Zoe McKenzie MP
Shadow Cabinet Secretary
Shadow Assistant Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations
Member for Flinders
TRANSCRIPT
SKY NEWS AFTERNOON AGENDA WITH ANDREW CLENNELL
Tuesday, 10 March 2026
Topics: David Littleproud resignation; Iranian women’s soccer team; petrol supply and prices; Farrer by-election; Nepean by-election
ANDREW CLENNELL: Joining me now is the Shadow Cabinet Secretary, Zoe McKenzie. Big day. David Littleproud quit. Are you shocked?
ZOE MCKENZIE: Dynamic day in Australian politics yet again, Andrew. Yeah, I am shocked. Didn’t know it was coming. None of us really knew it was coming. You had Ross Cadell on a moment ago. He didn’t know it was coming. But a big day. And, you know, David gave a full explanation as to why. He didn’t think he could bring his best self to the leadership role. And so he’s called a day on the leadership, but staying in Maranoa.
ANDREW CLENNELL: He’s trashed the Coalition, hasn’t he? He’s lost Barnaby Joyce. He’s split the Coalition twice.
ZOE MCKENZIE: We have split twice.
ANDREW CLENNELL: It’s not much of a legacy, is it?
ZOE MCKENZIE: Look, it has been a dynamic partnership in the last term of Parliament, I must admit. But nevertheless, we’re on pretty good footing, I would say, right now. There’s a real mutual respect on both sides. You know, I head up the Coalition Policy Development Committee together with Simon Kennedy and Matt Canavan. We’re in the trenches working together already on that side of things. So I’m optimistic for the future.
ANDREW CLENNELL: Will it be better with a new leader?
ZOE MCKENZIE: I don’t think it’ll be better. It’ll be different. And so you’ve got some great potential leaders in that party. Ross went through a couple of names with you. I deal with the Victorian Nats a lot of the time, Sam Birrell, Darren Chester, great humans, passionate about their area, passionate about the National Party’s kind of value proposition, particularly to rural Australia and to our farming community. So I’m very confident they’ll have a strong leader.
ANDREW CLENNELL: He said he’s the best since Black Jack McEwen.
ZOE MCKENZIE: Well, in this building, Andrew, I’ve worked with some amazing Nationals leaders. So John Anderson, Warren Truss, Mark Vaile. They’ve had a good history of strong leaders.
ANDREW CLENNELL: Tim Fisher.
ZOE MCKENZIE: Tim Fisher. I wasn’t here in Tim’s time, but a great man indeed.
ANDREW CLENNELL: That’s probably four we put ahead of David Littleproud, isn’t it, Zoe McKenzie?
ZOE MCKENZIE: I’m just saying they were great men and they did a great job…
ANDREW CLENNELL: I think that speaks for itself.
ZOE MCKENZIE: …But there’s a diversity of choices and they will choose a great leader.
ANDREW CLENNELL: What do you make of this operation by the government to get the Iranian women’s soccer players out and get some of them asylum? Is there anything more the government could be doing or could have done? Or are you happy?
ZOE MCKENZIE: By the sounds of things, to be fair, there sounds like there have been a lot of conversations over the weekend between Tony Burke and Jonno Duniam, which I’m grateful for.
ANDREW CLENNELL: Oh really?
ZOE MCKENZIE: Yeah, Jonno spoke about it in an earlier press interview earlier today. And so it sounds like they’ve been having meaningful conversations, talking about what needs to be done. There was a bill introduced earlier today that obviously will go through our shadow cabinet processes in relation to and to see if we can support just to make sure that we’re not getting an unanticipated flood of asylum seeker claims. But what I’ve seen today in terms of the sporting women, that seems like a good, safe outcome for those women who are here in our country.
ANDREW CLENNELL: What action can the government take on petrol supply and petrol prices, do you think? Do you buy their argument its all panic buying?
ZOE MCKENZIE: So you would have been listening to Question Time, right? And you would hear that there are real shortages all over the country, in particular in rural and regional Australia, small business doing it tough, particular farms who can’t get access to fuel, businesses, you know, fishing businesses in particular, both in Fisher and also in Grey, that can’t fill up their boats to go fishing. The country is facing a predicament in terms of its ability to fill up the tanks, fill up the trucks and keep product moving around the country. In addition, prices are-
ANDREW CLENNELL: What can the government do, though?
ZOE MCKENZIE: Well, they can explain to people when the supply will be coming. That was the thing we asked today. Where are the shortages, Prime Minister? Where are the shortages, Chris Bowen? And what’s your plan to get the fuel there? Because they keep telling us they’ve got 34 days’ worth of fuel. Fine. How are you going to get it to feed the productive capacity of the nation?
ANDREW CLENNELL: We had this poll this week in the seat of Farrer, two months away from that contest. Barnaby Joyce said on our show yesterday, this will end up a contest between a One Nation and a Teal. The Australia Institute poll does put the Liberals third. I mean, you’ll get Nats preferences.
ZOE MCKENZIE: We don’t have a candidate yet, Andrew, so give it some time. Hopefully we’ll have a candidate in the coming days.
ANDREW CLENNELL: You’ll have one this weekend, I understand.
ZOE MCKENZIE: Indeed, that is the plan. So the Nats have got their candidate out-
ANDREW CLENNELL: Do you see it as a tough fight?
ZOE MCKENZIE: Of course, but all fights are tough these days. Australian politics is not the sort of minuscule divide that it used to be of a 3% swing and a 4% swing. We’re now looking at sort of 5, 10 and beyond per cent swings, which means every contest is a real contest.
I’ve got the same thing. I’ve got a by-election in the state seat of Nepean in my seat of Flinders. And so I’m there every day when I can be at home talking to people about what they want. And yeah, it’s a really febrile environment. People want us to do better.
ANDREW CLENNELL: Are One Nation coming? Are they coming for you? Are they coming for the Victorian Liberals?
ZOE MCKENZIE: To be fair, they have got a candidate in the seat of Nepean, so they are going to put up a better contest. I think they’re running in every single seat in the South Australian election, which is coming up. So they are certainly getting out and about and testing their popularity. It’ll be interesting to see how they go in Farrer and also in Nepean.
ANDREW CLENNELL: Zoe McKenzie, Shadow Cabinet Secretary, thanks so much for your time.
ENDS.
