Tuesday, 24 February 2026

Topics: federal budget, capital gains, tariffs

E&OE

Kieran Gilbert: Tim Wilson, thanks for your time. This time next week, Parliament sits. You'll be up against Jim Chalmers. What's the main aim there? Do you really want to get under his skin, the Treasurer?

Tim Wilson MP: My interest is how do we advance the best interests of the Australian people? What we have is a government that is running out of revenue. The narrative they've built for themselves around the budget sustainability is running thin, so their only answer is to add more taxes. And so I think what we need is an honest conversation about what the government has done, more importantly, how they're failing the Australian community, and also to make sure there's a proper discussion on what it is they're funding. I mean, in the last sitting week, we had an independent report from an anti-corruption watchdog talking about $15 billion of taxpayers' money being handed to organised crime through the CFMEU Labor cartel. I would have thought a simple place to start is to stop that because that's necessary for budget sustainability.

Kieran Gilbert: The debt level is now $995.5 billion, Australian government debt. Interest last year, $25 billion paid on that debt. How do you make Australians care about it? It seems the era is sort of pre-COVID. There's a different mentality to now. How do get people to switch back on to that issue of debt and deficit?

Tim Wilson MP: I think Australians are because today's debt is, one, is petrol on the inflation fire that is going on right now. So every time Jim Chalmers borrows from the future to pay for today, he's stoking inflation. That's why interest rates are going up and why households are doing it tough. In addition to that, you're not just paying once. You're paying because there are future taxes that need to be collected as well. So when Jim Chalmers is talking about increasing taxes on capital gains, when he's talking about floating other tax proposals, as well as keeping income tax rates very high, Australians are suffering and paying the price. It's the inflation problem that Jim Chalmers has created while the rest of the world is seeing reductions in inflation, which is why Australians will care in the future.

Kieran Gilbert: On the issue of net debt, your predecessor, the Treasury spokesperson for the Liberals, he was Treasurer for a long time in fact, Peter Costello, he says that this issue of net debt is now looming as a crisis. It's not just about expenditure, is it? It's the level of tax. How do you get the balance right? Because you can't simply be lowering tax at the same time. Surely we need to get that balance right to make sure revenue stacks up.

Tim Wilson MP: So I had a conversation with Peter Costello about that just this morning. He's giving a speech this afternoon, stepping through the unsustainable nature of the budget and particularly how it's leading to net debt. And yes, we need to get it back into some position of sustainability. What we need do is we need to start by saying, one, what type of country are we trying to build? Two, how do we incentivise the type of behaviour which is focused on building out the economic progress of our country? At the moment, we actually apply the highest tax rate on what we actually want to incentivise, which is work, which is harmful to young people because all they have is their physical and intellectual labour. We need to make sure that there's a sustainable position for the tax system that builds out the future we want for the next generation because they're going to be central to our economic success and budget sustainability.

Kieran Gilbert: On some of those policies, for example, capital gains tax, if you want to drive behaviour, should those discounts be afforded only to new homes to drive the construction of new homes?

Tim Wilson MP: Well, you're assuming that's what's going to happen. If you remove the incentive, what you'll probably see is more capital flowing into liquid assets, things like equities, so the share market, because people can, of course, cash out of there any time in the future. Really, what Jim Chalmers is putting forward with the proposal, the floating proposal he's put forward around reducing capital gains discount in effect, is just a revenue measure. His arguments around budget sustainability have fallen flat. People are now seeing they're so thin in their argument, people can see through them, and as a consequence, he needs to find more revenue. But what we actually need is investment into the future, and Australians know that if he comes after capital gains in one area, it's the thin end of the wedge, and you'll see it repeated elsewhere.

Kieran Gilbert: Have you argued previously for reform in that space though, when it comes to capital gains tax? Your book has been referred to as making the case for some reform needed.

Tim Wilson MP: It has. It made the case very strongly for reducing the income tax rate. The point I made was there's a big difference between 47 cents in the dollar for income tax versus 50% for capital gains. My solution is, how do we get income tax down? Jim Chalmers' answer is how does he get capital gains up? So that's the big difference between myself and Jim Chalmers. He's never found a new tax he doesn't love, whereas I've always wanted to empower Australians. Get government out of their lives and incentivise work so that people can build out their own future vision of success.

Kieran Gilbert: More turbulence out of Washington when it comes to trade policy, the tariffs, now up to 15 per cent according to at least a social media dispatch from the President. What's your reaction to that?

Tim Wilson MP: I think we all look at this situation with caution. We should never forget that tariffs are a voluntary tax imposed by governments on consumption in the American economy. So tariffs are not paid by Australians, they're paid for by Americans through higher prices that they incur. Obviously it has an impact on our exports and we don't want to see that. We're a trading nation. We've always had our economic growth secured because we produce more than we domestically consume. We also have strong economic advantages and the United States is obviously still a very significant provider of the foreign capital we need to grow our country. So we're very mindful of this, very cautious about it, but because this has come as a consequence of a court decision and the response to that court decision, let's wait and see where it settles.

Kieran Gilbert: And before you go, do you feel like your team has been revived a sense of renewal with a new leadership, a sense hope, given the crumbling polling numbers recently?

Tim Wilson MP: Well our job is to make sure that we give liberals hope so that they are confident wanting to go and fight for the future of the country. Our job is then, of course, to give Australians hope. And I think we've seen a clear directional change, an attitudinal change in our messaging and what we're going to fight for, and you're going see more of that revealed in the coming weeks. And I'm very confident that Australians you know, think about like the small business people. Last year we had record small business insolvencies and this year we're on track to have a similar number if not exceeded. What people in small business need is hope. And we're going to be out there fighting for that, giving them confidence to back themselves to build a better nation.

Kieran Gilbert: Shadow Treasurer Tim Wilson, appreciate the chat.

ENDS