Zoe McKenzie MP
Shadow Cabinet Secretary
Shadow Assistant Minister for Education and Early Learning
Federal Member for Flinders
TRANSCRIPT – SKY NEWS NEWSDAY WITH KIERAN GILBERT AND ANDREW CHARLTON
Thursday, 16 October 2025
Topics: Unemployment figures; Senator James Paterson’s Tom Hughes Oration speech; net zero
KIERAN GILBERT: The latest ABS statistics out today show a slight uptick in unemployment. In fact, it’s more than what the markets had expected, leading to suggestions we could see another rate cut before the end of the year. Let’s bring in the Shadow Cabinet Secretary, Zoe McKenzie. Zoe, what do you make of this, this surprise rise in unemployment and, you know, implications possibly for more rate relief?
ZOE MCKENZIE: So definitely a much higher rise in unemployment than anyone expected. And we have to remember that’s 30,000 people who no longer have a job. And, yes, it might produce a cut to the interest rate towards the end of the year. But if you’re one of the 30,000 people who’ve just lost your job, that’s not much of a comfort, quite frankly.
We must remember as well, eight out of ten jobs that have been created in recent times have been created in the public sector. So this government is pump-priming with public money employment and yet we’re still going backwards. That’s what needs to be remembered. People are doing it tough. They’re now losing their jobs. Inflation looks like it will also be outside of the comfort range for the RBA. That’s what they’re expecting in the next figures. So, yet again, this government’s doing a rotten job at managing the Australian economy.
KIERAN GILBERT: The Cabinet Secretary, Andrew Charlton, with us as well as he is every week with Zoe McKenzie. Andrew, your thoughts on that number today? As we mentioned, I called it a slight uptick. That’s wrong. It was quite a large uptick in more than what the markets had expected, Andrew.
ANDREW CHARLTON: Well, look, certainly any increase in unemployment isn’t welcome. But putting this number in context, let’s remember that the Australian economy is one of the best performing economies in the world. We have some of the lowest unemployment. We have had inflation come down from a number with a six in front of it when Zoe’s party was looking after inflation to now having inflation with a two in front of it. We’ve gone from interest rates going up when Zoe’s party was looking after the economy to interest rates now coming down. And we have a $200 billion improvement in our net debt position driven by two surpluses and strong budget savings. So the record of the Labor government and Treasurer Jim Chalmers on economic management has been extremely strong and certainly compares very favourably to Zoe’s party when they were last in government and left us with rising inflation, rising interest rates, deficits and debt for as far as the eye could see.
KIERAN GILBERT: Zoe McKenzie, are you relaxed with where the internal debate is within the Liberal Party right now? It certainly continues to rage as opposed to the suggestion that, you know, the time is over for navel-gazing. It hasn’t ended yet.
ZOE MCKENZIE: Look, I think my friend James Paterson gave a really excellent speech earlier this week. I was listening to it on the way up here from the Peninsula. It was very much saying time to draw a line, time to focus back on the Labor Party and the rotten job they’re doing. I just heard Andrew’s kind of book babble about the economy. Well, sorry, if you’re paying 35% more for insurance, 41% more for eggs, your electricity bills are going up and you may have just lost your job, you’re not on the same page in terms of what this government is doing to the Australian economy.
So I thought James gave a great speech, a clear speech, an encouraging and optimistic speech for the future of the Liberal Party, not denying we’ve got work to do, and we will do it.
KIERAN GILBERT: Garth Hamilton was on the program, LNP member earlier, Andrew. He says that getting rid of net zero is actually at the middle of the bell curve in terms of where voters are at. What do you say to the argument coming from Garth Hamilton and the like within the LNP?
ANDREW CHARLTON: Well, you know, people say that political parties should be a broad tent. Well, in case of the Liberal Party, it’s people running out from underneath that tent in every possible direction. I mean, I can see why Zoe likes James Paterson’s speech because Zoe and James Paterson are clinging to the notion that the Liberal Party remains a political party of the centre-right. Unfortunately for them, the rug has been pulled from underneath their feet. The Liberal Party has gone to the extreme right with people like Jacinta Price and Angus Taylor all held hostage by their Coalition partners, Barnaby Joyce and the Nationals. Zoe and James Paterson are like the die-hard George Lucas fans who can’t quite believe that the Star Wars franchise has been taken over by Disney.
Well, newsflash, the party has changed and unfortunately, James Paterson and Zoe McKenzie, the remainder of the moderates, are left out in the cold while the Liberal Party lurches to the right and we see that every single day.
KIERAN GILBERT: Andrew Charlton, Zoe McKenzie, thank you. May the force be with you. We’ll talk to you both soon.
ENDS.
