Tuesday, 27 October 2026

Topics: AI data centres; inflation; government spending; critical minerals.

E&OE……………………..

David Speers: With inflation data tomorrow set to determine whether the Reserve Bank lifts interest rates again next week, the Opposition is piling more pressure on the government to rein in spending. The Coalition's unveiled its own list of proposed cuts, targeting climate policies and support for critical minerals. Shadow Treasurer Tim Wilson joins me now. Welcome to the programme.

Tim Wilson: Thanks for having me, David.

David Speers: Before we get to costings, we just saw in Jacob's piece, your colleague, Garth Hamilton, pointing to community backlash over data centres. There are mixed views in your party on this. Where do you stand? Do you want to speed up the investment of data centres in Australia?

Tim Wilson: I don't think there's mixed views. I think there's a recognition that data centres are part of the critical infrastructure of the country if we want to have sovereign data. We also want to have some component of an artificial intelligence industry, but taking the community with us is going to be an important part of the conversation. One of the biggest problems we currently have is the Albanese government is looking at this as their kind of solution to economic growth. The evidence, I don't think, stacks that up. We're seeing retreat in the investment, and what we need to do is make sure that data centres are backed up with the energy supply at an affordable price, not just for the data centres, but more importantly, for other industries and households. Instead, we're not seeing any of that focus.

David Speers: Bottom line, do you want that investment in data centres to speed up?

Tim Wilson: I want investment in data centres to meet our national interest. That means making sure...

David Speers: Which is what, speeding up the investment?

Tim Wilson: Currently, there’s the challenge a lot of companies that want to invest face is getting past local planning regulation, etc, etc. So, we need to make sure there's a pathway for the infrastructure we need, but it shouldn't be used as a false pathway to try and prop up the economic data to get the government out of its problems. We need the infrastructure Australia needs.

David Speers: Bottom line, do you want to make it easier for those data centres to be built here or not?

Tim Wilson: I want to see infrastructure invested in Australia and to make sure...

David Speers: Including data centres?

Tim Wilson: Including, I've said that now I think three times. And yes, it includes that, but making sure that it has social licence, making sure we have the affordable energy supply we need so that it doesn't push up costs on households and industry is a critical part of the conversation. There's no binary choice. It's how you take the country forward together.

David Speers: Let's turn to your costings. Amongst your planned spending cuts is an end to tax incentives for critical minerals. Now, would that mean no government support for rare earths and critical minerals?

Tim Wilson: Our focus is on making sure the industry is viable and competitive, not that we subsidise it into a pathway forward. Yes, that's part of $31.3 billion over four years of savings because we don't believe you should be building industries in unsustainable ways…

David Speers: So, no government subsidies?

Tim Wilson: That's not our focus. Our focus is on making sure that we actually cut spending so that we actually get control over inflation and get pressure off Australian households, particularly through interest rates. But we also need to make sure we're attracting investment. At the moment, one of the reasons the government is relying so much on subsidies is because they've made us an unattractive destination for investment in industries that should be able to grow sustainably by themselves.

David Speers: Well, there's also the not-insignificant element of what China is doing to distort and disrupt that critical minerals industry. Where would your plan to get rid of those government supports leave Australia's agreement with the Trump administration on critical minerals, because you've got a number of projects here that are already relying on those tax offsets?

Tim Wilson: The focus of the agreement is to make sure that we have alignment between the United States and, of course, Australia. We support the development of Australia's critical minerals industry. We support investment going into the sector…

David Speers: But the industry needs those government supports, those tax offsets. They've made that very clear.

Tim Wilson: They've made it clear that in an unattractive investment environment, which is what the government has consistently created, they are now coming along and seeing subsidies as an alternative. We want an economy that grows, that's sustainable, and more importantly, gets costs down. This is the fundamental problem with the Albanese economic model. They tax and regulate businesses to the point where they cannot be developed. We are not seeing the investment we need. We're seeing that because, as you just outlined with data centres, that's now the economic hope. But actually, if you have investment in the mining sector, you can actually build the economy sustainably without the need for subsidies.

David Speers: Okay, but look, your colleague Andrew Hastie certainly has a different view on the need for government to help bridge the funding gap in certain strategic industries. He gave a speech just this month, he talked about defence industry, critical minerals, AI, advanced manufacturing, critical medicines, and he said many of these advantageous industries have long time horizons that exhaust the patience of private capital before there's a return on investment. Is Andrew Hastie wrong?

Tim Wilson: I think you're seeking to pit both arguments against each other. Sometimes you need to make sure that there are methods for incentives to get industries to develop and to grow…

David Speers: Like critical minerals?

Tim Wilson: No, critical minerals is a sector where you have a huge amount of investment, very high-value goods, but the problem at the moment is that it can take 10, 15 years to get a mine up and operating. I'm focused more on how do we reduce the timeframe for a critical minerals mine to operate, rather than coming along and subsidising the consequences of regulation that the government itself has imposed.

David Speers: Okay, but isn't this a reality that in this global market, there's a need for government support? Andrew Hastie is pointing to that. You're saying there's no need for government support.

Tim Wilson: What Andrew is correctly outlining is the importance of urgency. I think one of the great errors that we've fallen into is thinking that we have time on our side. Australia needs to develop investment in energy to make sure that we can get prices down. Now, one of the challenges we've got is the timeframes for energy at the moment are quite long, particularly in a normal commercial market. What we need to do is make sure that people want to invest with confidence, whether it's energy, whether it's critical minerals or building up the other strategic resources we need. Particularly when you come with a sector like critical minerals, a key part of that is working with the consumer of it, which in many cases is, of course, the United States, but they're not alone in demanding the resources that we have available to us, and we need to make sure we get good value.

David Speers: The single biggest spending cut on your list is ending what you call Labor's climate bureaucracy, including subsidies and supports for home batteries and electric vehicles. Do you have any alternative policies to get emissions down?

Tim Wilson: Well, we do. We've continued to support ARENA back to its original function. The CEFC will continue to operate. We support investment to get emissions down, but it needs to be part of a balanced government priority. At the moment, what we have, for instance just today, we have the home battery scheme where 60% of those that were then gone back and assessed about their viability were found to be substandardly installed. I don't consider that to be, one, good value for the Australian taxpayer. It raises serious risks downstream, but we need to make sure that budgets are about choices. We have to make choices, and we believe getting costs down for Australians and not putting upward pressure on inflation and interest rates, or when Australians go to the supermarket and pay more and get less...

David Speers: But will you have any additional policies to bring down emissions as you get rid of these Labor plans? I mean, you still support the Paris Agreement, right?

Tim Wilson: We do, and as we've outlined already with the CEFC and ARENA, they'll be part of it, but…

David Speers: Will that be enough?

Tim Wilson: Well, we'll have more policies to announce in the lead-up to the next election. We'll have more policies across the board, across the whole spectrum of government to announce between now and the next election, David. But as a key part of our policy suite going to the next election is also making sure we control spending so we can get inflation down. Because at the moment, you've got households who are struggling to pay their mortgages, they're struggling to be able to go and afford their bills at the supermarket...

David Speers: The concern with your plans are that yes, you've announced some savings measures this week, but that still doesn't cover nearly all of your commitments. We still don't know how you would pay for the extra defence spending that you committed to, restoring negative gearing, restoring capital gains tax breaks, the tax breaks for big superannuation accounts. Is there a risk that you're going to run the budget even deeper into deficit?

Tim Wilson: That's not our focus at all. One of the challenges we have presently with the current government's federal budget is it’s basically Swiss cheese now. We don't know what the numbers are that stack up behind any part of it…

David Speers: We don't know your numbers either.

Tim Wilson: Well, we've at least provided some detail of the savings that we have, and we absolutely will have more in the lead-up to the next election.

David Speers: Would you cut spending on health or aged care?

Tim Wilson: That is not our focus. We are focused very clearly on how we make sure...

David Speers: Not our focus.

Tim Wilson: No, well, it's not where we're focused at all. Our focus is on making sure we grow the economy, we make sure that we get targeted spending and value for the Australian taxpayer. But we also want to make sure that we put downward pressure on inflation, because it's unacceptable on the eve, potentially, of another interest rate hike that the Albanese solution to this problem is to turn around and tell Australians to let them eat taxes and let them eat higher interest rates.

David Speers: Tim Wilson, thanks for joining us tonight.

Tim Wilson: Thank you

[ENDS]