Tuesday 17 February 2026.

Interview on Sky News with Peter Stefanovic.

Topics: Small Business Insolvencies, CFMEU - Labor Corruption, Taxation

E&OE

Peter Stefanovic: The Liberal MP, Tim Wilson. Good to see you Tim, so will you be the new Shadow Treasurer?

 

Tim Wilson MP: Good to see you, Peter. That's up, of course, to the leader. My focus is on the thousands of small businesses in Australia that have gone insolvent as a consequence of bad policy from the Labor Government. And even worse than that, when the small business Minister was confronted with record small business insolvencies. And just to be clear, Peter, this financial year, we're on track to beat last year's record number. Anne Aly's response was, quote, maybe they were dodgy.

 

Peter Stefanovic: You want the gig though, right?

 

Tim Wilson MP: I'm very happy fighting for small business. Genuinely, I love the opportunity to be able to stand up for those people who back themselves. More importantly, we actually have a substantial policy package that we're going to drive forward on small business because I want to make sure that whether it's a small or a family business, someone who's a sole trader or self-employed, the policy settings in Australia say, you go, you do your best because that's the foundation of commercial hope.

 

Peter Stefanovic: Get ahead of this. Let's say you do get the promotion and you do become Shadow Treasurer and you're going up against Jim Chalmers. Where would you start on tax reform?

 

Tim Wilson MP: Well firstly, standing up for small business and then taking on an additional role like that wouldn't be a promotion. Standing up for a small business is actually the promotion. And, of course, any conversation we have around tax needs to be focused squarely on how we're going to get taxes down. I've written previously about the importance of getting income taxes down as much as possible, particularly at the top end, because we actually want to incentivise work. You tax things you want to stop. I want Australians to work. More importantly, I want a system that backs people where hard work pays off. And more importantly, that respects the Australian taxpayer by stopping the waste in the tax system and, frankly, the corruption.

 

Peter Stefanovic: So how do you become the party of lower taxes? You just talked about those at the high end, but presumably to become the party of low taxes again, you'd have to change the scale at all ends, would you not?

 

Tim Wilson MP: Well, any discussion around tax reform is complex, but the first thing we can do is stop the waste of public money. Last week, there was a report that showed the Federal Government had handed $15 billion to organise crimes through the CFMEU. That's the sort of thing we just want to see completely cut out. We want to stop the corruption, we want to make it respect Australian taxpayers, and more importantly, when Australians are working hard... We want to make sure that their hard work pays off rather than the system we've got at the moment where Labor hands $15 billion to organise crime through the CFMEU.

 

Peter Stefanovic: Ok. But if you're going to change the tax scales, is that something that you'd want to do?

 

Tim Wilson MP: Well, these are all topics to be discussed at a point if I happen to have a specific role, Peter. But the key point is if you stop the waste of public money, you can actually look at things like how do we no longer take extra taxes from Australian taxpayers to fund corruption, which is what is happening under the Albanese Labor Government.

 

Peter Stefanovic: So the Coalition does like to talk about a bloated public service, you know we've spoken about this in the past where as a proportion of the population it's amongst the biggest in the world. Would you be looking at making cuts there though?

 

Tim Wilson MP: You're going into the world of the hypothetical, Peter.

 

Peter Stefanovic: Just trying to get in ahead and see where you're thinking.

 

Tim Wilson MP: I know you want to get ahead and I can tell you the core focus if we want to get public expenditure down is to start with the corruption. There is corruption. Everybody knows there's corruption and it has ballooned under the Albanese Government. When you have independent reports clearly showing that the priority of the Albanian Government is to provide 15 billion dollars to organise crime to the CFMEU but they don't seem even remotely interested in they're going to get 15 bucks off your grocery bill. I reckon we know where we should probably start.

 

Peter Stefanovic: Just one more on this. Do you support the government's expected plan to limit the capital gains tax discount?

 

Tim Wilson MP: I say consistently, I want to see lower taxes, not higher taxes. What Labor's doing is they're going to increase the taxes on housing based on the proposals being publicly discussed. If you put more taxes on housing, you will not get more houses, you will get more homeowners, you will now get the supply you need, which means that every Australian would be worse off.

 

Peter Stefanovic: Because you've said in the past, and I think you wrote about this in 'the new social contract', there's no intergenerational Justice.

 

Tim Wilson MP: I love that everyone's talking about my book now.

 

Peter Stefanovic: There's no international justice in such preferential arrangements when talking about capital gains. And you've also said in the past that the tax system is screwing over young Australians by focusing on well-off established interests against those trying to get ahead. So how do you marry past thoughts with current thoughts?

 

Tim Wilson MP: If you go to about the sentence prior to the one you quoted, it talked about getting taxes lower, that means where possible, I will absolutely always focus on how we're going to reduce income taxes. Make no apology about it, very pro-lower income taxes, very pro environment where we reduce the costs and we encourage and incentivise work, because I want hard work to pay off.

 

Peter Stefanovic: And so that's going to be a no for you on raising of the GST then.

 

Tim Wilson MP: Well, as I said, I want to focus very squarely on how we get taxes lower, but most importantly, where hard work pays off, because Australian taxpayers don't feel respected when they hear about $15 billion going towards organised crime from the Albanese Government through the CFMEU that is not respecting taxpayers. It is not just waste, it is corruption.

 

Peter Stefanovic: Okay. Got one more, I've got enough time for just another separate issue. It's about the ISIS brides, Tim, should they be allowed to return home to Australia?

 

Tim Wilson MP: Well, one of the problems we've all got with this conversation is what the government says clearly isn't what it does. Tony Burke was caught out being tricky last year, where he was saying one thing in question time, but then the behaviours we said in the estimate showed that they were facilitating and giving additional assistance. What we need is to make sure that Australians are protected and are safe. Anybody who has gone to a foreign country, and directly connected with terrorist groups that are connected to killing other people. We need maximum security presence to make sure that there's a proper process in place, whatever it is, so the Australians are not at risk.

 

Peter Stefanovic: So should they be stopped from getting a passport, say, from the embassy in Lebanon, if that's where they end up?

 

Tim Wilson MP: I think this is a better question for the Shadow Minister of Foreign Affairs when they're appointed because I don't know the processes specifically, but we've got to make sure that Australia is protected at the centre.

 

Peter Stefanovic: Yeah, I understand that point. I guess the point is that what's to stop someone from getting on a plane in the first place and flying back to Australia?

 

Tim Wilson MP: Well, there's a big difference between what happens when somebody gets on at one end, normally airports check your passport at that end, and then what happens at our end. And if you're involved in going to a declared area, connecting with terrorist organisations, supporting their mad ideology to kill other people, then I don't really see what place you have in this country as part of a civilised society.

 

Peter Stefanovic: That'll do us a lengthy chat this morning. When are you going to find out about the new job, Tim?

 

Tim Wilson MP: That's a question for the leader. In the meantime, I'm going to get on with standing up for small business because I've had record small business insolvencies, Peter, and the government's response to that been, maybe they were dodgy.

 

Peter Stefanovic: No, that's a very true point. There's been record insolvency, and it's a sign of the times of how difficult it is to operate a business in this great country with ours at the moment. But Tim Wilson, it's good to talk to you.

ENDS