Zoe McKenzie MP
Shadow Assistant Minister for Education and Early Learning
Shadow Assistant Minister for Mental Health
Federal Member for Flinders
TRANSCRIPT – SKY NEWS NEWSDAY WITH KIERAN GILBERT AND ANDREW CHARLTON
Thursday, 21 August 2025
Topics: Economic Reform Roundtable; intergenerational inequality; Palestine recognition; Israel/Gaza.
KIERAN GILBERT: Let’s go live to our regular Thursday panel, Cabinet Secretary Andrew Charlton and Shadow Assistant Minister for Education Zoe McKenzie. Great to see you both. Andrew, they kept a lid on it for a couple of days. I guess politics is going to erupt at some point and they had a bit of a spat today at the roundtable.
ANDREW CHARLTON: Well, I think overall, Kieran, you have to say that this roundtable has been an impressive event for Australia. You know, look around the world at all the countries which are characterised by division and dysfunction and what a contrast we present here in Australia. We’ve got unions, we’ve got business, we’ve got government around the table working on common answers to many of the problems that our nation faces and looking to work together to make our future brighter. So, of course, there might be a bit of politics in any situation but overall, I think most Australians should look at what has been occurring over the last couple of days in Canberra and be pretty proud about the way that Australia is approaching our national challenges and the way that politics works in this country.
KIERAN GILBERT: Zoe McKenzie, do you agree with that?
ZOE MCKENZIE: Well, this is why I love Andrew, because he can find the silver lining in just about everything. But in all honesty, the productivity roundtable hasn’t been that productive. And it doesn’t surprise me that there’s been a bit of interchange today. Because poor Ted has to sit there while the Treasurer is spruiking his apparent careful ‘Liberal-lite’ management of the Australian economy, all the while blowing the budget with increased public spending. We know something like 80 percent of new jobs created in the last term of government were done through the public sector. And we know that the public expenditure has gone from 24 percent of GDP to 27 percent. And Ted was right to point that out as we are as an opposition to show that this is not, in fact, a ‘Liberal-lite’ Labor government, this is a government that’s driving us to even greater debt and deficits in the immediate term, and one that he’s right to point out will be an intergenerational burden for those who follow and have to pay it back.
KIERAN GILBERT: I’ve spoken to Andrew Fraser a couple of times in the last week, the former Queensland treasurer, Andrew Charlton. He’s spoken about this issue of intergenerational inequity with me. He’s chancellor of a uni, but also chair of a retirement fund, so represents both ends of the spectrum so to speak in the age brackets, you know, and people obviously older, in a much better position than many struggling out of uni and so on, trying to get homes and houses – this is central to a lot of what we’re talking about, are you confident these three days can help lay a good foundation for the government over the next three to six years?
ANDREW CHARLTON: Well, the first thing I’d say to you, Kieran, is that I agree with you and I agree with Andrew on this point. There are a lot of challenges facing young Australians. Young people who are just leaving education, starting their working lives, trying to buy a home, trying to build a family – that is a tough time in life, and there are many pressures on that generation of Australians today. Homes are more expensive than they were, education costs are high, the workplace is changing very quickly with new skills required. And that’s why our government has really focused on supporting that generation of Australians. It’s why we took the action we did to take a bit of pressure off them with reductions to HECS debts. It’s why we’re so focused on building more homes in this country and supporting young people into homes. It’s why we’ve been so focused on the cost of living and helping with responsible cost of living measures from energy to medicines to many other areas. It’s true that it is a tough time to be a young Australian, as it is to be in that age bracket right around the world. It is an intergenerational problem, and it’s one that this government has been facing [into?] step by step. In terms of the broader fiscal issue that Zoe mentioned, I think it probably is quite hard for Ted to sit around this table. You know, the Liberals didn’t produce a budget surplus in their entire period in government. In fact, they left Australia with enormous deficits, and it’s been the Labor government that’s been able to reduce those deficits, and produce a fiscal turnaround of some $200 billion, including the first two surpluses in more than a decade. So I imagine that does make for an uncomfortable position for the shadow treasurer. But he should be pleased, as I said before, that we are in a country where oppositions and governments and businesses can sit around a table sorting these problems out in a collaborative and constructive way.
KIERAN GILBERT: Apparently, Ted had a crack at Jim Chalmers over the off-budget spending, Zoe McKenzie. Jim Chalmers threw one back, having a crack at him about nuclear reactors – it all went pear-shaped from there. Daniel Mookhey had to step in and sort of settle things down and say, “let’s move on,” but either way, Zoe, do you take the glass half-full view to the extent that at least it’s good to have this dialogue, to have people, if they do disagree, business, unions, other groups there, making their case and trying to do what’s in the best interests of this nation?
ZOE MCKENZIE: To be fair, I think the business community has turned up in force and in good faith. So they’ve gone there in the hope that they will actually produce meaningful improvements, the reduction of red tape, ideally the creation of more incentivisation for growth and investment in the Australian economy. But they should be, how would I say it, just wary of what the real agenda is. We’d seen myriad leaks before the roundtable started that showed that some of the proposals were pretty much set in stone before the thing even started. And then today on day three, we see what seems to be probably the real agenda, which is an attack on wealth. So taxes of superannuation, taxes on retirees, an attack on aspiration and an attack on all the efforts that some have made to make sure that they wouldn’t be a burden on the public purse in old age. So work hard, set aside some money, make some investments and plan not to be a burden on the state. Those are the ones that the Labor Party is now going after squarely in their target. We’ve said it before, when Labor runs out of money, they go after yours, and today that would appear to be the purpose of day three of this discussion, tax and spend.
KIERAN GILBERT: Andrew, before you go, I want to get your thoughts on the intervention by Benjamin Netanyahu this week. He issued a statement. He made a scathing post on Twitter. He’s then been… With Sharri Markson, my colleague, that interview to air tonight, where he doubles down and says that this is going to be a legacy – It will stain Mr Albanese’s legacy, this period of recognition and so on for Palestine. What do you say to the very strong remarks from Prime Minister Netanyahu?
ANDREW CHARLTON: Well, I think this will be part of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s legacy and a strong legacy of delivering what both sides of Australian politics have had as an aspiration for a very long time, and that is a two-state solution, which enables all people in the Middle East to live side by side in peace and prosperity. And I admire the Prime Minister because he has been steadfast and resolute in his pursuit of that objective. And over the last couple of years, there have been insults thrown in all sorts of different directions, many people trying to score political points, and the Prime Minister has remained 100% focused on that outcome, not on political grandstanding, not on media messaging, but on delivering sustainable, long term peace in the Middle East. That’s the two state solution, it’s what the Liberal Party and the Labor Party agree is the right answer in the Middle East, that is what the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister has been working towards and I admire the way they have not been dragged into any of the mudslinging on either side over the last two years and just focused on the concrete outcomes that will make people’s lives better – and stop the killing and deliver peace.
KIERAN GILBERT: Zoe McKenzie, what’s your take on this and the fact that Prime Minister Netanyahu has doubled down on his scathing assessment of Mr Albanese?
ZOE MCKENZIE: So based on the reports I’ve seen on Sky this morning, I think one of the things that the Israeli Prime Minister does that is possibly well-timed is to remind people of what happened in the streets of Gaza and surrounds on the 7th of October when 1,200 people were slaughtered, and I think we need to have that front of mind and we have lost sight of that, I think, in Australia with subsequent discussions, a subsequent lack of social cohesion, and indeed the recent announcement to recognise the state of Palestine. So whilst I do not disagree with all the endeavours of the Israeli government at the moment, the Netanyahu approach, as I’m sure many Australians and indeed many Israelis don’t agree with it, I think he’s right to remind us all that when Hamas supports something that the Australian Prime Minister has done, that that decision should be reconsidered. At the moment, we are creating more social division in our country. The Jewish community is rightfully concerned about what this issue will mean for them in their day-to-day lives – I had somebody write on LinkedIn the other day from Israel, he’s scared to come home to Australia. He’d prefer to be in Israel with all the risks there than to come home to Australia because he doesn’t feel safe here.
ENDS.
