Thursday 14 May 2026

Transcript: Interview on ABC News, Afternoon Briefing

Topics: Budget reply, Federal budget

E&OE ....

Patricia Karvelas: Tim Wilson, welcome to the program.

Tim Wilson: Thank you for having me, Patricia.

Patricia Karvelas: Tim, we expect to hear the details of your plan to automatically index income tax brackets to inflation. That's a very expensive plan. Politicians have talked about it before. I think it was Malcolm Fraser, actually, that tried it before and then stopped it. Why is the time now to do it?

Tim Wilson: Well, firstly, I'd wait for the leader of the opposition's speech tonight before making any judgments. But what I would say is that we know that every time that Labor claims that they are cutting taxes, in fact, what they're doing is taking a small measure that's then wiped out by inflation. And what we know, the tax cuts they took to the last election were wiped out by December of last year. The tax cuts that they're announcing in this budget will be wiped out by inflation before the end of this year. And so it's very important to understand that as incomes rise and as inflation persists because this government has an active inflation agenda, their current economic model is stoke inflation, tax inflation, spend the inflation and keep the cycle going. And that's why Australians are falling further behind. Real wages have gone back 3% and purchasing power of an average couple from an average home under this government has gone backwards by $32,000.

Patricia Karvelas: So you think it's worth the political gamble of indexing tax rates?

Tim Wilson: Well, I'd again point you to the leader of the opposition's budget reply speech tonight, which will step through what our plan is. But I am very mindful that so long as the government keeps its higher taxing, high inflation agenda, what you're going to see is a decline in the living standards, and the real living standards of Australians. And that's why no matter how hard people work, they don't feel like they're getting ahead. They don't feel hard work pays off. They feel less in control of their lives. And frankly, they just don't feel respected because the government's approach is stoke inflation, tax inflation, spend the inflation and keep the cycle going.

Patricia Karvelas: Okay. So you're not going to go to the detail with me, but just on the principles we'll say, if this tax plan is announced, will you make it clear where the money will come from? Because it's a very expensive idea.

Tim Wilson: Well, we've absolutely made sure that any measures that we put forward have offsets and we understand how important that is because if you don't, you just end up stoking inflation. And that's the challenge of this government because they keep spending money and even in their current budget, it will grow in excess public expenditure will grow in excess of the growth in the overall economy and they continue to borrow from the future. They're just pouring debt petrol on the inflation fire.

Patricia Karvelas: Okay. Their tax changes to housing. I mean, if you look at some of them, this is like $100 billion over 10 years. This is a lot of money that you're forfeiting, revenue you're forfeiting. So where are you going to get it from to pay for your tax changes?

Tim Wilson: Well, again, we haven't announced them yet. I repeat, refer you to the leader of the opposition's budget reply—

Patricia Karvelas: —That’s a lot of money right? If you’re not taking it from there, you’ve got to find it from somewhere.

Tim Wilson: Well, again, I'll refer you to the leader of the opposition's budget reply speech before we get into the detail of what you need to find the offsets. But it's not the Labor government might want to talk about in the context of housing. The reality is there's no reason why that need be the case. Our focus is on how we actually get more housing into the Australian community and more importantly, not just stop under this government's budget, fewer houses. Their own budget documents show they're going to build 35,000 fewer houses over the decade while they continue to overshoot their own migration targets. They're also going to increase rents and we need to make sure that young Australians have a chance to be able to realize their chance to own their own home.

Patricia Karvelas: Tim, let's talk about your migration plan that's also going to be announced. You've said your focus is on integration. But if people are using welfare services, NDIS, other welfare services as permanent residents of Australia, isn't there that their way of integrating in our country?

Tim Wilson: No, the pathway that we want people to integrate is through economic participation.

Patricia Karvelas: —Of course, but if something has happened that’s gone wrong, they need to use the NDIS. Shouldn’t they be able to participate in the economy and also be enabled with those assistance?

Tim Wilson: Our plan is very much focused on making sure that people who come to this country not just arrive, but they commit and they contribute to the future of the country. And the social sustainability and social license of welfare programs and migration is contingent on whether people feel like they're working to advance the best interests of our country. We've made reasonable exclusions on certain services including health and education and making sure that if necessary, specific carve-out exists in currently exist in law. But we absolutely believe that people who decide to come here should commit and should contribute to the building of this nation.

Patricia Karvelas: Okay, but they are already contributing to the building of the nation.

Tim Wilson: So then there shouldn't be a problem.

Patricia Karvelas: —But under many changes that are cumulative and your governments of the past have been responsible for, there is a delay often for citizenship for people. The pathway is a long one. So you're actually just cutting off people's access to services, aren't you, when they are often working, contributing to tax?

Tim Wilson: I don't think that's a fair characterization at all. Our focus on making sure that people who come here can come, contribute and commit to the future of the country and making sure that those services provide a pathway where when they're providing a pathway to integrate into the country, it should be on the basis of economic participation, which is in their interests as well as ours. If we set new Australians up on a pathway where they feel like they get ahead on the basis of welfare, I think we're failing them.

Patricia Karvelas: Okay, but you've said already today that this will cost billions. Are you going to tell us specifically how many billions?

Tim Wilson: I didn’t say it was going to cost billions. I said it would save the budget money. Absolutely it will if we reduce access to welfare services for non-citizens. The number will ultimately come down to when it's legislated on 1 July 2028. We're a fair way off that. We don't know whether the government's going to achieve its targets around the National Disability Insurance Scheme, but we know that about 8% of the growth on the NDIS has come as a consequence of non-citizens. So it's clearly going to have an impact.

Patricia Karvelas: Okay, so on that idea though of of creating the the nexus between the the sort of cutting off these welfare supports, don't we need to know specifically how many billions this will actually save the taxpayer?

Tim Wilson: Well, again, I refer you to the leader of the opposition's budget reply—

Patricia Karvelas: —So they’ll be specific?

Tim Wilson: —I will refer you to his speech tonight. It's his position to answer to announce, but there's absolutely a focus on how we provide the offsets and to make sure that any money is reprioritized to build the future of this country. We know that programs like the NDIS have been rorted. This is not a debate. Even Labor is now finally kicking and screaming admitted it. They haven't fully addressed the problems, but we know that there is fraud and corruption. That fraud and corruption with phantom children being enrolled in child care, we know that from court cases. We want to stamp out the corruption and the fraud that's in the system.

Patricia Karvelas: This goes beyond the NDIS, though.

Tim Wilson: I'm not arguing that. I'm just saying we know there's fraud and corruption issues. We also know that we want a pathway for people to come to this country to commit and to contribute.

Patricia Karvelas: Isn't there a risk politically that by targeting migrants in this way that many of those communities that I know you've been keen to get, you know, voting for the Liberal Party will be very un- you know, unkind to the Liberal Party and feel like they're being targeted?

Tim Wilson: I don't think so at all. I think there's a principle here about whether these access to these sorts of programs are there for Australian citizens. Lots of countries constrain the access to certain services that are funded by taxes by citizens to make sure that they're available for citizens. We're not alone in that. In fact, many European countries are heading in a similar trajectory because it's the underpinnings in part of the social license of a migration program. Increasingly a lot of countries are saying that if they want to continue to support people to come in to be building the future of the country, it has to be on the basis they come, they commit and they contribute.

Patricia Karvelas: Thank you so much for joining us.

Tim Wilson: Thank you.

[ENDS]