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 INTEVIEW WITH KIERAN GILBERT
Thursday, 14 August 2025
Topics: Economic Reform Roundtable; ACTU; Artificial Intelligence (AI); Israel/Gaza
KIERAN GILERT: Let’s return now to our focus on the Economic Roundtable, which is coming up next week. Joining me is the Shadow Assistant Education Minister, Zoe McKenzie. We’re normally joined by Andrew Charlton. He’s currently offshore at the moment, hopefully returns to chat with us. And your sparring partner will be back next week, Zoe. But just in broad terms, it is a good thing, isn’t it, that we’re talking about reform, about productivity and about what needs to be done to deal with it. I know there’s been discussion about leaks out of the Treasury and so on. But the bottom line is, it’s good we’re having this conversation.
ZOE MCKENZIE: If only we truly were having this conversation, Kieran, I would agree with you with haste. But it seems to me, based on the leaks from today, the communiqué is already written. The decisions may well already have been taken. You’ve got a bunch of good folk turning up next week with good intent, good hope. But it sounds like the deal is already done. What started as a productivity roundtable is now an economic reform roundtable by name. But it looks like a tax and welfare roundtable to me. You’ve seen some ridiculous suggestions coming forward from the ACTU in particular. Remember, the same folk who got their exact wishlist delivered by the Jobs and Skills Summit, should have been called the ACTU Implementation Plan Summit. And I think you’ll see a similar thing next week with them throwing some really crazy ideas up the flagpole, just so that whatever horror comes out of next week, business will go few. At least we didn’t get the ACTU’s four-day plan.
KIERAN GILBERT: When the Prime Minister talks about the phases of reform, some that they can deliver immediately, some at the budget, some at the election, doesn’t that give you a little hope that they might be… And Ted O’Brien, your colleague, is going to be there as well. Doesn’t that give you some sense of hope?
ZOE MCKENZIE: I am hopeful that Ted is there. I’m glad that he is there. And I’m glad that there’ll be a good representation of business in particular. But you have to remember the staging by itself doesn’t necessarily give hope. There was so much staging of the industrial relation reforms from last year so that their real damaging impact on the Australian economy would only hit after the federal election. So we will see massive pain in small business from those industrial relations changes. And may I say, we all know industrial relations is one of the important areas of public policy to achieve productivity gains. And that’s the one thing that the government has said is off the table. Oh, that, by the way, and ever-increasing energy prices, which form a massive disincentive to investing in this country. They’re the two things off the table that could be the two things that would really give us a productivity dividend. It’s no wonder that the RBA downgraded their productivity expectations earlier this week.
KIERAN GILBERT: You and I, we’ve spoken about AI and the whole issue of technology. There are risks inherent with it, but there are huge potential gains as well. We should, rather than be seeing a reduction in the productivity outlook, really that the opportunity is huge, isn’t it, on that front, for AI and other tech-overcoming years, not decades, but the next year or two, to really boost productivity and to boost it dramatically?
ZOE MCKENZIE: The potential is enormous. I think I’ve fessed up on this program once before, having done the full circle on AI. Originally, I thought, oh, dear, it’s a cheating mechanism for kids at school. It has improved so vastly in the last two years, and there is now such a plethora of large language models. You can literally use one model to keep the other model honest, to rigorously test the information you’re getting from one platform, or another. They’re all slightly different, which means you can really get comfortable in their use and their ability to hold each other to account, which is also why the ACTU suggestion that there needs to be agreements between employers and employees on their use, and indeed a national AI authority, I thought it was, which is madness. AI is already in the average Australian workplace. People who work with desks and computers already need to prove in a business case that the AI tools can’t do a job before they’re allowed to go out and employ a human. There’s already been significant replacements of low-level desk-based jobs, and that will continue to happen. We must learn how to use it. We must learn how to use it productively and expertly to contribute to the future economy.
KIERAN GILBERT: Indeed. Finally, the Middle East and the Palestine recognition. The Prime Minister is urging people to be careful, not to jump on and use terrorist propaganda. And this was off the back of a subsequent statement out of Hamas relating to what refers to the sheikh that was quoted originally. He’s been locked up for two years, has had no communication with the outside world. The sheikh that was originally quoted is suggesting that he praised the courage of the Australian government.
ZOE MCKENZIE: Is it not ironic that the Prime Minister is telling us to be careful now about the announcements coming forward from Hamas? He’s put us in this situation by premature recognition of the Palestinian state that originally was stipulated on a bunch of conditions that cannot be met by September and will not be met that completely disregard the fact that the terror of the 7th of October 2023 continues to endure each and every day for the Israeli people while those hostages are still being kept. He cannot prevent Hamas from ever having a role in a future Palestinian government. We already know that Hamas is more popular than the Palestinian Authority. As and when elections ever resume in that part of the world, Hamas will be a critical political player. Unless, of course, the Prime Minister is suggesting that it should remain an autocratic state without elections. This is in absolute shambles and it is a shame that the Australian government is proceeding in this way.
KIERAN GILBERT: Zoe McKenzie, thanks as always. Talk to you next week.
ZOE MCKENZIE: Thanks, KG.
ENDS.
