Friday, 15 May 2026

Transcript - Interview with ABC Radio Brisbane, Mornings

Topics: Budget reply speech

E&OE...

Steve Austin: Well as you heard on the AM program a shortly while ago, Federal Opposition Leader Angus Taylor pledged "generational tax reform," quote unquote, in his budget reply. Apparently kicking off a major economic policy fight with Labor. There is now a very clear difference between the major parties when it comes to economics in Australia. Last night the Leader of the Opposition, Angus Taylor, provided the Coalition's budget reply speech. It was quite a detailed manifesto of what would change if there was a change of federal government. I spoke to Tim Wilson just prior to coming to air and played him a brief excerpt of what his leader said.

Angus Taylor (Recording): If you commit to Australia, Australia will commit to you.

Steve Austin: What is the message the opposition is sending to Australians, both citizens and non-citizens but permanent residents, Tim Wilson?

Tim Wilson: Well the message is very clear, we want people to come to Australia, to commit to Australia and to contribute to Australia, because we understand that the Australian project is a shared vision where we work together, where hard work pays off and people seek to get ahead and more importantly, when we encourage welfare dependency, we're setting Australians and new Australians up for failure.

Steve Austin: We've heard the budget reply speech now, starkly different from the Albanese government's budget speech on Tuesday night. The federal government called your proposals divisive and economically risky. Are they?

Tim Wilson: Well this government is trying to start fights around the kitchen tables of the nation between grandparents and grandkids. Our focus is on how we bring Australians together, we build out a sense of hope and on the horizon for particularly young Australians. You just need to go and look at all of the startups and small businesses of the country right now on their socials, who are basically saying the government has come in to take 47% of their business. All those young people who are waking up realizing that if they invested in ETFs or shares or crypto, the government is going to take half of their gain. We're focused on how people get ahead, backing them in so that they can aspire and live big dreams.

Steve Austin: Australia apparently needs skills, we have skill shortages, we need skilled workers. The Business Council of Australia has been lobbying to get more skilled workers into Australia. Angus Taylor last night announced one of the biggest changes, in fact I think his words were one of the biggest cuts to immigration in Australian history. Why, why do we need to do this if we need skilled workers as employers seem to think?

Tim Wilson: Well we do need skilled workers, we also need to make sure we have the housing stock that Australians need to be able to aspire to own a chunk of this country, to own a home, to be able to get ahead. Under the budget papers of this government on Tuesday night, they confessed that their tax plan would lead to building a fewer homes, it confessed and admitted that it would lead to rental increases. And we don't believe in an Australia where young Australians pay higher prices when they try and save, the government comes and taxes their house deposit, and in addition to that, they build fewer homes.

Steve Austin: Tim Wilson is my guest, he's the Shadow Treasurer. This is 6:12 ABC Brisbane, Steve Austin's my name. Well on taxation, this was probably one of the standout elements of the budget reply speech last night. You promised the indexation or the indexing of tax brackets. That was quite a remarkable statement. How are you going to be able to afford that? Bracket creep is one of the ways that the current government generates income to pay for services in Australia. How are you going to do something like indexation, which is quite a radical proposal, Tim Wilson?

Tim Wilson: It's not a radical proposal at all, it's a rational one. The government continues to stoke its active inflation agenda and it's a silent tax on the income of Australians. How are we going to do it? We will release our full budget costings before the next election but there are obvious things we could do. We could stop the federal government giving money to organized crime through the CFMEU-Labor cartel. $15 billion to the CFMEU and organized crime through public projects alone. We can stop the fraud and corruption in the NDIS, the phantom-enrolled children in childcare services, and the replication of behaviour from the NDIS that we're now seeing in home aged care packages, which will well and truly exceed an honest taxes of honest hardworking Australians shouldn't go towards dishonest organized crime.

Steve Austin: But the current model is or the current government gets a lot of money to do things through what we call bracket creep, everyone knows that. You would be ending that. The calculations are somehow that if you were elected you'd lose around about $100 billion that you'd have to spend. How are you going to make up that gap or that difference, Tim Wilson?

Tim Wilson: Well that's not the numbers that we've calculated or we believe.

Steve Austin: What are your numbers Tim Wilson?

Tim Wilson: Well we believe it'll be about $22.5 billion over the forward estimates. But but and as just outlined, $15 billion alone has been handed to organized crime through the CFMEU Labor cartel, that's a pretty significant...

Steve Austin: Okay, so how would you make up the gap though? That's that gap if you're to...

Tim Wilson: Well I just stepped through, I just stepped through other issues around childcare fraud, NDIS fraud which the government admits, and of course we will have other savings. But your simple, the basic proposition you put forward is we need to keep taking a bigger share of Australians' incomes. We need to make sure, we need to keep taking a silent tax on the Australian people. I simply don't share that view. The reality is government should live within its means and of course Australians should when the government is turning around and asking Australians to pull their belt in, we should also be turning around to government and saying you've got to keep your belt in. The government is there to serve the people, the people are not there to serve the government.

Steve Austin: Is there that much fraud happening with government services in Australia? You know that much fraud Tim Wilson?

Tim Wilson: There is, there is. The Labor government has created honeypots that have absolutely been tapped into by organized crime, by fraudsters by their own admission. And yes there has been that much public money handed through the CFMEU and Labor cartel to organized crime in places like Victoria, and we're now seeing that go nationwide. This is well publicized, in fact it actually came out through the Queensland inquiry into the CFMEU corruption, just how much public money is now being handed to organized crime and fraud.

Steve Austin: Let's go back to your leader's speech.

Angus Taylor (Recording): With Labor having opened the migration floodgates, the dream of home ownership has become a nightmare for so many Australians. Since Labor was elected it has brought in a record 1.4 million people, about the population of Adelaide. That number accounts for 80% of our population growth over the same period and that's why there's a shortfall of homes for about 400,000 people.

Steve Austin: Is the opposition absolutely sure of that? That the reason why there is a housing shortfall is because of people coming into Australia from overseas? A direct line?

Tim Wilson: Absolutely if you increase the number of people coming to Australia without the capacity to build the homes to accommodate them, it's going to lead to price rises and rental increases. It's simple supply and demand. And of course there are other issues as well, but if we're trying to ignore the fact that you bring people in and there aren't the volume of housing stock to support young Australians, of course it's going to have a contributing factor. Even the government's own budget documents show that they're going to overshoot in the next two years alone 90,000 above their migration target. The government has been using migration as a pathway to boost their budget numbers rather than get real, be honest with Australians and build the housing stock that Australians need, let alone of course what we need for migrants and new Australians need.

Steve Austin: Federal Liberal Shadow Treasurer Tim Wilson is my guest. We're talking about the budget reply speech made by his leader Angus Taylor last night. This is 6:12 ABC Brisbane. Welfare access will be provided only to citizens. The accusation is that this seems to be a copy of a One Nation policy. Why, what welfare access should be restricted to permanent residents, they're not citizens, permanent residents when they are paying tax in Australia, Tim Wilson?

Tim Wilson: Well as I said, we want people to come to Australia, we want them to commit to Australia and we want them to contribute to Australia. So there are 17 different schemes plus the NDIS that will be constrained to citizens, that will not include health and education because we believe in a just society and people being able to access the services they need, and of course permanent residents will be paying for that and be able to enjoy the benefits of that. But let's be very clear about this: if we say to people who come to Australia that the pathway for them to succeed is welfare, we're not just failing ourselves, we're failing new migrants who aspire to be new Australians. We want people to come to Australia to commit and to contribute, and that's the basis that it's not we don't maintain just the social license of welfare programs but a migration system that's sustainable and build out the success of our shared success as a country.

Steve Austin: The accusation is that the Federal Liberal Party looking to your right flank to One Nation is making immigrants a target to solve your political problems. How do you plead, Tim Wilson?

Tim Wilson: Well I don't plead at all. I've always believed that we should want a future for this country that is built on a shared sense of aspiration where we look where young Australians look to the horizon with hope and confidence, that migration is sustainable and enables people to integrate and to be housed, and to make sure that Australians feel we're going on a shared destiny together. When we get the social division that the Labor Party is fostering trying to start fights between grandparents and grandkids around the kitchen table over the Sunday roast, where they actively promote an agenda of decline division and intergenerational debt, that is the agenda that the government is feeding around redistribution and resentment and is not going to build the foundations of a prosperous successful Australia for all of us.
Steve Austin: Tim Wilson, Kos Samaras from Redbridge Labor's polling company points out that the number of baby boomers as a voting block is now smaller than millennials and Gen Zs. That that apparently is changing the messages the federal government is delivering. How does the opposition see it?

Tim Wilson: Well it's definitely true that the government is very cynical in its approach. They're not governing either for all Australians and they're definitely trying to start fights around the kitchen table over the Sunday roast. We're interested in how we build a future for all of us, where young Australians work hard and their hard work pays off, where they feel a sense of control over their lives and they feel respected. That they're able through the through move through the stages of their life to be able to form a family and buy a home, start a business and invest with confidence and of course then to retire with confidence. One of the most important things is the changing structure in which young Australians are engaging in the economy. In generations past they saved cash, they bought a home, then they worried about building a business or investing. Today it's been reversed. Young Australians are investing their house deposit, they're using online apps in ways that generations didn't pass, and now the government is coming to take nearly half of their gain and pushing their dreams of home ownership backward.

Steve Austin: Tim Wilson, thanks for your time.

Tim Wilson: Thank you.

Steve Austin: Tim Wilson is the Federal Liberal Treasury spokesperson.

[ENDS]