Thursday, 26 February 2026

Topics: Inflation, CGT, income tax cuts

E&OE

Sally Sara: Tim Wilson, welcome back to Breakfast.

Tim Wilson MP: Thanks for having me, Sally.

Sally Sara: Do you accept that the private contribution to demand is bigger than the public contribution at the moment and is it fair to blame the government for that?

Tim Wilson MP Well the government is stoking the private demand. That's what the government's trying to hide behind. Public spending, particularly on jobs, we have eight out of 10 jobs that are created in the economy are being driven by public spending, is what's driving that demand. Inflation is a reflection of what happens when the government spends too much, not when consumers spend too much. They're trying to hide it. And we know that they're pouring more debt-petrol onto the inflation fire.

Sally Sara: The RBA Governor, Michelle Bullock, says she thinks inflation is elevated but it isn't taking off again. What do you think?

Tim Wilson MP Well the evidence just doesn't show that. We have 4.9 per cent of essentially domestic inflation, this is a homegrown challenge. As long as state and federal governments continue to spend as they are, inflation will continue to be a problem for the economy. That's why the prices at supermarkets are going up. That's why costs for average Australians continue to have high pressure. Until we arrest it, you're not going to see a change.

Sally Sara: What would you do differently?

Well, we've already said we would cut out the $15 billion that's gone from the taxpayer to organised crime via the CFMEU. Apart from being outrageous, it's also inflationary. You've got to stop a lot of...

Sally Sara: That's a state issue isn't it?

Tim Wilson MP: No, it's not. The federal government has been contributing to these projects as well and the Prime Minister refuses to do any audit to establish how much federal money is finding its way into organised crime. But we also know that the NDIA themselves have estimated around 10% of the NDIS is going towards fraud. These are the sorts of things that are not just issues of misuse of public money, they're inflationary as well.

Sally Sara: So that would be your main approach?

Tim Wilson MP Well, that's the first part of our approach, but we've also got to understand where we're going to be after the next election. We're trending towards a trillion dollars of debt and the Treasurer keeps pouring debt-petrol on the inflation fire. Our challenge is what situation are we going to be left with and how are we going to be able to repair it from there?

Sally Sara: So would there be any government spending cuts under your watch?

Tim Wilson MP Well, I've just outlined a couple of really, really big ones. I think I'm up to 20 billion already and we're not even at 7 am in the morning. And we'll look through it.

Sally Sara: Would that be fraud, alleged fraud compliance rather than cutting back on departments?

Tim Wilson MP But that is public spending and it's going towards the wrong purposes and is currently inflationary. Now we'll make announcements about the rest of the budget, you know as we said, but we've got a couple of budgets from Jim Chalmers between now and then. So far his approach to budgets has been inflationary, you just need to look at how the Prime Minister responded. Yesterday, he went out to his Ministers and said, Jim Chalmers isn't going to get this under control. I need you to start putting recommendations in place about how you're going to cut back spending.

Sally Sara: That's a pretty normal process for Ministers to be asked to find spending cuts and efficiencies.

Tim Wilson MP I'm not arguing that. The difference is until now, the Treasurer has been in denial and said that there has been no link between federal spending and inflation. The Prime Minister is now calling him out.

Sally Sara: So just to go back onto your policies, in terms of a comprehensive approach to inflation, beyond the NDIA and the builds which are taking place in Victoria which include federal money, there's no other policies from you on that front at this time?

Tim Wilson MP Well, as I've said, corruption and the misuse of money is both an issue of fraud, but it's also an issue of inflationary pressure. We'll have more to say but we also have to understand the situation we're going to face. We're trending towards a trillion dollars of debt under this treasurer. He doesn't seem to have any plan about how he's going to curtail it. We've got to look at how we're going to do it in a sustainable way for the budget, the same way for keeping Australian community together, and also it has to be focused on a pathway of economic sustainable economic growth.

Sally Sara: You once wrote a book saying, and you said that capital gains shouldn't be given preferential tax treatment to other forms of income. Why are you now against any changes to capital gains tax?

Tim Wilson MP Well if you read the paragraph before that the paragraph that Jim Chalmers isn't circulating to journalists to quote back at me, what it actually talks about is how we need to have lower, broader taxes with more consistent rates. Jim Chalmers' answer to capital gains is to increase the capital gains tax. My answer, Bill Kelty's answer, Paul Keating's answer is to lower income tax because that's how we don't punish young people who want to get ahead when all they have is physical and intellectual labour to offer.

Sally Sara: So at the last election the Opposition was opposed to income tax cuts.

Tim Wilson MP And I disagreed with that then, and the Leader of the Opposition, Angus Taylor, has come out and said they think they've got that wrong at the time. So I agree, we need to cut income tax. 47 cents in the dollar is too high. But Jim Chalmers' only answer is to increase taxes, particularly on housing. It's an old rule of economics. If you want less of something, tax it more. If want more of something, tax it less. I want more housing.

Sally Sara: So we can expect income tax cuts from the Coalition as part of its economic policy?

Tim Wilson MP We'll always work towards income tax cuts, we'll always work towards them as far as I'm concerned, because that's how you incentivise work.

Sally Sara: So working towards them, does that mean they'll be there?

Tim Wilson MP Well again we have to wait to see what bonfire we have inherited from the current government. At the start of this term, they said that all their spending, pouring all that debt-petrol on the inflation fire wouldn't be inflationary. It clearly has been. So we're going to obviously have a plan to lead up to the next election. But if I can achieve income tax cuts, I'll always work towards it.

Sally Sara: Tim Wilson, thank you for your time this morning.

ENDS