Tuesday, 6 October 2026

Topics: migration; Victorian politics; artificial intelligence

E&OE……………………..

Jaynie Seal: Returning to one of our top stories and the Coalition is expected to announce its long-awaited immigration plan as early as today. Well, for more, joining us is Shadow Treasurer Tim Wilson. Tim, great to see you. Now, are you cutting net migration figures to 100,000 people in the first year?

Tim Wilson: Well Angus Taylor will ultimately announce the numbers and the substantive nature of our policy, but the key insight I can give you is we understand that we need to get migration numbers down, we believe in getting migration numbers down, because the sole purpose of a migration program is to advance Australia's national interest. But in doing so, we have to make sure we get the labour that farmers need, we need to make sure that we get the skills to build more houses that Australians need, and particularly to make sure there's a relationship between our migration numbers and our housing stock, because we've got to make sure Australians can be housed first, and of course that we have the housing stock for migrants too. So, we have structured our plan very clearly in a in a systematised, deliberative way to advance Australia's national interest.

Jaynie Seal: All right, so, what is your migration number?

Tim Wilson: Well, I said that will be announced by Angus Taylor when we announce our plan, but our focus will be very much on how we advance Australia's national interest, particularly in advancing social, economic and cultural integration, as well as advancing our economy to make sure that migration works for us, it isn’t a situation where people come and take, they come, they commit and they contribute.

Jaynie Seal: All right let's turn to another topic the Victorian state Coalition is promising a major overhaul of the state's mental health system if elected next month, and I believe it includes separate reviews of the billion-dollar mental health and wellbeing levy and also changes to youth mental health services. So, this sounds pretty big, what more can you tell us here?

Tim Wilson: Well, the key thing is that it's getting support from the sector. What I can tell is that you know we've got Patrick McGorry out there today making it very clear that we need reform in the mental health sector so that it actually delivers so the clients can get the services they need. We know under Labor their focus primarily is in making sure that money goes into programs, but they're not interested in outputs. The structure of the Coalition's policy will always be focused on how we get the maximum outcome for Australians, particularly to address the challenges of mental health within the community which are multifaceted, there are lots of dimensions to it, but it's very important that people are getting the care when they need and getting improvement in their human outcomes.

Jaynie Seal: All right and today top tech leaders are meeting in Sydney for that joint committee addressing artificial intelligence, and an article in today's Australian talks about tech experts, they're demanding emergency AI kill switches, or off buttons, after AI bots breached that Medicare system, and that was from Okta's Asia Pacific Chief Security Officer Matthew Graham who we had on News24 recently. So, I mean this is a big issue, isn't it? Not only are we looking at these AI bot breaches, but also jobs and job losses, millions, potentially billions of dollars lost with AI, but then of course more jobs that we don't even know of. So, in terms of your portfolio as a Shadow Treasurer, what are you looking closely at with this inquiry?

Tim Wilson: We're looking obviously about making sure there's safety and security around artificial intelligence and also making sure that AI is working for our country. While there's a lot of conversations around what it's going to do to employment markets, and I think there will be disruption, I think the most important thing is how we back Australians in to use artificial intelligence to build out future growth, particularly for small business. We know under this government small business has been under complete assault. The Albanese government has declared war on small business, and one of the ways we can empower them is, because it levels the playing field, is artificial intelligence and particularly in backing people in in skills, in knowledge and capacity, because we need small business in Australia to thrive, we need them to be able to have the toolkit they need to be successful, but the only answer the Albanese government has had is more taxes, more regulation and kneecapping them from being able to get ahead.

Jaynie Seal: Shadow Treasurer, Tim Wilson, thank you so much.

[ENDS]