Wednesday, 16 September 2026

Topics: migration; artificial intelligence; inflation; government spending; interest rates.

E&OE……………………..

Patricia Karvelas: To talk to the Opposition about some of today's big issues, I want to bring in the Shadow Treasurer, Tim Wilson. Welcome.

Tim Wilson: Thank you for having me, Patricia.

Patricia Karvelas: We've got a couple of things to talk about. We're going to start on one of the issues that you pursued, well your side of politics pursued today, and that's the government's refugee intake. Do you support 20,000 as a number of a refugee intake?

Tim Wilson: We'll announce our migration policy at the appropriate time. What we're doing is working through a migration policy that's focused on Australia's national interest, which makes sure that we get the economics right, we get, of course, the economic integration of people who are coming to this country right, the social and cultural integration, because the sole purpose of a migration program is to serve our national interest, and that has to find a balance between lots of different visa programs based on how we achieve that national interest. So, I think we just have to wait until we announce our policy.

Patricia Karvelas: Okay, so you don't have a view if it should stay at 13,750 or be 20,000?

Tim Wilson: I've said publicly, previously, that I believe it should be 13,750, but the government is currently got its target.

Patricia Karvelas: That's the target you do think it should be that low?

Tim Wilson: I'm just saying that that's been our position previously in government and that's currently our position we took to the last election. But the question is how do we go forward in making sure we have a program that advances Australia's national interest, because at the moment, clearly, Australians believe there are too many people in our country in comparison to our capacity to successfully integrate people. I believe we should have very clearly as the focus of our migration program apart from our national interest, how do we economically, socially and culturally integrate people, because we want people to come, to commit and show loyalty, and to contribute to our country.

Patricia Karvelas: Okay, you say you'll announce your migration policy.

Tim Wilson: Well, the Leader Angus Taylor will announce it.

Patricia Karvelas: Your side, you'll announce it in your time. Fair enough. We've got the One Nation policy out this week, the government's announcing how it's going to meet its target, rather than overshooting it tomorrow. Doesn't that leave you as the only party that at least are competing for a potential role as potential government not having an answer on how to deal with this?

Tim Wilson: We have a back of the napkin policy that's been put forward by One Nation. We don't know how much they're going to have to increase income taxes on Australians to be able to afford this policy. We'd like to see the details. Senator Hanson has said she's now going to put it to the Parliamentary Budget Office. She hasn't done that previously. We do things in a calm, methodical way. Obviously, there's not an election for a considerable period of time. When we take a plan to an election, we actually want it to be credible, not to have a situation where at the first test it falls over, as we, of course, have with One Nation's plan.

Patricia Karvelas: Okay, what's wrong with One Nation's plan? They say they want to cut down immigration numbers by 750,000 over the next three years. What would the economic consequences – you’re Shadow Treasurer – be of doing that?

Tim Wilson: Well, these are things that I would like to know the answer to as well. I think the Australian people would like to know the economic consequences, but more importantly, how much more is it going to lead people, Australians, to have to pay more income tax to offset the changes in the structure of the workforce. These are all quite legitimate questions.

Patricia Karvelas: Just to explain that to our viewers, you're saying because there'll be fewer people in the country workers, therefore paying fewer taxes, the existing Australians still here will have to pay more. That's what you're saying?

Tim Wilson: Well, unless they're prepared to blow out the budget considerably. These are the questions we need an answer to. That's normally what you do by putting them to the test through things like the Parliamentary Budget Office, or literally any economic analysis to understand what the consequences of these changes are. We don't know that. One Nation's admitted they don't know that, and they've gone for a number, but they haven't done the homework that sits behind it. That's what happens when you have a back of a napkin solution. We saw this with, and it's a different area of policy, but we saw this with Kevin Rudd when he announced the National Broadband Network and ended up costing billions more than was initially intended because the hard work wasn't done and Australians are still living with the economic consequences of it.

Patricia Karvelas: I want to move to AI, which is really, I think, the biggest story of our time, I reckon you'd agree too. It's enormous. Anthropic’s big, huge data centre in Queensland has been announced for being approved. I think it's about $32 billion. I think I misspoke or said the number wrong a little earlier, so I'm just correcting that because facts matter, $32 billion. Is that a good investment? Because, Ed Husic says they'll be using our power sources, coal and gas, that we clearly need. It'll have an impact. We shouldn't just be willy-nilly signing these things off.

Tim Wilson: We shouldn't be willy-nilly signing things off. The government needs to make sure that these investments are working in our national interest. Now, there have been proposals put out there that if we get AI investment, that Australia should be getting revenue sources or access to the advanced technology as a trade-off for providing that security. The government obviously needs to resolve this problem around copyright and language learning models that is presently before us. We need AI to work for Australia's national interest, and at the moment, I think there's a lot of concern that firstly, it's in the interest of big tech, not in the interest of Australians, and it's the government's job to actually address these steps and hurdles. Now, they're in discussions with big tech companies, and of course, we hope that the government is standing up for our national interest, not just giving them a carte blanche.

Patricia Karvelas: Okay, but that's approved by the Queensland government. Is that a good thing to approve? Do you do you think it's a positive development?

Tim Wilson: I don't know enough about the specifics of the actual project. I mean, we still need data centres here for security and sovereign security of data for Australians. We also need our own processing capacity. So, of course, we're going to have investments along these lines, whether it's that specific one or another one is really often to local planning regulation. That's why we need an integrated solution that advances our national interest, and that's what I'm hoping the Commonwealth is leading at the moment, whereas for a long while, they seemed to be a case of denial, not understanding the importance of getting this right. It's only more recently they've started to lean into it and think about the broader policy context.

Patricia Karvelas: On the copyright that you just mentioned, artists think it's a betrayal for the Prime Minister to legislate, he hasn't said he will yet, but this idea of opting out as an artist, do you agree that that's not what he promised?

Tim Wilson: Well, I'm mostly interested in making sure that we get royalty payments of some description, and in some fashion, for copyright holders, because artists deserve have moral rights as well as legal rights to make sure that there's pathway for remuneration off the back of their works and that their intellectual property is respected, but it has to be in a framework recognising that it isn’t a license, it's actually part of a learning model and how we do that so that we also attract the necessary investment to build our domestic AI capacity, because the alternative risk is that everything is done offshore, there may be no royalty payments made to copyright holders, and Australia's only real pathway to utilise artificial intelligence is to rely solely on the basis of technology overseas.

Patricia Karvelas: Okay, so your view is that this sort of option should be pursued.

Tim Wilson: Well, as far as I've read in the leaked papers in the paper today, it went through a series of options, and so I am interested in those options and if there are other options being considered by the government to make sure they get the policy settings right.

Patricia Karvelas: Your view though is that you don't think it's a sellout of artists if they were to go down a road like that?

Tim Wilson: I wouldn't put words in my mouth, Patricia.

Patricia Karvelas: I know I'm asking you.

Tim Wilson: Very assertively, because it comes down to what's the whole package. If you just look in isolation, I've said very clearly, I think we have to look at pathways to not just respect intellectual property rights, but make sure there is some pathway for remuneration. It's how you structure that as part of access, and then how people choose to participate or exclude themselves from it, because it will in the end come down to a negotiated arrangement between the government, these big tech companies. The job of the government is to defend Australia's national interest and also our own technological capacity, because the alternative and the risk is that we end up relying on technology beyond our shores, we have no control over it, but we still end up paying for it.

Patricia Karvelas: Do you think the Reserve Bank has no choice but to raise interest rates later this month?

Tim Wilson: Well, the government continues to dare the Reserve Bank to increase interest rates by spending, and the Reserve Bank Governor has been clear that the government is stoking private demand and pushing this pressure on. We now have the Deputy Governor out there last week basically saying, this is coming, guys, the government is doing nothing to lead to deflation or to offset it so that...

Patricia Karvelas: What could the government do today or tomorrow immediately that would mean that the Reserve Bank doesn't increase interest rates?

Tim Wilson: Well, they could stop pouring debt petrol on the inflation fire.

Patricia Karvelas: What debt petrol?

Tim Wilson: Well, they can go through and actually map out a program where they're going to reduce spending to stop pressure on interest rates. It's government spending that is driving the constant demand.

Patricia Karvelas: Where would the cuts come from?

Tim Wilson: Well, and that's what we need the government to outline because they're the ones that continue to keep to more and more spending, and they're actually pouring debt petrol on the inflation fire. They're not actually focused on how they're going to get the pressure off. You know, they're not moving as fast as they need to on corruption. We’ve outlined the problems of NDIS corruption as an example. The NDIA has outlined that it could be up to 10% of the NDIS has gone towards corruption, but that's also inflationary. We'd really like to see the end of that corruption and the end of that inflation.

Patricia Karvelas: You've been a good guest as always. Thank you, Shadow Treasurer.

Tim Wilson: Thank you, Patricia.

[ENDS]