Wednesday 13 May 2026

Transcript - Interview on Sky News, First Edition

Topics: Federal budget

E&OE ...

PETER STEFANOVIC: Well, let's go back to Canberra and joining us now the Shadow Treasurer, Tim Wilson, for his thoughts on things this morning, just keeping our reaction running. So, I know you've been asked this a few times, Tim, but will you be supporting these measures that were announced last night?

TIM WILSON: How could we support these new taxes? We won't be supporting them because they're built on bad faith. They are built on broken trust and of course, we have higher taxes, lower living standards, and fewer homes as a consequence of this budget. And it is only going to lead to young Australians being knee-capped from getting ahead by this government where they're literally going to go and increase the taxes on first home deposits.

PETER STEFANOVIC: Is there any part of it that appeals? How about the $250 yearly handout? You're against that as well?

TIM WILSON: No, there are certain measures, of course, that we'll support, but the ones built on broken trust like the government has outlined on tax, we can't support. We've said we'll support measures around hospital funding. We've said we'll support income tax offsets for earned income. But when it comes down to the measures of broken trust built on bad faith that this government is putting forward, which is going to knee-cap young Australians. And let's be very clear about just how bad it is. Their own budget documents say their tax changes will increase rents. Their own documents say they're going to tax first home buyers' deposits if they invest them. And then there's going to be fewer homes at the end of these new taxes—35,000 new homes—while they're continuing to overshoot their migration. So, increase of demand and reduction of supply only leads to one direction.

PETER STEFANOVIC: So, but as for that $250 handout, you support that.

TIM WILSON: Yeah, we've said we support that, but we also need to be realistic about the consequences of that measure. Every time the government has said they're going to cut taxes, they then inflate them out, so the tax cuts they took to the last election were gone by December. We estimate the same will be true, these will be done by this December. So, real wages have gone backwards 3% under this government.

PETER STEFANOVIC: So, if you were to win power at the next election, would you be rolling back these tax changes, assuming that they pass?

TIM WILSON: Well, we're going to fight and make sure that they're defeated first because this has been a great awakening for many Australians to realize not just that they can't trust their government, but in addition to that, the government is now going through a form of theft of the Australian dream, where hard work pays off, where Australians are in control of their own lives and frankly, where they feel just respected because of this broken trust. So, we'll take every measure to make sure that we stop and fight them and defeat them, but of course if necessary, we'll look at repeal as well.

PETER STEFANOVIC: Okay, yeah. I mean, it does seem likely that it'll get through. The Greens will come around, won't they?

TIM WILSON: Well, this is really the Green tail wagging the Labor dog in terms of a budget policy. There certainly wouldn't be anything they would disagree. The only thing they might say is you should be taxing wealth harder, destroying more of the Australian dream because the Greens think they know better. I mean, renewable energy investors, foreign renewable energy investors were excluded from the capital gains taxes while ordinary families have been hit.

PETER STEFANOVIC: Does this mean the next election and the campaign will be fought over tax?

TIM WILSON: Well, it means the next election is going to be fought over hope, actually, about who is going to build a future economy that grows the pie, gives young Australians a reason to look to the horizon with confidence, not just to be able to buy a home, but to be able to get ahead through a small business and to be able to back themselves in, and tax will be a part of that.

PETER STEFANOVIC: So, if you're against these tax changes, how would you help young people get a home then?

TIM WILSON: Well, we're going to outline components of that in tomorrow night's budget reply to be delivered by Angus Taylor. But one of the sneaky parts of this budget is not only buried in the budget documents to admit they're going to build fewer homes—so less supply—but the government is going to overshoot their target on migration again so they're going to increase demand. We've said that migration is too high, that we need to slow that down to give young Australians their fair go, and then in addition to that, we need to increase supply in the volume of supply for housing where at the moment all the government has done is stoked demand, and it seems based on this budget they're going to do it while knee-capping young Australians to get ahead.

PETER STEFANOVIC: Okay. So, if you want to resume yourselves as the party of the lower taxes, what are you going to do? Are you going to announce that tomorrow night?

TIM WILSON: Well, we've always been the party of lower taxes. That's always been our focus and the government likes to play—well, the government likes to play tricky on this. I go back to the point before. This is now the highest taxing government over the life of its government of income tax. The problem with this government is they give with one hand then they take with the other. They stoke inflation, they then tax the inflation, and then they spend the inflation and keep the cycle going. So, they claim they're lower taxing but in fact, their active inflation agenda is eating away at the tax base and taxes will continue to rise as a total.

PETER STEFANOVIC: Will you index the tax scales?

TIM WILSON: Well, there will be announcements in the budget reply tomorrow night talking about where our economic policy is going to go by the leader of the opposition and next Wednesday in my National Press Club speech will be also outlining further measures we're going to take in the economy.

PETER STEFANOVIC: Is there an opportunity for you to do this now in this game of taxation brinkmanship?

TIM WILSON: Well, we'll always be looking at pathways to reduce the taxes on Australians, but we also will be reducing the spending so that we don't have any tax cut just inflated out of existence by further inflation stoked by spending.

[ENDS]