Zoe McKenzie MP
Shadow Cabinet Secretary
Shadow Assistant Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations
Member for Flinders
TRANSCRIPT
NEWS24 NEWSDAY WITH KIERAN GILBERT AND ANDREW CHARLTON
Thursday, 13 August 2026
Topics: Tomago smelter bailout; Australian manufacturing; Andrew Bragg’s National Press Club address; overseas migration.
KIERAN GILBERT: With me, Zoe McKenzie and Andrew Charlton. Zoe, we want young ones. And this week I spoke at a school in Canberra talking about civics and the importance to be engaged in politics. You want them engaged in democracy.
ZOE MCKENZIE: I love that you did that.
KIERAN GILBERT: Oh, thank you.
ZOE MCKENZIE: I do it all the time. Do you do it too? No. Go to schools? Yeah. It’s the best thing ever.
KIERAN GILBERT: It was fun. But on a school day, should they be in class?
ZOE MCKENZIE: Yeah, of course they should be in class on a school day. So it’s a pity that maybe the education system is saying this is what you’re meant to do, this is how you… The implication is you’re not meant to vote for these guys, so go out and protest against them. That’s not really a message that a school is meant to be imparting. It’s the how to think, not the what to think. But, you know, I love that they’re interested in politics. I love that they’re actually getting out there and thinking through the differences in our political parties and what we all stand for and what that might mean to their future. But I wish they were doing it on a Saturday or a Sunday.
KIERAN GILBERT: Andrew?
ANDREW CHARLTON: It would be better if they were in school, but I agree. It’s great to have young people engaged in politics. Whatever side of politics they’re on, that’s a good thing. And I implore their passion, but I think they should do it out of school hours.
KIERAN GILBERT: Net zero being blamed for the Tomago bailout. Is there a time that you can see where the likes of Tomago survive on their own two feet again?
ANDREW CHARLTON: Well, I think this is a great day for Australia. The Tomago announcement today secures the future of aluminium manufacturing in the Hunter. It’s a really important facility, makes a big difference to that region. If I may, I just want to do a quick shout-out to Meryl Swanson, who’s the local MP, who has worked tirelessly towards this. She never gave up on Tomago, when many other people did. And now today we’re seeing Tomago saved with renewable power, led by the Prime Minister, Tim Ayres, Chris Bowen, with support of the New South Wales government. This is an important thing.
KIERAN GILBERT: I think Zoe will agree, in terms of national resilience, sovereign capability, that’s all good. But is there a time that you can see that they will be able to stand on their own two feet within this energy framework the government’s implementing?
ANDREW CHARLTON: Well, the important thing that we’ve done here is make sure that Tomago can continue to provide that critical capability to Australia and do it with renewable power. What this is showing is that renewable power can support big, heavy industry like Tomago and support it into the future. So this is a really important project because it shows the energy transition that we’re under and the capacity of that energy transition to support important industries in Australia.
KIERAN GILBERT: Zoe McKenzie, what’s your assessment of it?
ZOE MCKENZIE: What it shows is that industry will not survive unless you get a huge, whopping handout from the taxpayer. $2.5 billion today. Yes, it had to be saved, but what about the 40,000 businesses that have already collapsed in this country as a result of your 40%…
ANDREW CHARLTON: So are you opposed to it? Is that what you’re saying?
ZOE MCKENZIE: No, no, no. I’m not opposed to it, Andrew.
ANDREW CHARLTON: It sounds a bit oppose-y.
ZOE MCKENZIE: I’m saying, be honest about how we ended up getting here.
ANDREW CHARLTON: It sounds a bit oppose-y, that’s all.
ZOE MCKENZIE: 40,000 businesses have gone out of business…
ANDREW CHARLTON: So you support it.
ZOE MCKENZIE: Largely because of your 40% increase in electricity since you guys came into power…
ANDREW CHARLTON: I’m going to take that as a maybe.
ZOE MCKENZIE: No, it’s got to be, what are you doing to actually help business thrive?
ANDREW CHARLTON: Okay.
ZOE MCKENZIE: 40,000 have already gone. I was meeting with concrete manufacturers a few days ago, and they said, well, we’re getting absolutely crushed by the safeguard mechanism. We’re getting crushed by all the net zero policies. So are you going to bail out every single one, Andrew? Or are you just going to manage the Australian economy better? You don’t have a plan to manage it better, but we do.
ANDREW CHARLTON: Was that support or not support?
ZOE MCKENZIE: It’s that we have to keep aluminium manufacturing in this country, but we need to keep concrete and all the other things to build the houses that you guys keep promising us, but not yet delivering. We have a plan to deliver it, and we’re getting on with it.
KIERAN GILBERT: And the bailouts are racking up.
ZOE MCKENZIE: Expensive.
KIERAN GILBERT: We’re getting up to, what, $8 billion now, bailouts.
ANDREW CHARLTON: Yeah, well, we…
KIERAN GILBERT: As an economist, are you comfortable with that?
ANDREW CHARLTON: We live in a world where there are absolutely critical industries for this country that will be essential to our economic and national security, and this is a government that is going to stand behind those industries where they are essential, like Tomago is, provide renewable power solutions to make sure that we keep them in Australia and support those regions.
KIERAN GILBERT: On migration, your colleague Andrew Bragg has been pulled into line by the leader, Angus Taylor, saying, you’ve got to stick to the script in terms of your policy. He sort of went a bit freelance yesterday talking about a cap of 180,000. Do you hear from your colleagues in places like, I think, Melissa Price in WA, in Broome and those sorts of areas where they’re so reliant, not just there, but right around the country, on international visitors, whether it be in ag, tourism, whatever else?
ZOE MCKENZIE: Well, we had this conversation last week and I said, I’d love more backpackers on the Mornington Peninsula. We have a huge workforce need over the summer period, and so to get some of them down there would be fantastic because hospitality needs it, ag needs it, food and bev needs it, everybody needs it, tourism needs it.
KIERAN GILBERT: How do you get to that overall number then?
ZOE MCKENZIE: So what we’ve actually said is that we’re going to peg the NOM to the number of houses built in the previous year. So at the moment, that number of houses or dwellings built is about 170,000, and that is our plan to make sure you’ve got the infrastructure in place to meet the needs of the people who are coming into the country. So that’s our approach. That’s how we’ll do it. And so that’s what I think Andrew was aiming for yesterday.
KIERAN GILBERT: Does that make sense?
ANDREW CHARLTON: What just happened there, Kieran, is I just want to just let your viewers dwell on it. You asked Zoe a very important question, which is how are you going to achieve the migration cuts that have been proposed? What are you actually going to cut? Which categories? Which visas? Now, we have had months of listening to the Liberals huff and puff about migration, talk tough, chase Pauline Hanson, but they have never answered the question that Zoe just did not answer to you, which is how are they going to do it? Which visas? Which categories? And then yesterday, hurrah, yesterday, we, for the first time, we have a Liberal member of Parliament who is brave enough to nominate a single element of the migration program that they will cut. Working holiday visas. Thank you, Andrew Bragg. Except? It does not survive 24 hours before the Liberals and Nationals cut him off at the knees and say, sorry, we need those workers in regional areas. So think about what just happened, Kieran. For the first time, after months of rhetoric, someone in the Coalition actually nominates a single visa category that they say they are willing to cut and it doesn’t survive contact with reality. The truth is the Emperor has no clothes. The Liberals have absolutely no plans. The Liberals have no plans to cut migration. They have not been able to nominate a single category that will cut it.
KIERAN GILBERT: To be fair, Tony Burke doesn’t either. And we have the most anticipated…
ANDREW CHARLTON: We have reduced it by 45%.
ZOE MCKENZIE: Tony got pulled last week too. Tony got pulled last week too, Andrew, and you know it.
ANDREW CHARLTON: The reasons are…the reasons are we can’t answer your question is because they have no plan. The first time someone was brave enough to nominate a single category, they had to walk it back.
KIERAN GILBERT: But to be fair, Tony Burke doesn’t have a plan either yet. We haven’t heard it. I mean, we were meant to hear it. It was delayed and delayed and delayed.
ANDREW CHARLTON: Kieran, we’re in government…
ZOE MCKENZIE: At least we turned up to the press club unlike Tony Burke who got pulled.
ANDREW CHARLTON: We have cut it by 45%. What your viewers have just seen is that for all the rhetoric, for all the huffing and puffing, there is zero plan on migration.
ZOE MCKENZIE: What the viewers need to know, and I will reassure you, Andrew…
ANDREW CHARLTON: I don’t need reassuring.
ZOE MCKENZIE: …is that there is a ton of work going on behind the scenes.
ANDREW CHARLTON: Oh, that’s reassuring.
ZOE MCKENZIE: So between the Shadow Cabinet, ERC and the Policy Development Committee that I lead with Simon Kennedy and Ross Cadell, there is tons of work going on in this space.
ANDREW CHARLTON: Tons of work going on.
ZOE MCKENZIE: And it will come out, most likely, before yours does because Tony’s got the leash pulled and he’s not telling us what his plans are either.
ANDREW CHARLTON: I can’t wait.
KIERAN GILBERT: Yeah, we’ll get yours before Tony’s.
ZOE MCKENZIE: Probably will.
KIERAN GILBERT: The most anticipated appearance since Taylor Swift, Tony Burke…
ZOE MCKENZIE: Indeed.
KIERAN GILBERT: …but we’re still waiting. Zoe and Andrew, thank you both. Appreciate it.
ENDS.
