Wednesday, 8 October 2025

E&OE

Laura Jayes: 

Shadow Minister for Industrial Relations, Tim Wilson. Tim, a bit to get to you on today, but first I want to just ask you about this news that's come through. All of those Australians are deported essentially from Israel. Should they be getting assistance from the Australian Government to get home?

Tim Wilson MP:

The job of the Australian Government is to make sure that it provides the same support to Australians in all circumstances and so I've no doubt if they go to the Australian Embassy in Jordan they'll get the same assistance as everybody else, but of course they've made a conscious decision to leave our country, to go into a foreign territory and of course they've been received in an unwelcome way. They've been taken to Jordan, now they have a responsibility to find their own way back to Australia, if that's where they wish to go.

Laura Jayes:

On the October 7 attacks and the anniversary of that, the planned protests in Sydney, you've had Israel single out Anthony Albanese again saying he needs to do more to dampen down the hate and anger and the anti-Semitism. What do you think?

Tim Wilson MP: 

I think the Prime Minister's lost his moral authority on this issue, and I think that's the bigger problem. You know, what the foreign government say is up to them. What really matters is how Australians respond and, you know... Respectfully to the Prime Minister yesterday, he justifiably said that yesterday was a very solemn day for Australia's Jewish community and how it shouldn't be used as a day to celebrate terrorist organisations like Hamas. Tragically, there are people out there who chose to ignore that and to spray paint things in Fitzroy in Melbourne and to celebrate the conduct of terrorist organisation. It's clear because he's lost his moral authority that no one's really paying attention, but the problem is the impact it has on the social cohesion for all of us and for the type of country we want to be.

Laura Jayes:

I wanted to ask you about coalition policy as well. It's being formulated at the moment. I'm sure this is taking up a lot of your time, as it should. I just had a really interesting chat with Jane Hume, who talked about the last election, given the context of what we heard from Ted O'Brien today, trying to reclaim the mantle of being the party of lower taxes. I asked if it was a mistake to allow Labor to claim that at the last election. She agrees it was, do you?

Tim Wilson MP:

The Labor Party is never the party of lower taxes. They might say things that spin them to get them through an election. But of course, as soon as they get through an election, the first thing...

Laura Jayes:

But, it was technically at the last election, though, right, Tim? And they we're able to say that.

Tim Wilson MP:

Well, when it comes... They can say what they want to say. When it comes down to it, lower taxes is in the fibre of everything I stand for and everything I believe in, and you know that, Laura. The key thing for us is to make sure that we map out a clear plan about how we're going to get there. That involves spending restraint, making sure we're prudent, because when you borrow money to spend it today, you're fuelling inflation, which means that interest rates go up. And that's why Australians continue to feel the financial pain. So we have a responsibility. As an opposition and an aspirational government to make sure that we stop the spending spree so that we can contain spending, so that we can put downward pressure on the money in the economy so that we don't drive up interest rates as the current government is doing.

Laura Jayes:

But was it a mistake to oppose Labor's tax cuts at the last election, when you weren't there by the way?

Tim Wilson MP:

I wasn't there, no, and I'm always in favour of lower income taxes, you know, you will know that. Laura, I'm passionate about this topic as well as many others, but we also need to do it within a sustainable budgetary framework, so that's why we're getting on with the job and policy now. But one of the most important ways that we can reduce the burden on the taxpayer is make sure we get better value for buck. Last night in Senate estimates. Yesterday in Senate Estimates we saw the federal government's, sorry, state government projects and federal government projects funded by your federal taxes being exposed to corruption and the federal won't even do simple audits to make sure that your federal money isn't going into brown paper bags to fuel corruption in Australia. I think we could stamp that out. That would be a good place to start.

Laura Jayes: 

I want to start with the CFMEU, but I mean, you're very clever, Tim, and it's notable to me this morning that you still find it so hard to say, yeah, it was a mistake. We shouldn't have opposed Labor's tax cuts.

Tim Wilson MP:

Well, I said I wasn't there, so I'm not going to go over to the old swirl. I always...

Laura Jayes: 

Oh, well I know, I mean, it's made your job really hard now, surely. I mean you've got to get that ground back, but you should never have lost.

Tim Wilson MP: 

Well I won, that was a good thing, Laura. And that's one of the good things. We've got somebody back in parliament who passionately believes in lower taxes. And obviously, I've always said, and I've said already on this programme today, I believe in lower tax and I'll always fight for those things. If I had have been here, I suspect I would have taken a different view internally about our party's policy, going into the election, the prioritisation. But to be fair to some people, that was obviously a decision made amongst a smaller group of people.

Laura Jayes:

Why?

Tim Wilson MP: 

But I don't see it in terms of... Why, because it's clear to me that you never want to allow Labor any pathway, even rhetorically, to claim that they're in favour of lower taxes in comparison to the coalition.

Laura Jayes: 

Well, that's what I mean. Why allow them to do that? Because that was the material effect of that decision.

Tim Wilson MP:

Well, as I've said, I don't want to do that in any way, shape or form. That's a decision for those people who are here at the time to report. What my focus is, how do we get better value for the taxpayers' money that we're spending? How do we make sure that we lower taxes? And more importantly, how we get downward pressure on inflation? Because when we don't do that, when we borrow from tomorrow to fund for today, what you end up doing is putting upward pressure on interest rates, which means Australians pay more.

Laura Jayes:

I agree. I want to talk about the CFMEU now because you did mention it just before in one of your previous answers. This is something that I think state governments and federal governments have been able to stamp out. I mean, Anthony Albanese cut ties with John Setka, for example, but when it comes down to it, the CFMEU have time and time again proven to have underworld links and when you look at it, fundamentally, they are pushing up the price of housing in this country.

Tim Wilson MP: 

Resolutely, yes, and the Prime Minister can say that he's cut the links with the CFMEU, or at least with John Setka, but that's not the reality. You've currently got Zach Smith, who's the head of the Victorian Division. He's the golden boy hand-picked head by the Prime Minster. And we saw last week it was exposed that he was facilitating meetings with underworld figures and organised crime. Nothing's been done about that. He hasn't been sacked, but there's been no impact. Yesterday in Senate estimates, it was revealed that between cartel kickbacks and other cartelish behaviour and corruption there are at least three projects across Australia in three states where there is allegations of corruption or like behaviour that is currently under investigation. And 28 days on from us contacting the Minister and saying, 'oi, why don't we do a little bit of an audit to see whether federal money is being used to finance these cartel kickbacks in brown paper bags to organise crime figures.' She's refused to do an audit, so Australians have very little confidence about where this is heading.

Laura Jayes: 

Tim Wilson, always good to talk to you. We'll see where that heads.

Tim Wilson: 

Look forward to it.

ENDS