In this interview, Daniel Wild appeared on Credlin – Sky News Australia to discuss the IPA’s research on Australia’s declining living standards.
All media appearances posted onto the IPA website are directly related to the promotion and dissemination of IPA research.
Below is a transcript of the interview.
Peta Credlin:
Now, no surprises here, but let’s dig a little deeper into the mess. Joining me now at the panel, Sky New’s contributor, Jamiee Rogers, and the Deputy Executive Director at the Institute of Public Affairs, Daniel Wild. Well, Dan, this is a serious warning. It’s come from the OECD. How long can Jim Chalmers keep up ignoring them?
Daniel Wild:
Well, that’s the question, Peta, and he’s going to try for as long as he possibly can, but this is further evidence that our economy’s going backwards. We saw the data out just today from the Australian Bureau of Statistics that yet again, the per capita economic growth is going backwards. That means that 10 out of 13 quarters of this government, we’ve had negative per capita growth. So they’re spending like we’ve never saw, but our economy is going backwards. And of course, on top of that, we’ve got this mass migration programme.
So the economy is getting bigger, as Jim Chalmers likes to talk about, but the slice of the pie that Australians are getting is getting smaller. So we’ve seen this surge in government spending. And what’s phenomenal to me is if you look at the government’s own budgetary documents, what it shows is that they’re expecting government spending to grow at one third faster than the rate of the entire economy. Now, if you’re pumping more money into a moribund economy where productivity growth is stagnant, again, the data today shows that we’re still where we were in 2022. You’re going to get higher prices. And unfortunately, unless this government reigns in spending, there’s going to be more pain for households on the way.
Peta Credlin:
Let’s go to the confirmation at a Senate estimate that Labour is spending huge amounts on barristers, including one silk that we know is in excess of 5,000 a day. It could be as high as 25,000. We just know it breaches the threshold where you have to get special permission from the Attorney General to go above 5,000 a day. And this is all done to fight legal actions being brought by Linda Reynolds and Fiona Brown for compensation after Wong, Gallagher and others claim there was some sort of cover up by them in the Morrison era over the rape allegations and Brittany Higgins. Now, what’s interesting here, that was speculated, Jamiee. As I say, we know it’s now confirmed this money’s being spent and it’s in sharp contrast, isn’t it, to how quickly they fast tracked the two and a half million dollar payout to Brittany Higgins. I bet you they’re hoping now that we’ll slide into the Christmas break and this will all disappear. I hope it doesn’t.
Jaimee Rogers:
You’re spot on about that, Peta. It’s going to be a situation where it’s nothing to see here. Just swipe it under the rug and try and stay quiet. But I do think that Senator Anne Ruston has been very good during Senate estimates when she’s been prosecuting the case with Penny Wong and Katy Gallagher and asking them the really hard questions. So I have no doubt that Senator Ruston will continue with that interrogation of this situation coming into the New Year so that we won’t just move on and pretend like nothing has happened. Because this is really serious, Peta. These women in Linda Reynolds and Fiona Brown, their entire lives have been ruined, their careers are in tatters and their reputations are gone as well. So these women have every right to be fighting to clear their names, why the Labour government is continuing to fight against them with the top barristers.
I do think that Michelle Rowland and the Labour government need to be transparent and be very clear with taxpayers, just how much this is going to cost. We’ve spoken about this previously with one of those Silks could be charging up to $25,000 a day. And for a court case that could go for four weeks, this will be in excess of hundreds of thousands of dollars. So I think if the Albanese government doesn’t have anything to hide, Alba’s always the one that’s talking about being very transparent, then let’s open this all up, have a proper conversation and own the situation so that we can move on. And these women can get the compensation that they whole solely deserve off the back of two court cases of finding that there was no political coverup. So their lives have been ruined and they deserve to be compensated for what’s happened to them.
Peta Credlin:
And I must say in relation to Linda Reynolds, you’re right. Two court cases have cleared her name. Stop playing politics. She’s a former brigadier, Army Brigadier. You can see they’re in her post nominals on the strap there at her hearing. She is conspicuous service cross holder. That is something that’s been awarded to her by the Governor General because of her service to the military. And when doing this to a veteran, when the courts have cleared her name, we’ll spend millions of dollars to fight her in the courts when she should be looked after now and a few sorrys, few apologies to come from the government. Let’s go to the story in the Sydney Morning Herald today. The leaks have started to come down about all the various reviews into the coalition’s loss. And the real reason isn’t Peter Dutton, isn’t a bad campaign, isn’t bad policy, but apparently Donald Trump.
Daniel Wild:
Yeah. Look, there’s going to be a lot of spin coming out of this, but what’s interesting to me is a couple of things. Firstly, the coalition performed badly at the election because of lack of policies and a lack of conviction that failed to be communicated to the community. Now I was a candidate at the election, so was Jamiee. And there was a lot of people that worked hard on the ground, but when the national campaign doesn’t work well, then it drags everything down.
I was thinking the other issue was a lack of ambition on behalf of the coalition. They sort of wanted to have one foot in, one foot out, do the hokey pokey, which you can’t do. You cannot stand in the middle of the road. Whether it was net-zero, they said, oh, well, we’re not going to dump net-zero. We’re going to do nuclear, but people were confused. Are you doing nuclear because you want low prices or because you want low emissions? Because you can’t have both. You can’t have low prices and low emissions. We know that.
Same with immigration. Yes, they said we’re going to cut immigration, but it was only by something like 20% and the number they used anyway was the wrong number to begin with, and then they were too embarrassed to talk about it. So you’ve actually got to pick your target and create a contest. That’s why the coalition performed badly. Now, I’m sure that Trump did play a role. We’ve seen across the Western world centre right political leaders have struggled because the left have been able to tag Trump to them. We saw that in Canada, which was a very obvious manifestation of that, but I just certainly don’t think it was the number one cause.
Peta Credlin:
No. And it was that easy. If only it was that easy. We’ll leave it there. Thank you both.
This transcript with Daniel Wild talking on Credlin- Sky News Australia from 3 December 2025 has been edited for clarity.
