Thursday, 19 February 2026

Transcript – Interview with Laura Jayes, Sky News

Topic: economy, CGT, income tax

E&OE
Laura Jayes: Joining me now is the Shadow Treasurer, Tim Wilson. Tim, thanks so much for your time. Obviously Philip Lowe is allowed to speak out of school in a way that Michelle Bullock is not at the moment given her role. Do you think if we're seeing these kinds of comments from Philip Lowe that's exactly what the current Reserve Bank Governor would be thinking?

Tim Wilson MP: 100%. I mean, when I was Chair of the House Economics Committee, I raised issues with Phil Lowe about, you know, fiscal spending and how much debt we're going into and all of the issues that were being raised. And he said things in code. Michelle Bullock will be saying Phil Lowe's language in code when she appears before Parliament and she'll be making it very clear that the government is the key driver of inflation in Australia right now. Jim Chalmers is in denial about the demand he is creating, and he is the primary cause of the inflation bonfire that we have, and his only answer is to pour debt petrol on it.

Laura Jayes: OK, you're the new Shadow Treasurer. You have a big role to play here. And already I can see you getting under the skin of the government. We talk about reform on productivity. I note the NAB boss today is saying if something isn't urgently done, this might be as good as Australia gets. We saw that interest rate rise just a couple of weeks ago, and I think it really changed the psyche of where Australians are at at the moment. So I know, Tim, you've been thinking about this for a while. You say it requires unconventional thinking. So what are the big ideas?

Tim Wilson MP: Well, we'll be outlining some of those soon, and I mean very soon, but I've given a framework which is small and family business and the self-employed will be central to our policy agenda because I want to think more like a startup, less like a big business. We need challenges in the market. They're the ones who are going to create the new economic opportunity in the growth that the Australian economy desperately needs and we'll get unconventional thinking from them. One of the hubris things of this government is they think that they can treat Australians like chess pieces on a board, where they just get big unions, big capital, big governments and big business, and then they get to decide the levers and where everybody gets to go. We're challengers. We should have a startup culture that thinks boldly, confidently, but more importantly, encourages new entrants to challenge the marketplace.

Laura Jayes: If you want to think like a startup, and I know in some of the reporting in the AFR that you blame corporate Australia for being too risk-averse, mired in complacency, but if we want to be a start up and have that different attitude, which I agree we need, isn't that due to overregulation? It's the very lever, the parliament, and you have to control. Government sets the tone for culture. So is it really fair to, you know, call corporate Australia, the biggest employers at the moment, complacent and middling complacency?
Tim Wilson MP: Well, the biggest employers in the nation are the millions of small businesses, family businesses out there in the economy, but they hire one or two or five people and they're the ones who have to live the consequences of big business regulation. You're 100% right. I'm not blaming big business specifically. What I'm saying is there's -

Laura Jayes: But if you're saying corporate Australia is too risk averse, isn't that due to the regulations that Parliament ultimately controls?

Tim Wilson MP: Yes.

Laura Jayes: What are you going to do about that?

Tim Wilson MP: Well, can I assure you, we have well-developed plans, which we'll be releasing very shortly, but you're 100% right. The parliament has set the tone, which is to take the risk out of the economy. They've burdened big business with the cost of regulation, and the consequence of that is we have big business bureaucracies. We don't have challenges in the market that are dynamic and investing in the future. But the real issue is big and large businesses are always going to be with HR departments, legal departments, tax compliance departments. All those costs have been put onto small business and they don't have any of those resources. So you have small businesses working for the government and for compliance. We need to lift that pathway off for small business. They're the ones who will be the medium size and big businesses of the future. I absolutely want to drive an economic culture that lets them thrive.

Laura Jayes: OK, let's talk about the Howard era. You say, and really this is to your colleagues, the Howard era is over. So will you hang on to and defend the Howard-era CGT as it is?

Tim Wilson MP: You've misunderstood my comment. The point is the world has moved on from the 1990s and the early 2000s. We're in a very different world today. Geopolitically, it's changed. Technology, it changed. I've written an article in the Financial Review stepping through how it's changed and why it's important for us to adjust. The key point is we need taxes that are aligned to the incentives of what we want to encourage. At the moment, we want to encourage more housing. Jim Chalmers' answer to that is to put a new tax on housing. That is not a logical conclusion that I can draw. I want to see more housing, or rents come down, but more Australians can achieve home ownership. That isn't by applying Jim Chalmers' new housing tax.

Laura Jayes: I didn't misunderstand what you're saying about the Howard era. I agree that the world has moved on, and that's why I bring up CGT, because it hasn't been reformed in quite some time. I agree with you by just, you know, some arbitrary removal of the discount. It would not boost supply, but surely this is an area, both politically and policy-wise, that you could reshape. Will you deal yourself into relevancy with this argument that is surely coming in Parliament?

Tim Wilson MP: Well, we don't know. I mean, I found Jim Chalmers to be big on reform, but in reality, most of it ends up being rhetoric. I think we actually need to look more holistically at the tax system, starting with what is it we're trying to incentivise and what are we trying to build? Jim Chalmers' answer is just, how does he get more revenue? That's the clear difference between him and myself. I'd like to see incentivising work, which is why I want lower income tax rates. He wants to see less work, which is why he wants to sustain them, keep them high. He also wants to say less housing and less home ownership, which is why he wants to apply a new tax on housing.

Laura Jayes: OK, so if we're talking about the tax system as a whole, are you ruling out looking at CGT as a review? I mean, we talk about these inefficient taxes and we've been doing so for two decades. Will part of your thinking and conversation and advocacy be around perhaps the GST, property taxes, lowering income taxes?

Tim Wilson MP: Well, I'll absolutely rule out looking at a tax in isolation just to raise revenue rather than looking at how we're going to approach tax on the basis of the type of country we're going to build. I want taxes to incentivise the right behaviour to build the future of the Australian economy and one that backs small and family businesses and the self-employed hard. I want to see a cultural shift in attitude and encourage risk in the economy and shake big business bureaucracies out of their complacency and, yes, out of their overregulation as well. But when you get into a rule-in, rule-out game, it shuts down the conversation. I'm making it clear that if we just look at taxes in isolation, just to raise revenue, that isn't consistent with what I believe is in the best interest of building the future of the Australian economy.

Laura Jayes: OK, but you consider all these things if we could lower the income tax rate, which you've described as punitive as well, amongst other things.

Tim Wilson MP: Well, the income tax rate is punitive. When you're getting 47 cents in the dollar being taxed and you're getting wages rising but only being outstripped by inflation, we're in an environment that is not incentivising work. Not just incentivising work, it's not incentivising risk, it's not incentivising Australians to step up and lean into the future. You know, we know we've got big technological changes. From the minute I won the federal electorate of Goldstein again, Laura we started talking about artificial intelligence and its role. The question is, do we want...

Laura Jayes: I mean, AI is the reason that America doesn't have the productivity problem we do, right?

Tim Wilson MP: Partly, but it's also about our attitude. Do we want workers to be their own CEOs, or do we want them to simply to be passive employees? I want Australian people to be CEOs of not just their own businesses, but CEOs of their own life with agency. And we do that by empowering them, not putting more taxes on them.

Laura Jayes: Okay, Jim Chalmers said of you, you are long on ego, arrogance and entitlement and short on empathy and understanding. Do you take that as a compliment?
Tim Wilson MP: Well, I think he should be redirecting the comments to himself because all of those things apply to him, but particularly his lack of empathy for small and family businesses and the self-employed. You know, when you've got a government that hands $15 billion to organised crime through the CFMEU-Labor cartel, they have no respect for taxpayers. Look, you know, there'll always be, the Treasurer will throw out his personal barbs. I think we should actually be a bit above that because at the moment his greatest record in office is simply holding it, not the reform he's delivered.

Laura Jayes: What do you want to do here? Are you willing to have a real crack here? Upset some people, maybe take a few political risks to get things done?

Tim Wilson MP: I don't think anybody has ever given me a job thinking that I will be complacent or stagnate. I have always had a very high risk appetite, but we need to build a future where Australians can see their success tied to work, to effort, to their own risk, because you need risk in order to get reward. And I think that's the basis that I'm going to approach this role, because the more we see of small and family businesses and the self-employed backing themselves, I think the stronger the economy we will have.

Laura Jayes: You've got to be careful not to talk down the economy, right? What would you say to Australians, is this as good as it gets?

Tim Wilson MP: Well, it's exactly the opposite of what I want, you know. Jim Chalmers currently is putting the economy to sleep. He's sort of using monetary methadone, fentanyl fiscal policy. What we actually need is an economy that is focused on building for the future. And that's the type of economy I want where small and family businesses and the self-employed back themselves, the government is saying and cheering them on because that's a basis of future success where it won't be as good as it gets. It means that we'll be leaning into the future.

Laura Jayes: Tim Wilson, pleasure to talk to you this morning. We'll speak soon.

ENDS