Sunday, 7 June 2026

Transcript - Interview on Sky News, Sunday Agenda

Topics: Capital gains tax, Federal budget, Tax brackets

E&OE....

Andrew Clennell: Alright, joining me live is the Shadow Treasurer, Tim Wilson. Tim Wilson, thanks for your time. I want to start with your reaction to the interview the PM did with me on Friday, where he refused to apologise for breaking election promises. What's your reaction to that?

Tim Wilson: Well, no one's really surprised. He's played tricky word games since he's been elected. The Australian people can see it for the naked truth it is, which is he broke clear promises, he lied to the Australian community, and he doesn't want to be held accountable for it. Now he's trying to ram his legislation through the Parliament and increase taxes like a wrecking ball, as Christopher Luxon says, on the Australian community.

Andrew Clennell: The government's been having fun with comments you made in your time in Parliament in a 2020 book where you criticised the capital gains tax discount. In the book, you said, "Capital gains from the appreciation of holding assets is taxed at half the applied rate, effectively entrenching the benefit of having and holding assets which can only exist if you're established. There's no intergenerational justice in such preferential arrangements." Have you changed your mind since this?

Tim Wilson: No, my mind's consistent. Income tax needs to come down. You see, we actually technically don't have a capital gains tax. We have income tax, and we have a discount off that. My objective is to get income tax down. Jim Chalmers's objective is to increase capital gains by removing the discount, without it factoring in inflation or the impact of the value of investments. This bloke simply doesn't understand what he's talking about because some of us want to get income tax down, and it's really quite bizarre [interrupted]

Andrew Clennell: Yeah, but hang on. You said capital gains tax is half the applied rate. I mean, you're not going to get income tax down that much. You clearly had some belief that there was merit in some of these government changes, right, back then?

Tim Wilson: Absolutely not. Absolutely not. I want to get [interrupted]

Andrew Clennell: But you clearly thought the capital gains tax discount was unfair.

Tim Wilson: No, what I think is unfair is that we have this discrepancy between it where income tax is so high. I mean, I've been utterly consistent. If you go and read the chapters, the paragraphs before that, it talks explicitly about how we need to get taxes down. Jim Chalmers's solution is to get taxes up. You do understand that?

Andrew Clennell: You...

Tim Wilson: Have you read my book?

Andrew Clennell: I haven't read your book, I will admit that.

Tim Wilson: Well, I recommend reading it. I recommend reading it.

Andrew Clennell: But it sounds like you believe that the capital gains tax arrangements as they existed in 2020, that you believe then that they were just too generous. Is that fair?

Tim Wilson: I believe that income tax is too high. That's what I believe. That's why I recommend reading [interrupted]

Andrew Clennell: You're saying you didn't believe the capital gains tax discount was too generous as opposed to income tax back then?

Tim Wilson: I think that income tax should be lower, Andrew, and I recommend reading my book. You've just acknowledged you haven't read it. I understand you've selectively read quotes provided to you by the Treasurer's office. I recommend reading [interrupted]

Andrew Clennell: To be fair, I Googled them, I didn't get them from the Treasurer's office, but, yeah. Because they have been the subject of much parliamentary scrutiny. So, as far as you're concerned, the capital gains tax discount of 50%—fair enough. Keep that. That's fine. That's what we should have. Is that your position now?

Tim Wilson: That's the position we're going to take to the next election when we repeal Labor's toxic taxes.

Andrew Clennell: Is that your belief? Is that your personal belief that that is the right place to go? Capital gains tax discount at 50%?

Tim Wilson: Absolutely it is. We have a capital gains tax discount because we have to deal with inflation and its impact on the value of assets. So, there's not a problem fundamentally with having a 50% discount. The problem is that we have a top marginal tax rate of 47 cents in the dollar. Labor has kept it there, and as I argue in the book—as if you've read it, you would understand—I consistently argued we needed to get tax rates down. Jim Chalmers's answer is to increase taxes.

Andrew Clennell: So, your personal belief, the capital gains tax discount at 50%: very fair.

Tim Wilson: Well, absolutely. But the real objective has to be to get income tax rates down. That's what I wrote in the book. If you read it—and I encourage you to do so—you'll see that through.

Andrew Clennell: Do you want to address intergenerational inequity, though?

Tim Wilson: I absolutely want to do that. That's by giving young Australians a chance to be able to get a good job, to be earning an income, not to be taxed as punitively, and to back the self-starters of Australia. The challenge we have at the moment is the government is going to whack higher taxes on small businesses and self-starters, and in an age of artificial intelligence, I think it's going to be more important now than ever to back the entrepreneurial energy of the Australian people. Labor wants to take a wrecking ball to the entrepreneurial energy and the growth of this country.

Andrew Clennell: Do you want house prices to go up or down?

Tim Wilson: I want house prices to reflect the market price, and the best way to make sure that everybody's getting richer, everybody's getting ahead, is to keep more money in their pocket so they're actually working harder, getting ahead, saving, and investing for the future, and, you know, one of the problems we've got with the price of housing right now is we're building too few houses. The government's own budget documents outline they're going to build 35,000 fewer homes, meanwhile, they're overshooting their migration targets by 90,000 in the next two years. So, we know what happens when that's the case. Housing becomes less affordable both for rents and for buying.

Andrew Clennell: Andrew Bragg, your housing spokesman, said during the week he wants house prices to come down, at least at the entry-level. Is that what you want?

Tim Wilson: Well, he said that the 5% first home deposit scheme that Labor's introduced has pushed up the price of housing for first home buyers, and the banks have said that's true. And that's a disaster for young Australians trying to get into the property market. It might have been good for the few people who managed to buy on that scheme, but we absolutely don't want to make it harder for first home buyers to get into the market. But once people buy their home, of course, they want it to go up. Of course, they want to get richer. And I believe in a country that encourages people to grow the pie, to become aspirational, and to get ahead.

Andrew Clennell: This is kind of the contradiction and the difficulty, isn't it? Because a lot of people have homes, they want them to go up. Young people—it's already out of reach for them, they need them to come down. So the government's kind of having it both ways on it, and so does everyone in politics, it seems to me.

Tim Wilson: Not at all. I absolutely want young Australians to be in the best position to afford their own home. That's by working hard, saving, and getting ahead, and their hard work to be respected and for hard work to pay off.

Andrew Clennell: Not by prices coming down.

Tim Wilson: Well, by incomes going up, by making sure that there's housing supply to address the challenge, and also making sure we don't have tax rates which are punitive, as we have with our income tax rates, as I talked about before.

Andrew Clennell: What are some of the levers available to the government to assist startups with their capital gains tax changes, do you think? Could they look at something like existing people with negative gearing grandfathered from those changes, so startups who are setting up could be exempted, for example, from CGT changes? Do you think they should look at something like that?

Tim Wilson: I think Labor should abandon the budget that they brought to the Australian community, which broke trust with the Australian community, and which we're going to seek to repeal because these toxic taxes fundamentally undermine investment in small businesses, in growth, for the Australian economy to grow and to enlarge the pie so everybody gets ahead. All this talk of carve-outs is just a way to try and dance around the fact they broke trust. They don't have a pathway for economic growth for the country, and we know in a world where talent and capital is mobile, it will be harder for young Australians to get ahead, and I don't support that.

Andrew Clennell: And what did you think of the motivation behind Christopher Luxon's wrecking ball comments?

Tim Wilson: Well, it's quite clear. He's trying, as his finance minister has said publicly, to get Aussie businesses to move to New Zealand because they have no capital gains tax. He's coming here basically, it seems to me, to raid the prosperity of the future of Australia, and Anthony Albanese is handing it to him on a platter.

Andrew Clennell: Can you set out how you're going to fund your massive promises, such as increasing defence spending to 3% of GDP and indexing the tax brackets?

Tim Wilson: Well, we are going to release our plan of offsets for costings, obviously, as we get closer to the election. But our clear focus is going to be on cutting out the fraud and corruption that sits in the system. We have $15 billion that was handed from public money through the CFMEU-Labor cartel to organized crime. We will be looking at issues around NDIS fraud and corruption. There's currently a court case where about half a billion dollars of childcare fraud is engaged, where phantom children are being enrolled. We're seeing replication of what's happened in the NDIS now in home aged care packages. The starting place we're going to start with is public money that was provided for honest purposes not going towards dishonest organised crime.

Andrew Clennell: Would you cut the public service?

Tim Wilson: That's not on the cards at this point. We will work through all these things because we don't know where the public service is going to be when we get to the election. Labor, we know, continues to fatten the size of government rather than focusing on how it's a limited, effective government that delivers for the Australian community, and I want limited, effective government for the Australian community.

Andrew Clennell: Would you rule out cuts to health and education?

Tim Wilson: Well, this is just becoming an exercise of what are you going to rule in and what are you going to rule out. What we're going to focus on is making sure we have limited and effective education, health services, making sure we're getting prioritisation of money to make sure we get maximum outcome for patients and for children to make sure they get the best education possible. That's what I'm going to rule in, and we're going to make sure we'll drive whatever investments necessary to deliver the outcome.

Andrew Clennell: Do you think there's efficiencies you could go for in health and education, then? Andrew Bragg said that on the program the other week.

Tim Wilson: There's always efficiencies we can drive in any type of system to get best value for buck for the Australian community. And we can do that through technology, we can do that through redeployment of people towards frontline work, we can do that by making sure that we remove a lot of the bureaucracy and make sure that money goes into outcomes rather than just a process. So all of those things will absolutely be part of the conversation.

Andrew Clennell: Removing the bureaucracy does mean public service cuts, doesn't it?

Tim Wilson: No, it's about reprioritisation of the revenue that's available to the public service. So, we’ll [interrupted]

Andrew Clennell: Would you go back to a system where you're hiring outside consultants again more... more frequently?

Tim Wilson: I'm somebody who's outcomes driven. So, what will deliver the best outcome for kids is my focus in education. What will deliver the best patient outcomes in healthcare is the focus of my agenda for government. It's not going to be one that's going to be focused on how many people we employ in the way that you're talking about. It's how do we get the best outcome we need for the Australian community with limited, efficient government.

Andrew Clennell: Do you think the government should look at extending the fuel excise cut given the protracted nature of the Iran war?

Tim Wilson: Well, obviously on the nature of the Iran war, this is going to be revisited when it comes up for expiry at the end of the month. Of course, if petrol prices continue to go the way they're going, with excise as well, we need to look at an offset, but it needs to be done with inflation offsets. The problem with the Labor government's approach to date is they're not offering inflation offsets, so they're likely stoking inflation and making the pain on households worse.

Andrew Clennell: They've said they won't extend the cut. Are you saying they should look at extending the cut as long as they have offsets?

Tim Wilson: Well, we're waiting to see obviously what happens with Iran and what happens with the Strait of Hormuz because this is not an event that's being occurred domestically. We're only looking at what's a domestic offset for that. So, we'll wait and see where we are at the end of the month.

Andrew Clennell: So, you'd be open to it, though, if we're in the same boat as we are now.

Tim Wilson: Well, I'm an open-minded person, and so, Andrew, of course we'll discuss all these things as part of our party process. But our key focus is going to be making sure that we deliver limited, effective government and best value for Australian taxpayer money. One of the biggest problems we have right now is honest Australians are paying a lot of money to government, and it's going to dishonest purposes, like $15 billion going from government through the CFMEU-Labor cartel to organised crime.

Andrew Clennell: What do you make of this gaffe Barnaby Joyce made around permanent residents and One Nation policy, suggesting permanent residents might have to vacate their homes?

Tim Wilson: Well, I mean, frankly, it's quite shocking. It's quite clear that if One Nation's agenda is simply to evict people from their homes and expel them out of the country who are engaging in law-abiding activity and lawful property owners, it says something really distressing about their objectives in government. But no one should be surprised, but it seems like a very violent way to deal with people who are here paying taxes.

Andrew Clennell: But aren't you discriminating against people who may have lived here for 20 to 30 years without becoming citizens by having a policy to not have them eligible for the age pension and other benefits?

Tim Wilson: No, firstly, we've already said that's grandfathered, and secondly, we won't be forcing them to sell their homes nor expelling them out of the country like Barnaby Joyce is floating. Our focus is on how we make sure that people come to Australia, they commit to Australia, and they contribute to Australia. And I don't believe it's in the best interests of Australians or for new Australians or migrants to actively want to seek out welfare. I say exactly the same view about Australian citizens. I want Australian citizens to work, to get ahead, and to be part of contributing to the success of this country. I have the same expectation of Australian citizens as I do migrants.

Andrew Clennell: Why has this suddenly become a thing for you Liberals and for One Nation, that suddenly everyone has to become Australian citizens? Why is this a thing now?

Tim Wilson: I don't believe that everybody has to become an Australian citizen, but I absolutely believe that it's good that people come here, commit here, and contribute to the future of the country. If you look at generations past, when migration's enjoyed a high level of public confidence, it's because people have come to this country, they've committed to this country, and they've contributed to this country, because Australians justifiably understand that if you want to be able to take from a system, you also have to contribute to it. We want to build out a more successful, prosperous Australia.

Andrew Clennell: You know, I know people who have been permanent residents for 60 years and they paid taxes. Why, in order for people in that boat to get the age pension, should they have to say, "I'm a citizen"? Some countries will take your other citizenship away. What’s the point of this other than perhaps a bit of a dog whistle?

Tim Wilson: Well, we’ve grandfathered people, so your example's wrong, Andrew. That's the problem. I know that's what Labor wants to run, but we've deliberately grandfathered understanding that, for those people who are already in Australia [interrupted]

Andrew Clennell: But the principle remains. The principle remains for those going forward. As does the principle of them having to renunciation their citizenships, right? Other citizenships.

Tim Wilson: Well, our focus is on making sure people come to Australia, they commit to Australia, and they contribute to Australia. I mean, I find it extraordinary that some people in the media don't think that it's a good thing that people come to Australia and then become new Australians and contribute to the long-term success of our country. That's exactly what I want, that's what Angus Taylor wants, and that's how we take a nation forward together.

Andrew Clennell: Just finally, Pauline Hanson said on the show last week it was time for IR reform in this country because it's too hard for business. What's your reaction to that?

Tim Wilson: Well, I agree that it's time for industrial relations reform by making the system simpler, fairer, and encouraging more people to be employed and to back small business. But I suspect she and I have very different views about how it is we're going to achieve that.

Andrew Clennell: What are you hoping to do?

Tim Wilson: Well, we're working through our own policies, but I have my own very strong views that we need to empower small businesses to be able to get ahead, to make it easier and simpler for them to be able to employ Australians, and most importantly, to make it easy for them to be paid. When you talk to small businesses around Australia, what they'll tell you is it's not just about dollars and cents, it's the complexity of the system. What we want is harmony, and harmonisation that makes it easier for small businesses to employ people and get ahead.

Andrew Clennell: Tim Wilson, thanks for your time.

Tim Wilson: Thank you.

[ENDS]