Is that a fair defence?

Not at all, because firstly, we've had three interest rate rises this year.

That was back off the back of data, inflation data from last year.

The first interest rate rise that happened this year was at the start of February.

The first bomb in Iran went off at the end of February.

And this is the problem.

Australia has an underlying inflation problem that is only partly influenced by international events.

That's passed through Parliament.

You hear what I'm saying? If you tell

everybody, if you tell everybody where he gonna go get his Rick Johns from.

You know what I mean? And then you're in that cocaine couple with old girl.

He the new Ike Turner, and she the new Tina Turner.

You feel me? He get on that cocaine, he get on that Rick Johns, and sometimes he act like David Ruffin, sometimes he act like Ike.

And that's what happen when you don't take your medicine, but you...

fake

eye.

Go.

Wonder, you know, I don't know what goes on between Franz Ferdinand's ears.

I don't know what he's thinking.

But I wonder whether a more kind of sociological explanation maybe of help that this is how aristocracies and royalty behaved.

You're not meant to show fear on when you go hunting, you know, in the hunting field, on the battlefield.

This is it's about your claim to leadership is demonstrative courage.

So, you know, it seems odd to us that it seems so amateur.

Is, like... looked up to I mean he's been revision there's been a lot of revisions of him but he does have a he does have a fan club in that part of the world you know for what he did he wanted to be remembered amongst the canon of martyrs and he's in there he's in there with with all of them going back to the Battle of Kosovo so he got that he got that

That's the only thing going on is wolf copulation.

It's a long way from anywhere up in the hills of Western Herzegovina.

Tiny, tiny place.

And I think, you know, as you've sensitively delineated it there, there is...

A strong part of this backstory is that disorientation of the young peasant lad who's exposed to education, wider horizons, more abstract thinking, wide range of literature, anarchist, socialist stuff.

But, you know, it's nationalism or we could talk about exactly what he means by that because he has a rather expansive kind of Yugoslav concept of that.

But You know, he's exposed to wide occurrence of thought and horizons outside his own experience, but they certainly determine his kind of worldview.

You think I'm nuts for thinking that?

Given that challenge, what are your considerations as you finalise your migration policy?

Well, the real focus has to be on how we're going to promote economic growth, but it has to be sustainable economic growth that backs in the economy and looks at Australians as being the driver, the engine of our economy.

At the moment, what we have is migration to simply fill the holes because the government makes it harder for the economy to grow, harder for small business to get ahead, and their only solution is to impose more taxes on on the existing Australian population and then pump more migration in.

What we need is reform that's going to back in Australians to start their own businesses, to make it easier to employ Australians so we have more taxpayers and, of course, make sure that people are in a position to grow the economy.

But new taxes doesn't help achieve that.

What sort of value do you see of these intergenerational reports when forecasting out by 40 years is difficult and we've seen them change from one iteration to the next?

Well, the consistent theme across the reports is that if we don't make our economy more productive, if we don't grow the economic pie, then Australians are going to be worse off.

And if you look across the reports, there are rosy assumptions which haven't been realised.

They want 18-year-olds because they pay tax from day one.

Well, the problem is the economic model that the government is engaging with, where the only way they can address the tax-based problem is to continue to pump people in.

It's unsustainable and it's been unsustainable, frankly, for a while.

What we actually need to do is have more Australians working.

We need more Australians being financially independent, so they're taxpayers, so they're also not dependent on the system.

But we also need people to move through stages of life in a graduated way...

We need them to save, invest, buy their own homes so they can retire with confidence.

If you are buying a house that either slowly grows and doesn't make that improvement or you never actually pay it off, what the hell are millions of people going to do from their mid-60s?

How come that skeptici- skepticism was never evident in budgetary decisions? Because they've blown billions on this stuff, haven't they? With billions more in the pipeline.

Yes, so the, the question was posed today, if, if you're skeptical at spending $9 billion on green hydrogen, we'd be terrified how much money they'd blow if they actually believed in it.

Look, this is just the, the, the, um, climate change minister seeking to distract.

Uh, the government has rammed through and consistently pushed the idea that, uh, base load fuels like, um, gas, uh, have no role in the Australian economy.

I remember when there was a fight between our current leader, Angus Taylor, and Chris Bowen over whether Kurri Kurri should be run on gas or hydrogen, and Chris Bowen said, "We'll never have, uh, these gas turbines run on anything other than hydrogen." Um, we're now in a situation where we've got, you know, one of the biggest steel makers in Australia no longer able to produce.

75% of the steel is produced for Australian construction.

This is a disaster.

How much of that could we expect the coalition to take to an election?

How can it be done? Well,

there are multiple ways we can probe it.

There's through the Senate process, Senate estimates.

Sometimes you get leaks out of the Treasury, but the ultimate way you hold a government to account is at an election.

This government was elected or re-elected with a very large majority and it's gone to their head and they think they can do whatever they want.

The next election, everyone's got a choice about how they vote.

Obviously, I have a very strong view about how people should vote, but you don't want to give government big mandates like they've been given because they then go on and abuse it.

If Libs were to get back in, how would you guys look at it from that perspective of bringing more supply to market?

But who is protecting democracy, Tim, considering the Tommy Robinson allegations that came out this week?

Well, I think the Tommy Robinson thing is fascinating.

I spent most of the night looking at the Channel 4 film and then Tommy Robinson's rebuttal, which is 99 minutes, 99 minutes of film, which oddly I think is better than the, what's his name now, Matt Shea.

The Matt Shea film is dry, and although he's very charming and affable, the film follows the sort of Channel 4 dispatches format.

which is endless and with the adverts and the breaks, it slightly loses its punch and you're left feeling what has actually been achieved.

And then Tommy Robinson's thing is significantly better written and in some ways better presented.

But it also he misses answering the key points.

Can you just explain to the viewers what's happened, in case any of them don't know?

Is this a good thing, Tim, or will it cause more harm than good?

No, I think it seems like a good thing in the sense that it seems the laws seem quite messy, having to file again for the same organization, etc., to the same administrative body.

And in terms of the harm, I would submit that probably in terms of alcohol, as was mentioned by the Brewers Association guy, those are licensed environments people are watching over, whereas when you're sitting at home and you've got a 24-pack from the bottle store, it's not quite the same environment.

I've got to say, though, I've got a question about the industry itself.

OK, so what does the word gastro mean to you?

So why shouldn't we allow AI to carry on and make its own future? Well,

I would submit that AI is fundamentally different to those other issues, to booze.

AI is different, like, for example, booze was going to take over the world, but it's actually in recession now, so that's what's happening there.

What's your view, Tim?

I don't agree with that at all, but I think where we are at the moment, there's a lot of oxygen being consumed there.

There's no argument for me at all.

And then for us to consume that oxygen, we need to be extremely clear about where we want to take the country and pick a few fights, because The Australian people are clearly not happy with the direction of their country.

There's different manifestations of that.

Some of it's economic.

Some of it's about whether it feels like it's working for people, where there's a degree of social, economic and cultural integration of particularly new Australians and whether we feel like we're all pulling in the same direction.

A listener here has asked, can you ask Tim what Pauline Hanson is really like?

Was the Coalition originally considering a 75% cut to the tobacco excise but increased it after One Nation announced its policy?

We've been looking at this policy for a long time, but what we've been looking at is how do you break it down for the different parts of the market so that we can actually break the illegal tobacco trade? The problem we've got is government's only focused on law enforcement.

We've got a government, we've got a One Nation position which is focused solely on tax cuts.

What we're looking at is how do we stop the black market, both with enforcement and with reduction in the excise, so that we actually get the outcome Australians want, which is to break illegal tobacco trade, stop fuelling the fire bombings of stores, corner stores, and particularly the impact it's going to have on small business and make sure we raise the revenue to deliver a better health outcome.

If we're seeing this as a correction and the market stabilises within a couple of years, could that be a good outcome?

Well, what we want to do is make sure that young Australians can buy their first home.

While we're seeing wealth of Australians decline for those who own their own home, we're seeing the price of first homes increasing as a consequence of tax policy and tax measures and the failure to build new homes.

We're seeing a smashing in the confidence of market.

Um, as a coach, what's the first thing that you look for when you're watching? Like, like I know it's difficult cause it was.

Sure.

You know what? I do have a couple of, uh, takeaways from that, which I think are, uh, kind of interesting.

The one we kind of alluded to is, is, um, Sheffler's ball striking.

Like it's just.

he's always good enough and he knows how to manage it around a golf course.

So when you don't have your best stuff, when you go out and play golf, try to just keep hitting it on the right side of the hole.

I got to, like, I want to beat your brains

What's happening with the NHS app then, Tim? Is it getting any better? Do you think it'll be a cornerstone of Andy Burnham's new approach? Is it going to save the NHS for us?

No.

The reason I say no is for two reasons.

One is it's got to be simple and it's got to be easy to use.

It can't be like an EPR system because you can't expect 55 million people in England to use an EPR system.

What you do need is a simple, easy to use system where the patient can see their information.

They can contact a medical professional urgently if they have a problem.

What do you see there?

They, they've built this box where, where to save a dollar here means it's been cut, as opposed to saving $1.50 here because you owe two over there.

there.That's 100% right, but there's, there's the conversation around what we need to do from the cost of taking out of the budget so we don't keep accruing debt.

But as you correctly pointed out, there's also the lost opportunity.

You think about a number like 1 trillion, and you think about the number of zeros, and, you know, it seems quite distant and, and something to grapple with.

To...

For every Australian taxpayer, it amounts to 798 visits to the GP.

That is more visits than the overwhelming majority of Australians will do in their entire lifetime.

How did you feel about how they handled it? Again, I don't think they could have got it better, but I think that those who demand perfection, it doesn't matter even if they hit it, they wouldn't be happy.

... or is he right?

Oh, I think he's absolutely right.

I mean, this is a time where we need more generosity, not less.

And, and it's not, it's not just, uh, Greg Fleming who's saying this.

Philanthropy New Zealand, uh, came out recently, 68 charities, philanthropic organizations, donors saying, uh, giving will fall next year because of this initiative.

And one frontline charities, uh, says that they're going to lose 80K, which is the cost of a frontline youth worker.

We don't need that to happen now.

Hey, Tim, if you, you, you point a gun at a police officer, this is what's going to happen.

And I understand, Tim, you've been sharing at a diocesan conference as well.

Yes, that's been very interesting picking up.

We're quite a long way from St Albans and down from the M1.

So it's not an easy partnership to build in terms of relationship.

But it's good to be sharing that.

And the diocese have got lots of projects that they're involved with, but also they do have that involvement there.

And one of the things that that was happened really, it was before I was sort of majorly involved.

brilliant thank you very much and then we're on to next steps tim would you like to start us off on next steps what are your next steps

So how would you really describe the true state of Australia's economy today, Tim?

Well, I'd, I'd kind of describe it as in suspended animation.

It's like that moment where Wile E. Coyote runs off a cliff in a Road Runner cartoon, and we think there's a ground that sits beneath it until eventually people look down and realize that there's a structural problem there.

And you know, that doesn't always end up well for the co- the coyote.

But the, the problem we've got at the moment i- is actually quite straightforward.

We have no real drivers of economic growth and new drivers of economic growth while we obviously have very poor productivity.

But in addition to that The government continues to borrow money to prop up jobs, and you see this in the, the jobs data.

So what would you do if you were the treasurer to make Australia a more attractive place to establish businesses, to give us incentives, to employ people, to invest capital, Tim?

Are you satisfied with these changes as they're being reported by the Oz?

Well, of course we're not satisfied because the government has introduced a series of taxes Australians didn't vote for.

They're paring it back after laying a series of financial landmines across the country.

As people are slowly discovering them, they're financially maiming households, families and, of course, widows.

The government is now trying to defuse the landmines they've laid across Australia.

the economy, but it's not enough.

They haven't found them all and they're certainly not prepared to defuse all of them.

So, I mean, Tim, what do you think the government should do now to address this situation where you've got thousands, tens of thousands of first home buyers who could be at a major financial loss?

If the Liberal Party were to win and will be in power, how would you change the budget and what would you do?

Well, my starting position would be one will eliminate all of the tax increases that have just been put through the parliament.

So that is definitely something that- Yeah, we've said that very publicly and very clearly.

But I don't see that as the end of the conversation because if I were to design a tax system to incentivize growth and opportunity for the next generation of Australians, I wouldn't start with a tax system pre-budget.

I would look very closely and we're still developing what our actual policy is going to be.

But I'll tell you the guardrails, which is how do I incentivize the mobilization and putting capital and labor to work to build out a better future? So I'm interested in how do we have incentives to encourage people? I think income tax is too high.

47% is way too high for the top marginal rate.

Why? I don't understand why.

see

that.

Yeah.

But so she, you know, and Riley, sorry, expected a lot of us as kids.

She really instilled in us to, my sister and myself, to just do our best.

The result will be what the result will be.

But if you don't put your best foot forward, you're not going to get much out of it.

Yeah.

So how do parties continue to select candidates of this calibre, quite frankly?

Well, what's interesting to me is that I wonder, will New Zealand First suffer because of this in the polls electorally? By the way, if Winston is in Manila, I love Foreign Minister Winston, not so keen on domestic Winston, some of the things he says and does.

My sense is that New Zealand First, they're very tight-lipped at present.

I don't think they will suffer because they have their particular...

I guess their voter base is actually drawn to controversy.

So this will be misinterpreted as a sign of New Zealand First being an outlier, telling truths, unpleasant truths about the system, etc.

Having said that, I think probably Stuart Nash is not suited for public life.

Tim, which is quite scary because it's sort of making its own decisions.

Like there's just, it's punishment.

There's Royal Birkdale is on Trackman.

So you can play it like the rendered version of Trackman.

So I played it a couple of times before.

And I played it on Saturday, I think, when I was at work in between.

It takes me about 25 minutes to play on track, man.

So I'm like, if I have a 30-minute or 45-minute break in between lessons, sometimes I'll just play a golf course.

Um, what's a takeaway from that, that tournament? Um, obviously the brisk pace, pace of play.

Yeah.

And so, you know, it's, it's another thing that's gonna lead people to question whether they should sell and move, and that's actually a disaster because what we want is we want people to move into different housing that's to represent or reflect their needs at different stages of life.

Um, you know, when people have just moved out of home, they often want share housing.

Mm.

Um, least of all because there are other people.

Whereas every time stamp duty's increased, every time you add, actually add a barrier or give a protection to existing property holders, it incentivizes people to slow down their movement through-

Listen, before we get to Paul Henry and Chris Luxon, just quickly on the bird flu, Tim, are you panicking here or do you feel like we've got this under control?

Uh, look, I'm not a poultry farmer.

Um, I love my KFC, so I'm a bit of a, uh, poultry expert.

This is, this seems to be like about one crook bird found on Petone Beach.

Um, and we hear it's a low health risk, um, and, uh, you know, you can eat the eggs and poultry of, of these crook birds.

Well, so how do you get the thing? Do, is it if you kiss a crook bird? Well, don't kiss any crook birds.

I don't-

[laughs]