Chris Smith:
Let’s bring in Adam Creighton now. He’s a senior fellow and chief economist with the IPA and columnist with the Australian newspaper. Good morning to you, Adam.
Adam Creighton:
Good morning, Chris.
Chris Smith:
Is that art imitating life or the other way around?
Adam Creighton:
Yeah, it’s just such a terrific show that just reminds me how funny those writers were. Just brilliant stuff. Yeah, I couldn’t agree more.
Chris Smith:
I’m not critical of Albo for helping a golf club in his electorate, and I’m sure that he didn’t know he had or he’d forgotten he had membership, but we can’t lose sight of the pork barreling exposed by Anthony Whealy here. It’s a deliberate attempt to curry favour in strategic seats using taxpayer money.
Adam Creighton:
Yeah, look, it certainly is, although I’d be shocked that the prime minister was any good at golf. He doesn’t really strike me as having much sporting talent. Seemingly, some political talent at the last election, although that doesn’t seem to be bearing out very well. But yeah, you’re quite right with this distribution. 409 million went to Labour seats, 126 million to Coalition seats, and 23 million to others.
This is outrageous use of public money. It’s obvious pork barreling. I don’t know what the law says about this, but it’s obviously not moral to be spending taxpayers’ money in this regard. But what I don’t understand is how they think this gets them votes. Do you pay attention to these signs in your seat that say, “Provided by the New South Wales government,” or “Provided-“
Chris Smith:
No.
Adam Creighton:
… “by the federal government?” You see them on some roads and I think, “God, does that sway a single vote?” And then the other point is why don’t they spend… I don’t get it why they spend the money on their own safe seats. They’re safe seats. Why wouldn’t you spend it on the marginals or-
Chris Smith:
They’re dodgy.
Adam Creighton:
… spend it on the opposition seats to try to win them? So I don’t even understand it. I don’t even understand why. Look, I’m not a psephologist, but it strikes me as not only immoral, but also stupid.
Chris Smith:
Well, have a listen to what constitutional lawyer Anne Twomey has said about the scheme. She’s actually suggesting that it could be unconstitutional.
Anne Twomey:
The framers of the Constitution did not write the Constitution so that the Commonwealth Parliament could go around spending money on facilities at golf clubs or resurfacing football ovals. That is not a federal responsibility. This has been going on for an awfully long time. All sides of government do it and abuse the system, and none of them have an interest in actually stopping this conduct.
Chris Smith:
There’s a cue for Angus Taylor or Pauline Hanson to march into court.
Adam Creighton:
Yeah. Well, look, she’s certainly right, Anne, there. But unfortunately, there’s this section of the Constitution, I think it was 96, that unfortunately is in there and says the federal government can give money to the states on conditions. And they can specify these ridiculous conditions such as grants to golf courses and filling potholes when she’s quite right, that’s not what the federal government is supposed to be doing.
And actually, look, I just want to draw attention to some IPA research recently, which is in a similar vein. You may have seen 2.2 billion from taxpayers going to 100 left-wing non-governmental organisations just basically to engage in advocacy on left-leaning policy issues. To me, that’s just as bad. So it’s not just these grants to seats, it’s just this whole ecosystem of taxpayers’ money being used for blatantly political purposes with maybe a semblance of legality, but certainly no morality.
Chris Smith:
Of course, it was Albo himself, Adam, who smashed National Party frontbencher, Bridget McKenzie, for the sports rorts scandal-
Adam Creighton:
Yes, I remember.
Chris Smith:
… which was a similar pork barreling scheme, and she ended up resigning. Remember this statement?
Anthony Albanese:
Bridget McKenzie’s position is simply untenable. It stinks more than a bucket of prawn heads that you left out on a hot day.
Chris Smith:
So who’s going to lose their job now?
Adam Creighton:
Yeah. Well, look at that. If that stinks like prawns, this is carcasses of a herd of elephants. The sums here are much, much greater. I think Bridget resigned over $36,000-
Chris Smith:
Yes.
Adam Creighton:
… from memory, a tiny sum, and she resigned. When are the resignations going to happen over this? These are much larger sums, but this helps Pauline Hanson, of course, because she’s just going to bring up the Uniparty again, and it’s quite a fair smear, really, on both the major parties. They both do this, but as we’ve seen, Labour does it much more enthusiastically and blatantly.
Chris Smith:
All right. I want to talk about superannuation in a second, but I’ve got to take a break. Adam Creighton is our guest.
Let’s get back to Adam Creighton. Adam, the government has turned on One Nation over its daring policy to allow mortgage holders and renters limited access to the super cash in times of a cost of living crisis. The treasurer said it would strip away superannuation for all Australian workers, which is a terrible beat up. But it’s been revealed today that even the treasurer’s staff can get early access to their super if they needed to. That’s part of their superannuation policy. It’s been in place since 2017.
Adam Creighton:
Oh, well, that actually shocks me. I used to be a political staffer many years ago and I didn’t know that was the case, but that’s outrageously unfair. The broader point here is that this is just a shocking fear campaign from Labour, the union movement, and you’ll see, the funds management sector too. Super, I could talk about for hours because it is the greatest con job of all. It’s masterly in its design because too many workers sadly think that it’s not their wage, the boss is paying it, when it is their wage. They have every right to it.
And 12%, far more than is necessary, far more than the treasury ever said was even needed, including Ken Henry himself, which, of course, was Labor’s favourite treasury secretary, said 9% was enough. One Nation’s policy to allow 3% be diverted to rent or home loan payments for millions of people is a very good policy. The only criticism I have is there shouldn’t be a three-year restriction on it. Basically, people should be able to do this as long as they want. They should be able to say, “Look, I’d rather have this now than later” And it’s not hurting anyone else. It’s their own decision. I just think it’s outrageous that we’ve reached this mindset in this country where sadly too many people, I hope not a majority, but a large number of people quite enjoy forcing other people to not have their own income when they should be perfectly entitled to have it.
Chris Smith:
Yeah, it’s true. Glen has phoned through from Newcastle, wants to comment on this topic. Go ahead, Glen. Go ahead.
Glen:
Yeah. Listen, this superannuation thing, Chris, I think this Pauline Hanson thing’s a really good idea, but saying that, and this is both sides of government, if they didn’t have this country in the mess that it’s in at the moment, they wouldn’t have this problem with superannuation. And that’s what beats me up. Now, the company I work for, I’m nearly 62 and I’ve retired. I got enough superannuation, I paid the house off, salary sacrificed, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And that gave me the opportunity to retire at 60. Now, this day and age, you’ve got no hope for the younger generation because everything’s so damn expensive now, Chris.
Chris Smith:
Too right.
Glen:
Everything. And your biggest problem in this country, I worked in the steel industry, Chris, for over 40 years. Now, I saw a graph the other day. We’re not even in the top 10 countries in the world at the moment that make steel.
Chris Smith:
Not in the top 10, gee. How far we’ve fallen, hey?
Glen:
Yeah, and we’ve got some of the biggest iron ore reserves in the world. I’m sick of hearing these bloody politicians help along with golf courses and [inaudible 00:11:16], whatever else. Do your bloody jobs or get out because this country needs fixing badly.
Chris Smith:
Yeah, it does too in so many ways. Glen, thank you for that. Back to you, Adam. He’s right. More than ever, we need access to our own money.
Adam Creighton:
Yeah, look, that’s exactly right. The theoretical case has been there for a long time, but in the last few years we’ve had a huge increase in cost of living across pretty much every category except cigarettes, which is not a good one. Of course people need their money now.
The point I’ve been trying to make is a dollar in your 40s is worth more than in your 80s and 90s because then you need to raise kids, you need to buy housing, you’re fit enough to travel and enjoy yourself. And there’s always arguments, “Oh, well, there’s going to be $90,000 less in people’s super balances when they’re 85.” Well, okay, fine, but that means they don’t need the money then, right?
Chris Smith:
Yeah.
Adam Creighton:
There’s overwhelming evidence that people are passing away with the vast bulk of their super already, and this is before we’ve even had 40 years of 12%. Basically, you can cut that compulsory rate. Sure, maybe there’s got to be some force saving, right? Okay, I’m just being pragmatic, but it’s certainly bloody not 12%. So that’s the point.
Chris Smith:
Or 15% if-
Adam Creighton:
Or 15.
Chris Smith:
… you work for government.
Adam Creighton:
God, Kenny wanted 15, remember? My God.
Chris Smith:
What did you make of South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas’ speech last night claiming that if we cut migration, we’ll be doing economic self-harm? Really?
Adam Creighton:
Well, look, it’s pretty ridiculous and it’s kind of ruined my Friday column tomorrow for the Australian. I’m going to have to redraft some paragraphs because I was going to give praise to Chris Minns and Malinauskas as being the sensible face of Labour. And look, they still are, but the South Australian Premier on this is completely wrong and he’s completely out of step with public senate. He’s talking about this populous groundswell of anti-immigration in Australia.
Well, he needs to look what’s happening overseas. I’m sorry, this isn’t just an Australian phenomenon. This is people in Germany, the UK, the US, France, Spain, everywhere are getting sick to death of hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people coming from other cultures to their country. And it’s pretty obvious that that’s going to cause a large pushback. And he’s arguing about, I think he had some course phrase about we needed to wipe your bum or something a few months ago, you might remember that.
Chris Smith:
Yeah.
Adam Creighton:
Well, how does Japan get by then? Their population’s been shrinking for years. It’s very elderly and they’re not having any issues and they’re a rich country just like we are.
Chris Smith:
Good point.
Adam Creighton:
And you’ve also got Canada now, for nine months in a row, the population’s been shrinking. There’s no great disaster there. So there is so much fearmongering about this. Then look at Switzerland, its population hardly grows at all. Also, no great crisis. The reality is the sky’s not going to fall in if there is a significant fall in immigration. And as for this business about higher education exports, this is just a lot of BS, to be honest, when they quote these figures, oh, $55 billion a year in higher ed exports. Well, for a start, a lot of that money is sent straight back home.
Chris Smith:
Because students.
Adam Creighton:
Of course, they can send it back to their families in remittances, tens of billions of dollars. So you’ve got to subtract that and then you also have to take into account that these people put pressure on housing, they put pressure on infrastructure, and they also, I’m sorry to say, they diminish the quality of education for domestic students because everything’s got to be dumbed down. So really, the whole thing is just a disaster.
Chris Smith:
He needs to get out of his cocoon, I think, and get out into the burbs and talk to the real people who have to compete for those facilities and infrastructure. I’ve got to run. Adam Creighton, great to have you on the show, mate.
Adam Creighton:
Thanks very much, Chris.
Chris Smith:
There you go. IPA senior fellow and economist, Adam Creighton.
This transcript with Adam Creighton talking on Mornings – 2SM from 10 September 2026 has been edited for clarity.
