Zoe McKenzie MP
Shadow Cabinet Secretary
Shadow Assistant Minister for Education and Early Learning
Federal Member for Flinders
TRANSCRIPT – SKY NEWS KENNY REPORT INTERVIEW WITH CHRIS KENNY
Tuesday, 14 October 2025
Topics: Labor’s superannuation tax backdown
CHRIS KENNY: Let’s catch up now with Zoe McKenzie. She’s just been promoted to Shadow Cabinet Secretary. Thanks for joining us, Zoe. Good to catch up with you from Victoria. Congratulations on that new gig. Just on the super tax and Labor’s changes yesterday, obviously you’ll be pleased that unrealised gains will not be taxed now, but did they deliberately use the events in the Middle East to try and make sure this didn’t get too much attention?
ZOE MCKENZIE: They absolutely did. Can you believe it? The Prime Minister goes on holidays, leaves the Treasurer with a hot potato. If ever you needed evidence that things weren’t all roses between those two, yesterday would be it. The Treasurer has to spend the whole day backtracking on something that’s been in his heart and soul to press upon the Australian people for the last two years. And may I say that super tax would have disproportionately hit the people of the Mornington Peninsula, where my electorate is. About 2% of superannuation holders down here were in the frame of that attack, more than the people who were under it or targeted by it in Tasmania. So it will be a great relief to my small businesses in particular who often put part of their property into that self-managed super fund and would have been obliged year on year to come up with cash for something they won’t see potentially for decades. So it’s a real relief locally. But what an extraordinary thing to do…
CHRIS KENNY: Sure is.
ZOE MCKENZIE: …to put back on the one day when we should all be focused on the fact that it looks like there will be peace in the Middle East.
CHRIS KENNY: Yeah, they just knew it would be buried in the new cycle. Now, Jim Chalmers, is front of the media yesterday and today. He’s very defensive about this. But the key thing here is this crazy idea that you would tax money before it exists. You would tax gains and profits before they occur. So apart from fixing up this tax, it must be a great relief that this really dangerous economic or fiscal principle hasn’t been established because this could have flowed on more broadly.
ZOE MCKENZIE: Yes, it could. So the notion that you can tax unrealised gains, paper profits, money you haven’t seen yet, money you haven’t touched, money that might evaporate before it is actually realised in the future, the notion that you can tax that was indeed a very dangerous one, brought to you, may I say, by the blokes who’ve never had a job in the private sector, who’ve never had to accumulate wealth and then use it to grow your business and to help your staff and to get ahead. You know, it’s straight out of the ‘government is the answer to all ills’ book, and when I run out of my money, I’m going to come after yours.
CHRIS KENNY: It’s a point well made. They’ve never had to deal with a profit or a loss, so a paper profit means nothing to them. They don’t know what a profit is, let alone a paper profit. Thanks for joining us, Zoe. I appreciate it. Zoe McKenzie there, live from the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria.
ENDS.
