Friday, 22 May 2026

Transcript - Interview with The Guardian, Politics Podcast

Topics: National Press Club address, federal budget, income tax, capital gains tax, negative hearing

E&OE....

Tom McIlroy: Well, Tim Wilson, welcome to the podcast.

Tim Wilson: Thanks for having me, Tom.

Tom McIlroy: It's really good of you to make some time, a busy week in the um, post-budget wash-up. Let me ask you about your appearance at the National Press Club this week. You said that the government is knee-capping young Australians in every pathway they're pursuing to get ahead. But you've previously argued that the tax system is screwing over young people and advantages um, Australians who are already established. Wouldn't some of these proposed changes that Labor's put forward adjust the balance a bit towards young people?

Tim Wilson: Well, no actually, Tom. What's the biggest tax that young Australians pay? Income tax. What's the one that they're not actually doing anything to cut? Income tax. You know, you can legitimately highlight the um, the problems of the nexus between income tax rates and things like capital gains tax rates, which I have previously, I'm not dancing around that. Uh, and but Jim Chalmers' solution to that is, well, let's just increase capital gains tax. Actually, I don't think that addresses the root problem. Young Australians have their physical and their intellectual labor to get ahead. Um, and we're continuing to punitively tax that or punish, uh, tax that in a punishing way in comparison to assets. Um, his solution is just, well, I'll just take some more of the asset values instead. So we just have diametrically different views about how we should run a nation and the finances of the nation. Some of us believe deep in our bones that the pathway for young Australians to get ahead is to work, to create opportunity, um, to invest in their own future and compound the growth. The solution from Jim Chalmers is, how do we tax that so he can empower himself, himself, and in addition to that, slow the investment and the growth in the Australian economy. I mean, I think that's mad, but that's his vision.

Tom McIlroy: Alright, let me try to strip out the politics 'cause I'm interested to know more about your views and the opposition's views here. Uh, so putting aside everything that's going on in the debate at the moment as much as we can. If you were going to do everything possible to try and help young people get into the housing market, for example, wouldn't you start with changes on negative gearing and capital gains tax?

Tim Wilson: Well no, because the history shows, I mean, we need to understand what negative gearing is. A lot of people throw around the term but they don't actually understand what it is. It means you don't pay tax when you're losing money. Now, that's quite a logical thing to do. You're not making money, don't pay tax. We normally pay tax when we make a profit or when we're increasing our income. So, when you in assets, when you tax something when you're not making any money, uh, all that happens is that people pass the cost on. That's why rents have historically gone up when you remove negative gearing. Uh, and and it looks set to be likely, uh, to be the case, um, depending on what happens hereafter and what passes the Parliament. Uh, and the government acknowledges this in its own budget papers. It says that rents will increase as a consequence of these tax changes. So I don't think this actually has anything to do with helping young Australians at all. In fact, what I think is the reverse. They're going to experience higher rents, and last I checked, most people rented before they bought their first home. Some people got to live at home, but a lot of people rented. The people who save and invest their first home deposit and because the timeframe at which people are um, investing um, or sorry, timeframe before they buy their first home is longer, more young Australians are investing um, in uh crypto, ETFs, and shares. So their tax rate could potentially double, depending on what happens with that um, on the growth. Uh, and then according to the government's own budget papers, the tax changes will lead to 35,000 fewer homes being built. So it sort of does the reverse, complete reverse. If you want to address the root cause of housing affordability, you have to increase supply, that's an important part of it. You also need to make sure that young Australians can actually use their savings. That's why I've always believed that super should be able to be included as a pathway um, to do so. And then you should also incentivize work because remember, assets are bought with post-tax income. And so the more we punish work, the less likely you are then to have the savings to buy your first home.

Tom McIlroy: There's a bit of common ground in that argument in particular, surprisingly perhaps, between you and Paul Keating today. He says, in in commenting on the backlash against Labor's changes, income is taxed too heavily while capital is taxed too lightly. He says there are actually marginal changes and that um, some of the arguments being put up against them, not just from the opposition but from um, the startup sector and from other parts of the business community um, don't have, don't have much merit. Have we found common ground between you and Paul Keating?

Tim Wilson: I've said previously before um, that both Bill Kelty and Paul Keating and I are at least on the same page on tax, income taxes being too high. Um, this is uh not a surprise, we've all been consistent on that. Paul Keating also said you should be able to use your super to be able to buy your first home but uh, uh he bowed to the superannuation fund masters and stopped saying that a while ago. Uh, so um, yes when it talks about how we, young Australians, should get ahead on the rate of income tax. And it's not just young Australians, but obviously those who only have their labour, their physical labour or their intellectual labour to sell. Uh, they're the ones who are most disproportionately hit by high income taxes.

Tom McIlroy: What about the point that he makes that these are actually quite marginal changes in the scheme of things and that they're being cynically overstated by opponents including the coalition?

Tim Wilson: Well, it's cute that um, Paul Keating says that. At the end of the day, he is a Labor man and he will take his talking points from them. Um, the reality is quite different. You've got...

Tom McIlroy: Is that, sorry to interrupt, is that a little bit unfair? I mean, a lot of the big economic reforms in the last 30, 40 years are down to down to him and his uh views on how the economy should run.

Tim Wilson: Well, I think it is fair because um, at the end of the day he's rarely uh been somebody who's been prepared to contradict the Labor party in the past. He has a couple of times. He criticized the Labor party for when they um uh weren't hugging China enough, let's put it that way. Um, I'll give him that. He definitely disagreed. He took more of a pro-Beijing stance. Uh, but...

Tom McIlroy: Very critical on AUKUS as well.

Tim Wilson: Oh, sorry, yes. Um, happy to, happy to accept that uh, that criticism as well. But uh, but at the end of the day, he um, he isn't, he's overstating the nature of um, people's concern. Firstly, we need to remember, these taxes explicitly were not taken to an election. So the Australian people walked in the ballot box the last election and were told in the words of the Prime Minister 50 times over that these taxes would not be introduced.

Tom McIlroy: I feel like I was there for those 50 times, I gotta say.

Tim Wilson: Well, um, you might have even asked him a couple of times, Tom, yourself. But you know, that is a fair and reasonable basis in which people turned around and say, well, I don't believe they should be introduced. Then let's get over that threshold question. You're then talking about, and what a lot of particularly the startups and the small business founders who have built businesses out of nothing um, and essentially all of the value of their business is capital gain, and depending on when they sell um, and depending on the purchase price of their, their hard work and effort, the government could effectively be nearly a 47% shareholder in that. And people are saying, I don't mind paying tax. I mean, obviously we'd all like to minimize the amount of tax we actually pay, but we all accept that we have to pay some tax. And most of them have, I've spoken to have said, we get that the former discount, how it basically operates, it you know, accepts the realities of inflation. And instead, what has happened is the government has basically come along and said, well, we'll just double that thanks overnight. And it's like, well, what have you done that's made it easier? Nothing. Um, your industrial relations law makes it harder for us to get ahead. Um, you're not, you don't spend the taxes very well as well. I've heard that a few times. We've had some new age Kerry Packer moments where people have raised concerns about that. But this isn't doing anything to promote investment or get more people to invest in the future of the Australian economy. It's not building the ecosystem which is very important particularly for newer businesses that are probably a bit more technology-driven. And one of the critiques I outlined yesterday at the Press Club is one of the things that concerns me most is that we're almost setting our economy at risk of failure from the technological disruption that's going to come as a consequence of artificial intelligence. And so I think there's trust-based reasons, there's practical reasons, and then there are also self-interested reasons that people are raising. And of course some of them cross-pollinate. But at the end of the day, is this actually going to build a better economy where it's easier for hard work to get ahead, taxpayers to be respected, and for Australians to feel in control of their own lives? And I think the answer is a resolute no.

Tom McIlroy: Okay, well I think that um, is an interesting insight into some of the policies that we'll be hearing you talk about in your new job as we go ahead to the next election in 2028 sometime. Let me ask you about housing. It's one of the, the pieces of this puzzle that kind of underlines the debate as we've said. I think the coalition's position so far is um, I think a $5 billion fund to enable housing-related infrastructure, more restrictions on overseas buyers in the market. Do you anticipate um policies, potentially tax policies, coming from your side ahead of the election to promote um first home buyers getting into the market?

Tim Wilson: Well, well yes, but there's multiple different ways that we would seek to do that and we've got some things which, you know, will be announced in good order. Uh, but it's uh, you know, I approach housing policy um around how do we help people move through different stages of their life? Because it's a really important part of how people approach housing policy. Um, you know, traditionally we have people who need larger homes when they have family and kids for a period of roughly about 20 years of their life, but we need to make sure there's housing stock for first home buyers, we need to make sure that as people grow up through their different stages, they need it, and also how they then get to the other end, which is pathways to retirement based on living in the community where their friends, their social networks, and the infrastructure is that they need. So tax is one part of it, but it's not the silver bullet to all of it. You need to attract investment, you need the skills to be able to build it, um and then you of course need a population who can then go on and afford to do so. And I guess I see, and I've said this publicly before, I think that one of the biggest challenges we have with housing is people uh focus on kind of, look at it amorphously like it's just housing. Um, the reality is most people want to aspire to own their own home. Now how big that is, where it is, how uh etc., that that that's a diversity of views about that and based on where what people's living standards expect. But if they can't do that, they rent on the private market. So, and if they can't do that then they end up in other types of affordable housing schemes or social housing schemes. Most of what the focus of this government is really deep down on is how do they address the social housing problem, which is not a criticism of the issue and the and the need for it. But it cascades if you don't fix actually the real problem, um which is making sure there's enough housing stock for people to be able to buy their first home and so I'd rather solve the problem rather than just trying to sort of almost band-aid the back end of it.

Tom McIlroy: Interesting, interesting. One aspect of this that has been discussed a little bit, I think our listeners would be keen to hear a bit more from you on, um is the link between housing and migration policy. Angus Taylor, the opposition leader, has made this link in his budget reply speech, um linking the number of housing completions in the country with the number of overseas arrivals that would be permitted into the country under a coalition government. Could you take us under the hood of that a little bit? Will it be a one-to-one ratio? One housing completion ticked off, one, one place in the migration program? Or is there more nuance, you know, 2.4 people live in every house in Australia, we've got different kinds of accommodation?

Tim Wilson: Well, of course there'll be more nuance in it because what we need is to make sure there's available stock for um, for people to live in. It's not um just a one-for-one automatic transfer.

Tom McIlroy: How will it work, how will it work?

Tim Wilson: Well, we, we haven't made the announcement on all the details specifically because part of the challenge is where will the housing stock be in two years' time? We're two years to an election despite the ambitions of Matt Canavan, uh to have one right now. Uh, the one, the, we don't know where the housing stock will be. The government current government is about 30,000 houses behind their own target while migration is 90,000 over the next two years ahead of their target. So we're kind of looking at this going, like with the budget papers, we don't know what it is that we could potentially inherit. But as a principle, we don't believe that we should be importing more people into our country than our country can house or absorb. That is in the interest of Australians, that is also by the way in the interest of uh those who are migrants or seeking to be new Australians. Because um people need housing. We all agree with that, and we can't have an environment where it becomes unsustainable because it doesn't just undermine the uh the confidence of the migration program, but um it comes down to whether Australians see that this country is going to work for them and that if they apply their hard work and effort that they're going to be able to get ahead. And what we're hearing everywhere uh is more and more Australians saying they're not convinced it does anymore. And um not only we hearing that, we agree with the the central premise which we need to address that concern to make sure that we're bringing in a number of people to integrate into our society, not just on housing, but that we can economically integrate them, socially integrate them, and culturally integrate them um so that we can have a program and a nation that we're all proud of together.

Tom McIlroy: Okay, so if part of the problem of the current proposals from the the Labor Party on tax changes are they didn't take them to the election so voters didn't understand, does that mean that we will understand the nuance of this program, this policy that the coalition's putting forward before the next election? We'll understand that nuance that you described?

Tim Wilson: But of course. Um, I mean, it's not to be obtuse. We are two years away from an election and we have different circumstances. I mean, we had this yesterday at the Press Club, all these journalists ask these um fun questions, you know, saying will you rule this in or rule this out, and it's like we've got two budgets between now and then. Based on the precedent we had in this budget, the government has basically turned around and said, well everything we said before now was just a lie and we're going to do what we want. Um, now if you break that scale and level of trust then um, I struggle to see why it constrains them over the next two years. Um, you've got the Teals and the Greens applauding them in every step of the way to keep doing so. Uh, so we're now looking and going, what type of Australia are we actually going to inherit? And that's even before we get through the factors that are beyond our control. Obviously, we still got this thing going on in Iran, um and of course we hope that's the most, we hope we hope that wouldn't happen, but we also hope that was the most, will be the most significant thing in this term. But I'm afraid to say the world is becoming a more challenging place. We need to be more prudent and responsible in how we approach things, and we also need to be more mindful that if we, you know, just focus on today we're not setting ourselves up for meeting the challenges I think increasingly of the 21st century.

Tom McIlroy: I take your point on saying one thing before an election and as you correctly point out, explicitly from the PM dismissing possible changes on CGT and negative gearing. But the criticism of the coalition at the last election was that there wasn't enough detail. Do you agree that that was a mistake? Are we gonna, do you think your side will correct that ahead of the next election so voters know what you're offering and and can assess your policies carefully?

Tim Wilson: Yeah, I mean 100%. And that's one of the reasons why yesterday, you know, normally the shadow Treasurer gives a budget reply speech which sort of, you know, gives a bit of a grumble saying we're not happy about this and we're not happy about that. I actually used it for something entirely different. I got up and I talked about how we're building out a campaign and a consultation focused on how to um redesign economic policy particularly for the self-starters of Australia. And if you want to have your say, go to www.standwithsmall.org uh because I actually think we're going into a new kind of period where public trust is going to be very important, your capacity to connect with people is going to be very important, uh and that their involvement before you even go to an election, you're going to need policy um uh policy involvement, not just politicians kind of handing things from on high and saying this is the answer. Um, and I think that's even more important because of the issues of broken trust after this last election. I want not just detail, but I want people to see that it's in their interests and more importantly that we can actually build a better country together if we work together. Um, and my job is merely to be the conduit to empower you to live your best life.

Tom McIlroy: Yeah, the small business policy ideas that you outlined were interesting yesterday. I think um often our readers and listeners are frustrated with the journalists' coverage of the Press Club, covering elections, covering Parliament for not talking enough about the policy side of things and focusing too much on the politics.

Tim Wilson: Well, politicians, journalists love drama, they uh and it's easier copy. But actually, there are, you know, hundreds of thousands, millions of Australians out there who not only going to be impacted by these tax changes and and they're real and and we're not discounting that. But I guess people always say what are you going to do and what's the solution going to be? Well, I'm actually saying, well this is precisely how we're going to go about it. I want your input, um and it's I can assure you it's very sincere because uh I and I said this in my Press Club speech yesterday. The uh, I think a lot of the economic structures of the 20th century are redundant for the 21st century. Uh, and I think particularly in an AI-driven world, and we're all waiting to see what those consequences are, um they will slowly be revealed. I think we're going to have more people, whether it's they've got full-time work, they've got uh a side hustle, they've got some other arrangements going on or they're balancing out their kind of portfolio career, whatever it is. We've got to create the the economic incentives and the economic structures for them to go for it and live their best life. And I think if we do that, we'll actually build up the best potential of the country.

Tom McIlroy: In his budget reply speech last week, Angus Taylor said mass migration is changing Australia for the worse. Do you agree?

Tim Wilson: Well, I believe if we have more people than we can absorb, house, and we are able to culturally and economically integrate and socially integrate, it is going to end up in an outcome that makes it unsustainable. Um, and that's where I think a lot most Australians now believe it is. The the if you look at opinion polls, um and we shouldn't take dictation from opinion polls, but opinion polls do explicitly show that people think that migration is too high. They don't believe it's working in our national interest. I've always been a believer that we should be slowing migration proportionate to our capacity to absorb people economically, socially, culturally, and house. Uh, and so um when we go beyond that capacity, which we are now, um Australians, it doesn't just lose its social license, it'll lose the support of reasonable people who understand we do need migrants like myself, particularly as part of a skilled-based program. And that's not what I want.

Tom McIlroy: Um, the term mass migration is part of that statement and and part of the challenge and it's been noted that it's not a term that you use. Do you think that it's inflammatory, is that why you choose not to use it yourself?

Tim Wilson: I am a very idiosyncratic person, Tom. I have my own way of expressing everything and uh and I have no issue at all with people having their language too. Um, I talk about the pathways for migrants to become new Australians and their pathway for successful integration. Uh, and uh that's just how I talk, man.

Tom McIlroy: Okay. Um, aren't some of these policies um reminiscent of One Nation? And I'm talking about the uh move to limit some welfare programs to permanent residents. And doesn't that make it more challenging to win back some metropolitan seats that have multicultural communities? The Chinese community has criticized Angus Taylor on these grounds. You you've um successfully beaten a Teal, won back a seat. What's your reflections on that? Is it possible that the Liberal Party's going in the wrong direction away from the center on things like migration?

Tim Wilson: Do you know what the center ground of Australian politics is, Tom? It's Australians who want to get ahead and improve their own lives. And it doesn't...

Tom McIlroy: But migrants want that as well.

Tim Wilson: I agree! I'm the first to say that. And in fact, specifically what we're saying to new Australians is the pathway to get ahead is um to work. Um, that's what people who are here and working and paying their taxes fairly want for themselves and for their families. It's also what they want for new Australians. And by the way, I want to make this crystal clear. I think that's what new Australians want too. People want a system that works for them. Our expectation is that people come to our country, they commit to our country, and they contribute to our country. Um, I'd be shocked if any other Australian thinks otherwise. In fact, when we raised, you know, when it's been raised in the past kind of week that there are a lot of programs like the NDIS that are available to people who are non-citizens, most people's response has been shock because they couldn't didn't realize that was the case. Most people expect that the system is already set up that you only get things on the basis of citizenship. Um...

Tom McIlroy: But, but isn't it, isn't it going against the idea of a fair go? I mean, I agree with you that most migrants want to come here and work hard and boy do they work hard. They're often um working working to set up small businesses and build their families' opportunity. But if someone falls on hard times, and we see this very small numbers in these programs of um non-permanent residents, non-citizens, shouldn't our system help people get back on track as it as it does in small numbers already? Isn't it punitive to say to people no, you're on your own until you become a citizen?

Tim Wilson: Well, well firstly the responsibility of the Commonwealth of Australia is in all cases to advance the interests of its citizens first. It's explicitly what it is there to do and um and I just can't be any clearer about that. Um, that doesn't mean we're exclusionary. The job of the Chinese government is to advance the interests of its citizens. Whether it does that we can debate. The United States government, it's the same as well and we do things working with other countries um as best possible to advance the broader interests of humanity. But the purpose of the Commonwealth of Australia is to secure Australia and advance the interests of its citizens. And um I keep going back to the point. If you want a sustainable migration program, if you want a sustainable social welfare program, the expectation of the I think overwhelming majority of Australians is that before you can take from a system, you have to contribute to a system. That's why I say people should come to Australia, they should commit to Australia, and they should contribute to Australia. And I think as a basic principle, I think that's where the overwhelming majority of Australians stand. I, you know, we've given sensible and proportionate carve-outs for things like education and healthcare because they're very important, firstly for in the case of education, for children, but also in the context of uh for everybody, the importance of healthcare. We've also grandfathered it because we understand that people who have come here before under a, let's say an old deal, um and this by the way wouldn't come into effect until we would be in government, um they would be protected as well. But we don't want people coming to our country um because they think it's a pathway for welfare-based schemes. And it's not just because we don't want them to come here for that reason, um but it's also because we believe in our heart that if you are turning to the next generation of people and saying the pathway to get ahead in this country is welfare, we're failing them too.

Tom McIlroy: Okay, well getting into government is the name of the game for the whole show and and fair enough that you'd have that focus. How big a risk to your project to get into government under Angus Taylor is this One Nation threat? Just give me your sense on what Pauline Hanson means for the politics at the moment.

Tim Wilson: Well, I call her the and her party the Orange Paddock of Despair because they don't actually, I think, offer a vision for Australia which is one that seeks to work for firstly to get everybody to head in the same direction uh and to live their best lives. Um, I think there's lots of things I think about the Orange Paddock of Despair, but um but you know there's no point pretending in their frustration with the government which is now kind of at fever pitch level, and it is, particularly after the past week. People are looking around and saying who's going to fight for us, for our aspiration, our hope? I think it's very clear that rightly or wrongly, my party has let people down in that space, um and we are dramatically and rapidly seeking to fix that, to rebuild trust, and for people to know that we have an alternative vision. But but I've also said to people very clearly publicly and I said it at the Press Club again yesterday is the old pendulum of things just swinging between Liberal and Labor is gone. Um, now you need to be the most bold compelling product in the marketplace to define a vision of this country which builds confidence and where people can see their lives lived and lived through the embodiment of the values you project through policy. Um, and that is what it is we're going to seek to do and that's why my speech yesterday was so different from most budget replies. Most budget replies are this is what's wrong with the budget. Mine was not that. Mine was this is what's wrong with the budget, but this is the underlying underlying reason why it's wrong with the budget and this is how we're going to build a better future and how we're going to go ahead as one people with one land with one destiny because I believe in something great for this country. I believe we can be better. I believe our government can be better and I think Australians can live happier lives if we if they have the chance to live out those values um as part of a project for all of us.

Tom McIlroy: Okay, give me a brief answer. Can you do that in two years? Can you win those people back from the Orange Paddock of Despair? It might even be less than two years.

Tim Wilson: Yeah, well it might be less than two years but the short answer is yes um because sitting behind it is a yearning for something greater. They've wandered into the paddock, Orange Paddock of Despair. Um, we're going to take them to um the mountain of blue skies and horizons.

Tom McIlroy: Okay, Tim Wilson. At the Press Club yesterday you said that your summer reading included a book on Prohibition and you likened alcohol policy to tobacco to that era. Um, what are you reading now? How do you log off? It, I suspect you don't log off from work very often or for very long.

Tim Wilson: No, that's one of the privileges of being Shadow Treasurer is you don't get much free time. I'll tell you actually, you can find this on my Instagram. I recently went and did a printmaking class.

Tom McIlroy: Wow.

Tim Wilson: And it's actually something I used to do when I was at high school. There's one uh in my electorate and I thought, bugger it, I'm going to go and do that on a Sunday morning. And I found it incredibly relaxing. So now what do I do with my time off, sorry hours off, um that I occasionally get in the week is I do printmaking.

Tom McIlroy: What kind of prints, like...

Tim Wilson: So I was doing lino prints.

Tom McIlroy: Oh lino prints, wow. What's the secret to a good lino print, what's the skill?

Tim Wilson: Well, I mean you've got to have some talent of course, but the other part of it is, I actually think working faster is better because it gives you more expression. But that also means you've got to have a very visual conception of what it is you're trying to sort of um put onto the print. The other thing you've always got to do is make sure you swap around the the image if you're doing it off a photo or in real life 'cause when you do a lino print it does it essentially in reverse. So you can go on my Instagram @timwilsonmp um and you can judge my artwork harshly if you wish.

Tom McIlroy: I wasn't expecting art criticism in our podcast today but it's very welcome. Tim Wilson...

Tim Wilson: I am unconventional, Tom.

Tom McIlroy: No question about that. Great to have you on the pod.

Tim Wilson: Thanks mate, take care.

[ENDS]