Topics: Fuel excise, Petroleum resource rent tax

E&OE

Dave Marchese: Tim Wilson, welcome to Hack.

Tim Wilson MP: Thank you for having me.

Dave Marchese: The government has announced it's halving the fuel excise for three months. That's what the Coalition's been calling for. So presumably you think they've done the right thing here.

Tim Wilson MP: Well, it's definitely welcome. The only critique we have is that when we put it forward, we proposed a series of offset measures so that it wouldn't be inflationary. Today, in Question Time, I asked the Treasurer whether he had offered any offsets so that it wouldn't be inflationary, and he blathered and ignored answering the question, which means that it's only going to compound the problem of inflation that Australians are already experiencing. Which is leading to higher interest rates.

Dave Marchese: Is the real issue here that we just don't know what impact this is going to have on inflation for some time at least a few weeks?

Tim Wilson MP: We know from the entirety of economic history that if you have a significant increase in liquid fuel costs that go into freighting food from farms to distribution centres, from distribution centres to warehouses, etc. It's going to have an inflationary cost on the cost of goods when you get to your trolley at the supermarket.

Dave Marchese: The government has gone maybe a bit further than what Angus Taylor was saying he wanted because Angus Taylor was asking for the heavy vehicle charge to be cut in half for three months where the government's saying we're going to scrap it for three month. Was your plan offering enough support to truckies and to Australians?

Tim Wilson MP: The short answer is yes, because of course we were addressing the fundamental problems being driven by international events, but we weren't seeking to stoke inflation.

Dave Marchese: So what do you do in the short term then? Because there are other countries like New Zealand who are offering targeted support to families in particular. Do you think that maybe we need targeted support here in Australia?

Tim Wilson MP: Well, that's precisely what we were seeking to do with our proposal of a 50% cut on the fuel excise.

Dave Marchese: But more targeted than that, in particular to young Australians, for example, who are telling us right now that many of them can't go to work, they can't go to uni, some are even camping at their workplaces just so they don't have to pay for fuel.

Tim Wilson MP: And this is real, I mean you've seen the Victorian Government as an example offering free public transport to incentivise people to, one, get off the roads and secondly to use alternative arrangements. Everybody's going to be in different sets of circumstances and of course we're still watching as this evolves. We're all hoping this crisis ends soon.

Dave Marchese: But would you support more targeted support for vulnerable Australians?

Tim Wilson MP: I'm not going to give a blank cheque to handing more money out when so far the only thing the government has done is to provide a measure that doesn't have offsets for inflation because that just means you're giving with one hand and you're taking with the other and that's the problem with the government's approach. So I don't want to see us in a situation where I'm giving the government a blank cheque to keep stoking inflation. They kept the inflation fire alive by pouring debt petrol on it before this crisis. As a consequence, the flame of inflation has been burning. I want to see it snuffed out, because every time inflation persists, interest rates go up.

Dave Marchese: But is it okay enough to say, well, we just don't want to stoke inflation, but we don't have any real support in mind for these Australians who are doing it tough? Because if you are struggling right now and you're looking to the Coalition and wondering what your plan is, what can you offer them?

Tim Wilson MP: We already offered, we led the conversation around the diesel fuel rebate. The hope is that this conflict will end and we will watch it as things continue to move on. But the government keeps saying to us there's more fuel now than there was at the start of this crisis. So we want that and we made calls on this today to make sure that the fuel is being moved to petrol bowsers so people can get access to it with the reduction in the of the excise so that people can afford to pay fuel.

Dave Marchese: What about rationing of fuel, is that something the Coalition supports?

Tim Wilson MP: Well, at this point, the government has said that they have more fuel in Australia today than they did at the start of the crisis. So I just can't see why we would race to that conversation until that is no longer the case, unless the government, of course, has been lying to us and they don't have more fuel than they do at the start of the crisis.

Dave Marchese: All right, this is Hack, I'm Dave Marchese, I am speaking with Shadow Treasurer Tim Wilson, we're talking fuel, cost of living, got someone on the text line now saying the fuel discount will just drive a demand in fuel purchases, which will drive prices up more, it'll result in the same or higher prices anyway, that's what that person is saying, also hearing from you on Hack's Instagram, Eamon saying my fuel bill last week was $450, I drive one and a half hours to work each day. And Molly saying, I have to ride my bike to work now and it takes an hour. Tim Wilson, politicians like Senator David Pocock are calling for a 25% tax on gas exports. And this idea has started to gain a bit of support from politicians across the board. You're the Shadow Treasurer. Do you support a gas tax?

Tim Wilson MP: Well, it would very much depend on how these things are ultimately going to be designed and I'm not sure that's necessarily the best way to address this. There are already royalties paid for gas that is exported.

Dave Marchese: Is it enough?

Tim Wilson MP: People like to say, well, we're going to talk about what the income tax is paid or what this excise is paid, but they ignore the fact there are other taxes or other royalty arrangements paid to states.

Dave Marchese: So do you think these big multinational companies though are paying enough tax?

Tim Wilson MP: Well, there will never be a time that I've ever found in Australian history where people don't think that large companies and multinationals are not paying enough. What we need is investment to get the fuel, to fuel the Australian economy. That's expensive. We need to make it attractive to get that investment because the big risk, as we've seen with things like oil in Australia, is we have none of that done domestically really anymore. And then in the middle of a fuel crisis. Everybody turns around and says, why don't we have enough domestic sovereign supply of fuel?

Dave Marchese: But does it bother you that Australia gets more taxes from beer, which is a headline that has really concerned a lot of people around Australia, than it does from the biggest gas exporters in the world?

Tim Wilson MP: The challenge is that that's simply not true, that we're looking at one specific tax rather than the full spectrum of taxes that are paid as well as royalties.

Dave Marchese: Economists, sorry Tim Wilson, like Chris Richardson, saying this PRRT, the petroleum resource rent tax, initially was a great idea, but it's failed and it's not keeping up and we're not getting as much money as we could be. It could be billions and billions of dollars a year, 17 billion annually according to some estimations. Are we missing out here?

Tim Wilson MP: Well, gas currently pays about $21.9 billion worth of tax, so that's in excess of the number you put forward. But we're talking-

Dave Marchese: specifically about the PRRT, which is the tax that, you know, a lot of people have been talking about and saying needs reform. Do you think we need to be looking at this area because you know we've got some of your colleagues like Andrew Hastie saying the Liberals should be open minded to increasing taxes on gas companies. Do you agree with him?

Tim Wilson MP: There are always going to be times where we're looking at taxes and seeing what's most effective because there's a worst case scenario which is we don't get any gas extracted so we don't get anything paid through the PRRT. Remember Labor introduced a mining tax in 2010. I know for a lot of listeners that's a long time ago. They introduced this whopping new tax and what it did was raise nothing because what it did was stifle investment, discourage activity. We don't want that. You've got to get a sensible balance, so you're getting people building industries that grow the prosperity of Australia, that pay tax and contribute to the welfare of the country.

Dave Marchese: So was it wrong of your leader, Angus Taylor, to rule it out then? If you've got to consider everything as you're saying and make a decision down the track, is it not the right thing for Angus Taylor to just say, no, we're not doing that?

Tim Wilson MP: All Angus Taylor said was, if you tax something, you'll get less of it. That's a pretty basic principle in economics. So if you actually want to incentivise industries to grow, you don't add layer upon layer upon layer of regulation and taxation. We want an industry that's viable and sustainable to support sovereign supply, but also, of course, has to pay tax.

Dave Marchese: What about winding back the capital gains tax discount and negative gearing concessions?

Tim Wilson MP: Well, again, if you tax something more, you will get less of it. I want more houses built. I want young Australians to have a chance to buy their own home.

Dave Marchese: So is that you ruling out any changes to those, capital gains, tax discount, negative gearing concessions? I mean, people are really interested in this stuff and they do want their politicians to answer the questions and know what they're standing for on these very specific issues. Can you say whether you, as the shadow treasurer, support winding back the capital gains tax discount or negative gearing concession?

Tim Wilson MP: I've consistently said my focus is on making sure young Australians pay less income tax. Increasing taxes on other people doesn't achieve that. Working towards lowering income tax does achieve that, that's where my focus is.

Dave Marchese: Alright, Shadow Treasurer Tim Wilson, thank you very much for joining us on Hack.

Tim Wilson MP: Thanks for having me.

Dave Marchese: And we've still got a lot of messages coming through on this.

ENDS