In this interview Daniel Wild appeared on The Rita Panahi Show – Sky News Australia to discuss the IPA’s research on Net Zero.
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.
Rita Panahi:
Joining me now for more on this is Deputy Executive Director at the Institute of Public Affairs, Dan Wild. Dan, this may be a politically astute move. I think it’s diabolically reckless, economically reckless, but I can see why they think it could clinch them the next election.
Daniel Wild:
Yeah, that’s right, Rita. I agree with you. It’s probably going to be fairly popular with segments of the community. Clearly, Jacinta Allen has studied the federal election and seen that the work from home policy of the coalition was incredibly unpopular. Although that policy was targeted notionally at Canberra based public servants, the community had the understanding that that was going to be extended to others in the private sector as well. Look, the issue here is that we’ve got to understand that working from home is going to be a reality of the modern workplace post COVID in some way, shape or form. And it’s important that policymakers get the balance right. The solution to this is not going to be a one size fits all mandate because that’s unlikely to work in the long term. The first port of call is for employees to figure it out with their own bosses about what can work for them and their team.
I benefit, for example, from flexible working arrangements and working from home part of the time, and I am grateful for that and I appreciate that, but it doesn’t necessarily work for everybody. But the politics also here, Rita, is pretty simple. That Victoria is in a state of disaster, whether it’s the government pushing a treaty, whether it’s flag burning, burning of the Australian flag taking place under Jacinta Allen’s watch, whether it’s the debt and deficit that’s growing by the day. So this is a distraction from all of those issues, but I think like you say, it probably will work politically, at least in the short term.
Rita Panahi:
Well, multiple legal experts have come out to say that this move marks our state’s biggest incursion into federal workplace regulation in decades, and it’s highly unlikely to be enforceable. They’ve labelled the Allen government’s asserted power to clearly establish a two-day work from home as an illusion. Dan, what do you think about that? Is this something that will stop the Allen government or will they put a bit of pressure on the federal government to help them implement these laws if legally they’re going to have some troubles?
Daniel Wild:
Well, it won’t stop them and voters won’t discern between those sort of legal arguments. Look, I’ll just make a point here about big business that’s complaining about this. I mean, don’t forget the whole work from home thing happened during COVID and big businesses were among the loudest cheerleaders of Lockdowns I, They allowed themselves to become arms of the government to enforce lockdowns to vaccine mandates, which meant that even if you wanted to come into the office, you weren’t allowed to. So this is an example of how big business at the end of the road, they’re complaining about it. They’re complaining about energy bills as well, for example. Well, you are a cheerleader of net zero as well, which is causing the energy bills to go up. So we talk about this all the time. This is why you have to stick to your values and make a strong argument. Don’t complain now that people are working from home when you are one of the parties involved that actually caused this to start with.
Rita Panahi:
That is such a good point. And yeah, they were very happy to do that during COVID when small businesses were the ones really being decimated and big businesses were able to carry on in a lot of cases. And now not too long after, they’re feeling some of the consequences of that. Now to the federal government’s net-zero push and the productivity commission has called for greater government intervention, greater regulation and incentives as well as carbon pricing, also known as a carbon tax in order for labour to be able to hit its climate targets. Dan, is that what we need? Greater market manipulation and even more taxpayer funded subsidies?
Daniel Wild:
Well, of course it’s not. I mean, firstly, this is an example of how a once an august and credible economic institution, the productivity commission has become an arm of government and is woke and out of touch and it’s not actually applying any economics to these issues at all. It’s becoming a cheerleader of government policy. Secondly, net-zero among all the problems that we’ve talked about, the economics, the social costs, the implications for our national security, it is also completely and totally unachievable. And what that means is that governments will continue to pursue more and more extreme measures to try to get there. And so whether it’s a carbon tax, whether it’s the forced acquisition of farmer’s land or ramming through projects that are unpopular and unviable, this is going to accelerate over the coming years because the government is holding on to this pipe dream of net-zero that is becoming more costly and less achievable by the day. And we should expect to see more of this. And of course it’s going to be mainstream Australians that are going to pay the price for it.
Rita Panahi:
And we’ve got Australian industry group analysis showing that the driving force behind the nation’s productivity slump is the collapse in private sector jobs. This is coinciding with an increase in public sector jobs at five times the normal rate. A whopping 82% of all jobs created over the past two years were government funded positions. The private sector contributing just 18%. Dan, that is just not sustainable. No wonder we’ve got a per capita recession effectively when you look at this data.
Daniel Wild:
Well, that’s exactly right. I’ve got to say that the Australian industry group has Johnny come late to this. We put out a very similar report about a year ago showing post-COVID, over 80% of jobs have been in the public sector or public sector adjacent. And look, you’re spot on. This is a very big issue for the underlying structure of our economy. There are fewer people that are now working in small or family businesses, those getting squeezed and it’s either big corporates or government sector industries that are expanding the most. And so the actual foundation, not just of our economy, but of the Australian way of life. Small businesses are about risk-taking, independence, entrepreneurship, go ahead to get ahead attitude. And unfortunately, it’s those very businesses, whether it’s because of energy prices, red tape regulation, the overbearing bureaucracy that are incurring the costs of this. And unfortunately, it’s only going to go one way while we are on these policy settings that we currently face.
Rita Panahi:
And we’ve got ACTU boss, Sally McManus, she’s revealed her wish list for Labor’s economic reform roundtable this month. She wants to ramp up property income and resources taxes. The Australian reports the ACTU secretary on Sunday revealed that her wish list included billion dollars a year in new or higher taxes across negative gearing capital gains tax, as well as new tax rates on resources, family trusts and wealthy Australians to ensure fair redistribution of productivity gains. Dan, business groups have labelled these proposals as disconnected from reality, but that’s never stopped the ACTU or labour.
Daniel Wild:
Well look, that’s right. I think that what Sally McManus is doing here is actually probably smart politics for her because she’s pretending to be on the side of workers and then big business plays their part by pretending to attack her and attack the unions where they’re all part of the same club fundamentally. But the broader point to make here is the ACTU does not represent workers anymore. I mean, the typical ACTU member is an ageing public servant on defined benefits. It is not the working class institution it once was. I mean, the ACTU supports mass migration, which suppresses wages. It supports net-zero, which is destroying industry, and it supports, as I say, mass migration, net-zero and higher taxes on businesses, which is going to undermine their capacity to invest and create jobs. I mean, how is this in the interest of Australian workers? So I think it’s long gone are the days when the ACTU actually represent genuine working Australians.
Rita Panahi:
Now, before you go, Dan, the IPA has been doing some great work in exposing the full extent of the Allen government’s net-zero land grab. They have passed laws which will allow authorised government officers to enter private land that can use force, that can without the landholders consent, even construct transmission infrastructure that they deem necessary to meet net-zero targets. Dan, what’s happens in Victoria often gets replicated elsewhere in the country by labour governments. Tell me about just how grim these new laws are.
Daniel Wild:
Well, thanks Rita. A couple of things. You’re right. Victoria is unfortunately a Petri dish for the rest of Australia. And as you said earlier, labour Premiers, which are all of them other than in Queensland, will be looking at this and to see how they’re going to implement it as well. Basically what it allows is for government officials to enter private farmland without any permission. But more than that, there would be a $12,000 fine placed upon farmers and landowners who refuse or don’t facilitate access to their land by government bureaucrats to create what’s called easements for these high tension, high voltage transmission towers.
So this is the single biggest incursion of private property in Australia’s history. It goes against everything that our nation stands for. Your home should be your castle, and there should be no conditions under which a government can intervene in your private land in this matter when you haven’t committed an offence. If you’ve committed an offence and the police come to your house, that’s a different thing. But these are just hardworking farmers that are growing the food and fibre that feeds this country and we export it around the world and they’re getting punished for the failures of the Victorian government for something that’s increasing electricity prices. It’s undermining our food security. It’s making us more dependent upon hostile foreign powers like China. And this is the thanks that they get.
Rita Panahi:
Dan Wild, thank you so much for your time tonight.
This transcript of Daniel Wild on The Rita Panahi Show – Sky News Australia from 4 August 2025 has been edited for clarity.
