Interview with Kieran Gilbert, Sky News

KIERAN GILBERT (HOST): On our political panel today, Labor front bencher the Assistant Climate and Energy Minister, Josh Wilson, and Liberal MP Member for Flinders, Zoe McKenzie. Thanks both for your time. Josh Wilson, first to you, this number at 0.8% annually, the RBA had suggested 1.5% growth by the end of the year. Is the economy much weaker than the RBA had feared, and I guess, the government hopeful there might be a rate cut now before the election?

JOSH WILSON: Thanks, Kieran. Good morning, Zoe. Good morning from where I am, anyway. Look, we know that the Australian economy has been relatively soft. We've been carefully managing the economy with a few things in mind. Number one, to bring cost of living pressures down, which means getting inflation under control. We've done that, it had a six in front of it and was rising when we came to office. It's now got a two in front of it and falling. We have very strong employment in Australia. We've created a million jobs, and these latest accounts show that real disposable income is rising. Those are all good things, but we know that the economy is soft because there's weaker and restrained consumption, which is understandable when households are under pressure. But pretty important to remember too, that across this period the last 18 months, three quarters of OECD countries have experienced at least one quarter of negative growth, and Australia hasn't done that. So, we've very carefully managed the economy, focusing on households, whilst acknowledging that the economy is soft and we've got to do a lot of work to keep it going in future. That's what we're focused on.

GILBERT: Yeah, and public demand contributed 0.7% in the quarter. Zoe, without the government spending, would unemployment be higher?

ZOE MCKENZIE: Look, honestly Kieran, these figures today are really concerning. The only threat of pretence this government has to a positive figure is their huge immigration intake and huge government spending. But for that, on a per capita basis, we are now in our seventh consecutive quarter of negative growth. The country is in recession, and you just need to ask the more than 20,000 businesses that have gone out of business since this government was elected to know that everything is heading in the wrong direction. Yes, you can claw at figures like unemployment, but on the same side, you've got 3.5% in core inflation, which is going to continue to deter the RBA from bringing down rates to at least the middle part of next year. I can't see anyone taking any comfort in any of the figures, frankly, coming out of this government's maladministration of the economy.

GILBERT: As I said, the Treasurer holding a news conference in a few minutes from now. I do want to get both of your thoughts though on the nuclear power inquiry. It's in Victoria at the moment. Josh Wilson, as the Assistant Minister, do you concede, as the Coalition has argued, that many likeminded nations are very much going down this path right now in terms of nuclear power?

WILSON: Well, it's not a case of what you might or might not argue, Kieran. It's a case of the facts. Nuclear power as a proportion of global energy peaked in 1996, that's less than half of that now. Last year, the United States, which is the largest consumer of nuclear energy, added 39 gigawatts of new renewables and zero gigawatts of new nuclear. So, the Coalition can try to pretend that this old technology is coming again. But the facts don't show that. What the facts do show is that they have no national energy policy. They didn't have one for nine years in government. They don't have one now. They just have this nuclear scam, this nuclear fantasy. One thing people should hold on to, it's the fourth of December. We've been promised an actual plan by Christmas. So, there's three weeks to go. If Zoe has any details about this nuclear fantasy, she can share them with us now, but Ted O'Brien has 21 days to give us their journey down the yellow cake road, their journey into fantasy land that will cost Australian households, on average, $1,200 more. That will take $600 billion out of the Australian budget, because it's not investable, it's not insurable, it's not commercial. It'll all be paid for by the Australian taxpayers at $600 billion out of defence, out of pensions, out of hospitals, out of the social safety net, out of schools. That's what that nightmare would mean for Australia, but if that's the nightmare that they want to try and sell to the Australian people in 2025, they've got 21 days to come up with the details.

GILBERT: Zoe Mackenzie, the vacuum of information, I think I've asked you this before, isn't this an ongoing political vulnerability for the government given the concerns that have been raised by Josh Wilson and others?

MCKENZIE: No, I don't think so. And Josh talks about nuclear fantasy, well news flash, someone better tell the 32 countries that are already powered by nuclear energy, as well as the 20 odd more that are looking at investing in nuclear energy, as well as our major allies, the United States and the United Kingdom, which at COP29, a week or so ago, said, “we're all going to turbo charge our investment, in particular in small modular reactors.” And in fact, included Australia in the countries that were going to do so. And then with some quick footed requests from the Australian Government, had to redact Australia from that press release. You've got the United States reopening Three Mile Island to power their artificial intelligence industry. You've got France committing to seven or eight new nuclear reactors at their last legislative elections. This is not an industry that is disappearing. And guess what? We already have a nuclear reactor in Australia. It's been in situ since 1958 so we are, to some extent, a country that can see a future for nuclear. Yes, there will be costing released in good time. But what's interesting about this is everyone was running around saying it's unsafe, it's unsafe, it's crazy. We're no one's talking about safety anymore, are they? Simply because there is so much investment worldwide in net zero, clean nuclear energy. So now they've moved to money.