5 September 2025
Michael McLaren
Ted O’Brien is The Shadow Treasurer. He’s with me on the line. Ted, good to speak. Thank you for your time.
Ted O’Brien
Likewise, Michael.
Michael McLaren
What are we seeing here? I mean, it’s not dead, buried in cremated. Is it Ted? But it might be having a discussion with the funeral parlour, perhaps.
Ted O’Brien
Well indeed, I hope it does die a miserable death, the sooner the better, Michael, because this is ultimately a tax which is going to hit millions of Australians over time. And for those who haven’t been following it, this is Labor’s idea to tax unrealised capital gains, in other words, theoretical profits. So if a self-managed super fund holder invests in a company, the value of the company goes up, but you don’t get any dividends or returns, so you got no money in the bank, Labor’s still going to tax you. So they are taxing theoretical profits. This basically crosses a red line in tax law, and it’s really just Jim Chalmers cannot stop spending money, so they’re having to go after taxes. But as you said, it sounds like the Prime Minister is now getting involved, because I think he’s starting to read the political tea leaves. This is grossly unfair, and needs to be stopped, and we’ll be fighting it all the way.
Michael McLaren
Yeah, good. It’s interesting, though, that pattern of behaviour that I’ve said, I think I’ve identified here that seems to occur. This isn’t the first rodeo we’ve seen ideas come out of the office of the Treasurer and the Treasury. Some of them are reasonable with the discussion. Others like this crazy, but they seem to come out. They get into the media. It seems to be government policy. The Prime Minister often backs them. Whether he understands them and backs them, I don’t know. But then someone clearly explains to Anthony Albanese, in due course, the potential ramifications politically and economically, of these ideas, and he starts to want to erase them, one rub at a time. What’s going on between the Prime Minister and the Treasurer.
Ted O’Brien
There’s no doubt the Prime Minister and the Treasurer do not have a working relationship that’s effective, and we’ve seen that since the election, they continue to go in different directions. And what you say is right? I mean, you know, the previous sitting period, I don’t know how many questions I asked about this unrealised capital gains, and you could just see when I asked the question of the Treasurer, he would stand firm. We need to do this, and then I’ll pivot, and I’d ask the question of the Prime Minister, and he would just waffle. You can tell he had no idea about the detail. No one’s ever accused Anthony Albanese of being a detailed guy, but somebody has gotten to him, and he is a politician through and through. And I think he now realises that we are not going to let go of this. If they are going to be unfairly targeting not just Australians who have their a fair balance in super, this is going to impact young Australians because they’re not indexing it. So you know, you’ve got your ordinary income earner today might be in their late 20s. They might be a nurse, a teacher, a tradie. Over time, they are going to be stung by this tax, and we are taking our gloves off right now as an opposition going after this, going after the government. I think they realise we are going to fight this all the way through. Even if they use the Greens to pass this through, we’ll be calling them out on it, because it is grossly unfair. It’s an attack on aspiration. It’s an attack on future opportunities for younger Australians, and we’re going to fight it.
Michael McLaren
Just on the Greens, the story that Phil Coorey ran today suggests that even though parliament will rise today for another four week break, the government haven’t yet contacted the greens to begin any negotiations on this proposed division 296, tax so that gives you a bit of a sense that, look, even if they are going to follow through, it’s not a top order priority for them.
Ted O’Brien
No, it’s not. And isn’t it interesting that clearly this has been leaked to Phil Coorey in the financial review, probably by the Prime Minister’s office. But they didn’t leak it earlier in the week, when Parliament was sitting. They decided to wait until parliament was over for the week, otherwise today I would be in there asking them questions. But they are cowards, Michael, and they have to be called out as such if they really want to tax Australians unfairly, then they need to be prepared to be straight with their answers. But now, if they’re going to run away from it, well, announce that it’s dead, and if they announce that it’s dead, I’ll be the first one out there saying, good decision. Congratulations. It needs to be dead.
Michael McLaren
You’ll probably say a bit more than that won’t you Ted. You won’t just give them a pat on the shoulder and move on.
Ted O’Brien
Well, maybe Michael.
Michael McLaren
Kick in the shins while you’re at it.
Ted O’Brien
Well, here’s hoping they call it short, because it goes to broader issues, right? I mean, this is a government that continues to divide Australians. In this case, they’re pretending that, you know, those Australians who have money need to be pinged and we need to steal from them to give to other people. They’re going after older Australians, trying to pit older Australians against younger Australians. They’ve lost control of the borders, which is why they can’t control immigration, and they keep dividing us. And we need to make it very clear, there’s a villain in this story, but the villain is a government that cannot stop controlling money. There’s a villain in the government that is led by a Prime Minister who has not got his head around the detail of any of these policy areas, and they need to stop dividing Australians.
Michael McLaren
Just finally, Ted, I mean, you raised the issue of immigration there, I did an editorial off the top of the show about it. I mean, villain or not, their vote went up and yours went down. So on that immigration issue. Just lastly, why is it do you think, I’m just trying to work out from a cultural point of view, if there’s an undercurrent changing in society that most of us in the media and others have yet to pick up on. But you look from the UK to the US to Germany to France to Italy to Eastern Europe, I mean, all over even Canada, New Zealand, where immigration at certain perceived to be unsustainable levels, has been operating. There’s been a shift to the right at every political opportunity, there’s been a shift to the right, sometimes traditional mainstream conservative parties, often at their expense to alternatives that say, listen, you know, they’ve let you down, we’ll definitely do something about this vote for us. And yet, in Australia, the shift, given all those same circumstances, went to the left. What happened here, as opposed to the rest of the world?
Ted O’Brien
Yeah, look, I think some of those other examples you’ve given immigration played a far bigger role in election campaigns than it did in ours just recently. But in Australia, I think this has been a consistent trend over time. When immigration does become a central issue, people do move to the right, and that’s because there’s a social compact between the Australian people in the issue of immigration. I mean, Australians are fair minded people. We know that, with the exception of our indigenous people, Australians have come from all corners of the world. But once a government loses control, Australians rightly fold their arms and say, hang on, hang on. Don’t just keep bringing people in when you’re not planning for it.
Michael McLaren
But I guess at the last election, that really was what Peter Dutton said, and yet he reaped no dividend. That’s my point. I wonder if, is there something going on out there in suburban Australia that you and the Liberals and me and the media and others haven’t detected, because is it all those, all those benchmarks were there all over the world, and the Nigel Farage’s and everyone else reaping great reward out of it. And yet here the centre right, even One Nation on the more right of the right, got no dividend at all.
Ted O’Brien
Yeah, and I think Michael, if I had to have a guess, I would say it’s because it wasn’t the centrepiece of the election campaign. It was one of many issues. The key issue in the last election was very much cost of living, cost of living, cost of living. This wasn’t the centrepiece, and we need to continue, just to make sure Australians are clear that there’s a better way of doing it, that you actually need to plan for Australia’s future here. Which means housing, infrastructure, transportation, all that stuff that hasn’t been happening. You can’t bring in 1 million Australians as Labor did over a two year period, and things not going to have an impact. But you’re right. You know, despite Peter Dutton holding a very strong view on that, no, I didn’t pay political dividends, but Michael, you know what? Political dividends, yes, ultimately, you need that to change the course of the country, because you need to win government. But what is most important is you fight for what you believe is right. You fight for the national interest and that’s what we did at the last election. That’s what you have to continue to do.
Michael McLaren
All right, I gotta go. Thanks for your time. Ted. Have a good weekend.
Ted O’Brien
Likewise Michael, all the best.
ENDS