Zoe McKenzie MP
Shadow Cabinet Secretary
Shadow Assistant Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations
Federal Member for Flinders
TRANSCRIPT
RPP FM INTERVIEW WITH BRENDON TELFER, JOHN SHORE AND ANTHONY MARSH
Sunday, 1 March 2026
Topics: Tyabb Air Show; CFMEU corruption; Nepean by-election; 2026 Victorian state election.
BRENDON TELFER: We’ve got some great guests in here. We’ve got Zoe McKenzie and we’ve got also the great man from, now the aspirant for, Nepean seat. He’s a great man, Anthony Marsh. Welcome, you two.
ZOE MCKENZIE & ANTHONY MARSH: Thank you.
BRENDON TELFER: You are both aircraft aficionados, both of you, are you not?
ZOE MCKENZIE: Well, Anthony actually knows how to fly. I think he’ll tell you in a moment that he learnt to fly here. I’m just a plane nut. So I love coming here, talking to the pilots, seeing the extraordinary acrobatics, although they do make me feel a little bit nervous in the soul. But it’s a beautiful day. People are everywhere having a ball. We’ve got [HMAS] Cerberus here. We’ve got the Army and the Navy here. It’s their 125th birthday today. So it’s quite the community celebration.
BRENDON TELFER: And we’re generating money for charity and a lot of the volunteers, 144 of them as well. We’ve got an award-winning aero club and we have Anthony Marsh in the bus with us. Mr Marsh, welcome.
ANTHONY MARSH: Thanks, Brendon. Good to be back.
BRENDON TELFER: Are you allowed to give us the scoop? Are you allowed to talk anything or are we going to talk avionics?
ANTHONY MARSH: We’ll talk avionics. I think obviously wearing a different hat today here as the candidate for Nepean, which is exciting. But as I said earlier, I was coming to PAC back in 2006. I got my pilot’s license before I joined the Air Force. So it’s always good to come back and enjoy the air show every two years.
BRENDON TELFER: You would be loving it, wouldn’t you? I mean, look at this hardware out here. I mean, it is just incredible.
ANTHONY MARSH: Some of the best aircraft on our own home turf.
BRENDON TELFER: And we get up so close and personal as well. I mean, we’ve got Avalon, but we’ve got Tyabb. But it’s so much more liveable. You can go up and kick tires.
ANTHONY MARSH: Oh, it absolutely gives Avalon a run for its money. And it’s just around the corner. So why would you head over there.
BRENDON TELFER: We’ve got John Shore here, OAM, our president, and also Scrambled Eggs breakfast host, does the thing between 6:00 and 9:00 on Thursday. Started six years ago. He’s award-winning as well, let me tell you, Zoe.
JOHN SHORE: Well, I’ve worked out that I am such a novice that when the planes go over, I’m the only one in the van that ducks. Because I hear, *plane noise*. They just sound too close. And everyone else is just going, yeah, what? You know, something happened?
ZOE MCKENZIE: Yeah. I tried to get a video of Paul Bennet going past when all the flame went off. It’s fair to say that I dropped the phone.
BRENDON TELFER: It was massive, wasn’t it? It was huge. But you’ve been doing a few air miles yourself, Zoe McKenzie. I’ve seen pictures of you in all sorts of European locations. And congratulations as well as well transitioning into a new opposition leadership role.
ZOE MCKENZIE: Yeah, indeed. So I’ve just taken on the Shadow Assistant Minister for Industrial Relations role, which is very important, particularly at this time when we’ve recently discovered that something like $15 billion of Victorian taxpayers’ money, has gone to our friends at the CFMEU rather than on Big Build projects, bricks and mortar, as it should have. So that will be an important role and, indeed, still remaining as Shadow Cabinet Secretary. And as you’ve said, I’ve just come back from eight days in Berlin and Brussels talking about defence, talking about trade and talking about our good friends, frankly, in the German government who are deeply interested in what Australia has to offer, particularly in relation to things like critical raw minerals, essential to the future not just of Europe and NATO’s defence plans, but our defence plans here.
BRENDON TELFER: Well, we have a world role to play…
ZOE MCKENZIE: We do.
BRENDON TELFER: …And we are blessed by what we have in the ground and what companies like Lynas are extracting at the moment. I’m glad that you made your flight around the Middle East when you did.
ZOE MCKENZIE: I just made it, apparently, yes. I just came through Abu Dhabi and there weren’t any problems, but I gather that airspace is now closed.
BRENDON TELFER: Absolutely. Anthony Marsh down here, a pilot, has his wings and aspiring to get back in the air again, Anthony, what are you doing?
ANTHONY MARSH: Yeah, very much so. I’ve been saying it for a couple of years now. But I definitely want to renew my licence. It’s not current at the moment, but I’ll get that done hopefully over the coming months.
BRENDON TELFER: You’ll be able to shuttle up to Spring Street on a daily basis.
ANTHONY MARSH: I’m not sure I can land anywhere close to that.
ZOE MCKENZIE: Park at Moorabbin. No, not Moorabbin. You can park at…
ANTHONY MARSH: Maybe Essendon.
ZOE MCKENZIE: Essendon.
BRENDON TELFER: We’ve got a Bell-37 over here. You can grab that out of the hangar and…
ANTHONY MARSH: Yeah, yeah. No, I love helicopters too, but hopefully in the coming months.
BRENDON TELFER: You’re looking forward to the next coming months?
ANTHONY MARSH: I am very looking forward to it. I think it’s a great opportunity, as we know, to change the government.
BRENDON TELFER: Fantastic. Zoe McKenzie. I’ve seen you very active in social media as well, pointing at things like potholes.
ZOE MCKENZIE: Yep. Potholes, Rosebud Hospital, all the things that we want to make sure are very front of mind for the residents of the Peninsula as we approach not just the Nepean by-election, which I think is the 2nd or 3rd of May. Anthony, correct me if I’m wrong…
ANTHONY MARSH: 2nd of May.
ZOE MCKENZIE: 2nd of May, thank you. But equally, the general election in Victoria, which will be in November. We absolutely must get better attention. Our good friends at the Committee for Frankston and Mornington Peninsula are going to release an updated version of that disadvantage report they did a few years ago, indeed, when I was on the board of the Committee. They’ve updated it now to just compare how much worse off the Peninsula is than, say, a comparative zone over on the Barwon side.
BRENDON TELFER: Can I say, tune your tranny to RPP FM on the 11th of March because Josh Sinclair, the orchestrator and coordinator of that report, will be live and exclusive on Peninsula Talks with that study.
ZOE MCKENZIE: Fantastic, that report. It’s important to understand what happens down there.
BRENDON TELFER: Wherever the headlines are, we’re there as well.
ZOE MCKENZIE: You’re there.
BRENDON TELFER: Zoe McKenzie, Anthony Marsh. It’s all about the beautiful planes here today. Thank you so much, indeed, for dropping by. It’s always a great pleasure. Remember us to your friends in Canberra, Zoe.
ZOE MCKENZIE: Yes, I will.
BRENDON TELFER: And Spring Street, Anthony Marsh. We thank you so much, indeed, for your time and your efforts in our community as well. Thank you.
ZOE MCKENZIE: Thanks for having us.
ANTHONY MARSH: Thanks Brendon. Cheers.
[ENDS]
