable way to engage, it's an acceptable thing to say. You know we saw back in, you might remember back in 1996 when the unions went and smashed up Parliament House during the Howard Government, that wasn't right then. Making claims that people are going to do the same sorts of things today isn't right now. We've got to be better than this Oly, we should want to be a country that's peaceful and respectful. People can have their differences of opinion. But we need a government that's going to stand up to this type of despicable conduct, call it out, because it's not the type of country we want to be.

Oly Peterson: It is not. Tim Wilson, thanks for your time.

ENDS