Tim Wilson MP | Interview on Sky News, Paul Murray Live

Tuesday, 30 June 2026

 

E&OE……………………..

 

Paul Murray: And I'm pleased to say that Tim Wilson joins us now from Canberra. Tim, lovely to see you, mate.

Tim Wilson: Good to see you, Paul, in the man cave.

Paul Murray: Now, you have been nothing but relentless about the CFMEU, the ties that bind the Labor Party, and the stench that hangs in the air. And there's a lot around it today. Earlier in the show, I talked about this, how, unsurprisingly, Labor and the Greens get together, and essentially what has been allowed to fester and flourish in Victoria has now been brought to Canberra, which is, unions get the inside run on taxpayers' money.

Tim Wilson: Yeah, it's basically a protection racket, and then Labor and the Greens work to make sure the protection racket continues to operate and shield the CFMEU. It's actually shockingly straightforward what happens. The CFMEU gets put in charge of work sites, they then dole out largesse and license about who can access them, they take racketeering profits from that process, and often it's funded by the taxpayer. So this is literally public money that has found its way into the hands of organized crime. And the answer from Labor hasn't been to say, "This is disgraceful, we have to stop it," it's been, "Let's shut down any inquiry or process which explains the connection between them and, of course, the CFMEU and organized crime."

Paul Murray: Well, and as we saw yet again proven by Nick McKenzie on 60 Minutes, which was, paper trail says that the government knew, money trail says that clearly people are paying overs in order to be able to access the scheme. Jacinta Allan, when asked about it, actually believes people are this stupid. That it's not corruption, the 25% extra to access the system is not the reason the total cost goes up, it's inflation. Do they honestly think that people are that stupid?

Jacinta Allan: And so whether it's a hospital, a school, or a tunnel, we have seen that through inflationary pressures, inflationary pressures that includes the supply of materials, and also worker wages. They've gone up over the past 12 years, and that also includes the period of the pandemic. Now, that's not corruption, that's inflation.

Tim Wilson: Well, I think they think they can get away with it and just talk around the topic, whereas we know full well the Albanese government was well aware of the corruption, so was the Victorian government. They continued to support and pour money into these projects knowing it was going to the hands of organized crime. And even since those allegations have been made, the federal government has gone on and tipped $3.8 billion into big build projects in Victoria and doubled down. They don't care, Paul, at the end of the day because there's been so little accountability associated with CFMEU corruption. And even today in Question Time, he was asked about it by Angus Taylor, the leader of the opposition, and he gave very evasive answers because they know the paper trail, they know the money trail links back not just to the Victorian government, but to the Albanese government.

Paul Murray: We've had a couple of opinion polls, including tonight's, which ask the question about do you want house prices to go up or do you want house prices to go down? According to the Resolve poll, it was the majority of people who own property—they're either paying it off or they own it themselves—who want property to go down, which would mean the value of the home that they would sell would be going down. And then Sky News polls get pretty close as well.

I've got to say it's a contradiction with every person that I've ever known, older or younger than me, about why they buy property, and what the expectation is, and about why we stretch ourselves right out to the limit when it comes to the borrowing, because the assumption is that when we play financial Kaplunk in 10, 20, 30 years, that helps pay for aged care. What do you think of this subsection of opinion, which would seem to be the cover that the government has seen as to why they've made all the changes that they have?

Tim Wilson: Well, this question's often being asked of politicians at the moment. You know that, Paul. "Do you want house prices to go up or house prices to go down?" And everybody gives, "Well, I want them cheaper for first home buyers, I otherwise want slower growth for the rest of the country." I think there's a lot of shy responses going on. Everybody wants their house price to go up once they've got one. How quickly in the pace of change is a different thing. But we also want to make sure that the next generation can buy a home too. So, I think it's shy responses for polling behavior.

And I think it shows that Australians are very aware of the challenges of the housing crisis. And that's what's so disastrous about this federal budget. You know, in the federal budget, they're actually going to build fewer homes because of the new taxes rather than focusing on what we need to do to build more homes. Because if people can't make a buck out of housing, they won't invest in it and they won't build it.

Paul Murray: Well, and it's also largely the only way to go from the fortnightly, monthly working wage until eventually being able to have enough money to pay for aged care. I just think, you know, I know that the whole design of this government is about pushing people to dependence while the reality is you want to be able to fund as much of your aged care as possible, and that can only come out of, again, the sale of a property that ends up being quite a sizeable amount of money left over from what you purchased.

But also, I don't think you guys are getting enough credit for the questions that you are asking, which marry the decisions of the budget, which has seen this slowing in the housing market, in fact a reversal in some areas. Now, the government says, "Well, it's not to do with the budget, it might be high interest rates." Well, we had two of the three interest rate rises because of the inflation that is running too hot because of this government, so they own it either way, right?

But equally, they've set up this 5% deposit scheme, and you quite correctly ask the obvious question, "Hey, how many people who only barely got there in the past 12 months whose money is now going on loans that are bigger than the cost of the property or the value of the property that they've got, how do you square that circle?" And they just pretend you didn't answer the question, that you didn't notice Policy A and Policy B.

Tim Wilson: Yeah, I mean, the government doesn't want to answer these questions because at the end of the day, they know that their policies have led to a very low level of confidence in the Australian community. We've seen new consumer data and small business data out today that shows that this budget has acted as a wrecking ball in through confidence in the Australian economy, and that means that people are less likely to buy.

But there's also a tail, and we've seen this in Victoria: they keep upping the taxes on property so eventually people do sell, prices do soften, but then you just don't get any new builds. So as long as they continue to overshoot their migration targets, the cost of housing to purchase will eventually go back up. But in addition to that, in the meantime, the cost of rents goes up because there's fewer rental properties in the market, and of course, we have more people demanding them. So the cost of rents goes up, and last time I checked, Paul, most people rent before they go on and buy a property, and so you're actually knee-capping first home buyer aspirants in the process of saving as well as when they actually go on to buy their first home. So this is just a classic move by the government: take from tomorrow, spend today, stoke inflation, but leaves everybody poorer.

Paul Murray: I agree. If you do too, please send me an email: [email protected].