Interview with Tom McIlroy on The Guardian Australian Politics Podcast

INTERVIEW WITH TOM McILROY ON THE GUARDIAN AUSTRALIAN POLITICS PODCAST

8 August 2025

 E&OE………

Tom McIlroy

Andrew Bragg, welcome to the Australian Politics podcast.

Senator Bragg

Tom, g'day.

Tom McIlroy

Thanks for joining us. We're thrilled to have you. Productivity is the big issue here in Canberra at the moment, and it's one of your Shadow Ministerial responsibilities, so it's great to have you. Tell us what you think about the lead up to the government's roundtable. We're a couple of weeks away. Is it atrisk of becoming a talkfest?

Senator Bragg

Well, there's two main things that the government can do that impacts the quality of life of Australia's businesses, which obviously then cascades into the quality of life of our people. The first is tax, the second is regulation. I mean, so far, the scoreboard has been pretty bad. The government have increased taxes, including, they reinserted the tax bracket last Parliament, 37 cents. And on regulation, they've introduced over 5,000 new regulations in their first term. So that's the starting point. Now they say they want to course correct, which is welcome, and so, it'll be a bit like turning around the Titanic, but we are very pleased to see the government have accepted that they themselves have failed in their first term. So the question is, what are they going to do? And I have no answer to that.

Tom McIlroy

The Treasurer said this week that a new, renewed deregulation agenda is possible.And one thing that is being discussed a lot is artificial intelligence. It seems that the government's not interested in a new stand-alone bill. I'm interested in your views on the best way to manage what is going to be a huge transition, even a revolution in our economy and in our lives.

Senator Bragg

Well, I agree it will be a massive transformation of how we live and how we work. Generally speaking, when new technology has come on board, though, it has been job accretive, not a jobs killer. I see AI as another massive wave of technological change. My sense of it is that geopolitically, there's a huge war between the United States and China as to who can develop the most usable applications of AI, and then our role in Australia is to make sure that we can avail ourselves of the technology in our workplaces, in particular. Really, we want to make sure that we're well positioned through data centres, making sure that we don't overregulate. Those are the sort of things that I think we need to be doing. This might be the only free kick we get on productivity, and so we have to make sure that we don't squander it.

Tom McIlroy

Do you agree with the Productivity Commission's assessment that it could be worth something in the order of more than $100 billion to the economy? What are the risks of the next steps? What should we be doing to stay out of the war that you describe, but equally, reap the economic benefits?

Senator Bragg

Well, the risk is that we overregulate. The risk is that we make ourselves even more uncompetitive. And the starting point is that we are a heavily regulated economy. We have more rules and regulations than you can poke a stick at. Labor have put in place 5,000 in the last parliament, and they're already proposing to do more, including banning YouTube and other things for kids. The risk is that we overregulate, Tom. That's a big risk. What's very important is that weunderstand that there are already existing laws, like copyright laws, which protects artists. They protect the good people who work at The Guardian. They protect musicians. They protect actors. Those laws need to be enforced. One of the main takeaways I have from my first six years in the Senate, is that although we imagine ourselves to be living in a very sophisticated economy where the rule of law is strongly enforced, there are so many cases where existing rules are just not enforced properly by the regulators.

Tom McIlroy

Do you think that the regulators having a seat at the table in this roundtable process could be a sign of optimism in that regard, or do you think the government needs to be tougher with them, including in emerging parts of how we do business and how the economy is run?

Senator Bragg

I just think the government has no idea, really, what it wants to do. They have more positions than you can poke a stick at on AI. You've got Tim Ayers saying, 'make the unions in charge of it,' you've got Chalmers saying, 'have low regulation,' you've got Husic saying, 'more regulation'. But the point I really want to make is that the regulator's job is to enforce the law, whether it's the Privacy Commissioner or the Information Commissioner or whether it's ASIC. These are the agencies that are required to enforce the law. We don't need new laws. Right now, we're dealing with a bunch of new financial collapses like First Guardian and Shield, and others, which have happened in the last couple of years. But the government haven't calibrated ASIC to focus on law enforcement. I make the same point about copyright law enforcement; the government needs to say to the regulators, well, how are you going in enforcing the laws the parliament already has in the books before they look to put more laws on those books.

Tom McIlroy

Are you at all concerned about the approach that some of the big tech platforms are taking, sucking up data that's already on the internet to build their large language models? Is a strengthened copyright regime necessary? Creative industries could come out the loser from this transition.

Senator Bragg

Well, no, it already exists. You need to see the law enforced. I want to protect artists. I want to protect journalists. It's very important that big tech doesn't steal their information. They have to pay for it. But OpenAI has done a deal with News Corporation. That's a model of how I see this working. But, this is only going to work if our law enforcement agencies and our regulators actually do their jobs. I'd much rather see these people enforce the law rather than walking around talking at a roundtable.

Tom McIlroy

What role do you expect Ted O'Brien, the Shadow Treasurer, to play? Will he be observing discussions? Do you think he's going to put forward positions on behalf of the Coalition on these matters and on other things like tax reform?

Senator Bragg

Well, Ted will be very constructive, and that's his natural inclination. Our position is that we will support measures which help the economy be more productive. So less regulation, lower taxes, anything that boosts our international competitiveness will have our support. But, we won't support higher taxes, and we won't support woolly concepts like having more and more talkfests. What we want to see is real action. These guys have already had three years. As I said at the start, we want to support them course-correcting. We want to support them turning around the Titanic in terms of their changed view now on regulation. But there's got to be specific proposals. They've had all these roundtables in the lead up to it, including in the housing sector. They have the information, so they need to get serious and propose some hard and fast measures.

Tom McIlroy

Well, you mentioned housing, and of course, you're the Shadow Minister for Housing and Homelessness in Sussan Ley's front bench. Let's come to that area; I think our listeners are very interested in what the government can do to address affordability and access restrictions. The Treasurer said during the week that he agrees with Clare O'Neil that it's crazy that it takes longer to get construction approval for a house than it does to actually build the thing. How bad do you see the situation for Australian's locked out of the housing market?

Senator Bragg

It's terrible. The red tape that's been put in place by this government, and that has accumulated, has really caused a massive problem. But, ultimately, the government has presided over the largest population surge since the '50s and simultaneously presided over the biggest collapse in housing construction in decades. The starting point is that the government have a terrible record. Their own Housing Australia Future Fund has had two years of operation and has built 17 houses and bought 300 with its $10 billion fund. So, the government has been terrible on housing. They've spent billions of dollars on bureaucracies which don't do anything, and insofar as their agenda to stimulate the private economy to build houses - so developers, builders, tradies - it hasn't existed up until now. So if they're going to have an agenda to help with that, then we will be supportive. But ultimately, we need to be building more than a quarter of a million houses each and every year, and we're only going to get about 170,000 houses this year, which is down from 200,000 on average under the last Coalition Government.

Tom McIlroy

Yeah, the government insists that they're going to hit that ambitious target for the end of the decade. I think the Coalition and even Treasury have expressed some scepticism about that. Do you think that the work with the states and territories, and even with local government, is part of the problem? The government here in Canberra has talked about easing some of the barriers to developments that exist and speeding up things like necessary infrastructure for housing development. Do you think that those things could move the needle? Some of those will be state and local government responsibilities.

Senator Bragg

Well, I think the idea that the Commonwealth will step into the shoes of the states is a fool's errand. I think they need to work out what they can control, and they can control the red tape that they've put onto the housing industry, like the National Construction Code. They can look at how they make payments to states. They can look at the Commonwealth-State financial arrangements. If they're prepared to go there, then that would be productive. But ultimately, if they're going to pretend that they are the State Government and they have a planning power, then that would be a fool's errand. So they need to focus on what they can control.

Tom McIlroy

And in a broader sense, do you think that the current housing crisis is a turning point for Australia? I mean, home ownership is often described as part of the Australian dream. There's a real discussion about whether access to housing is being displaced in aid of investors trying to build their wealth. Do you think we might look back on this era as a shift in how we view housing and how governments respond to shortages that exist across the country?

Senator Bragg

Well, the big issue is supply. And so, as I said, we've lived through a massive population surge, but we've had a collapse in housing construction. That is ultimately the biggest problem. The Commonwealth Government can cut the costs of construction. It can help developers, builders, and tradies build that private supply that's needed. That is the most important thing that you can do to help people who want to buy their first house or people who are facing homelessness. I mean, ultimately, it's a supply challenge. If you fiddle around with the tax settings and the like - I see that some people, like Alan Kohler, say it's all to do with one tax measure from 25 years ago - I wish it was that simple. If it was that simple that we could just play around with the tax code and fix the housing crisis, we'd do it, but it's just not that easy. The answer to fixing the housing crisis is not to put more taxes on it. Our policies, as we develop them over the next couple of years, will be focused on how we move that supply side. I think there is a case for some demand-side policies, but you don't want to have too many because that would make the problem worse. At the last election, we probably had too many housing policies, and then we didn't have any homelessness policy, which was a real shame. We have a lot of work to do as well, and we'll play our role as a constructive opposition. If there are good things that come out of this process, we'll back them. But ultimately, we need to develop our own policies over the next couple of years because we're the alternative government, and we see home ownership as central to the Liberal mission in Australia. We want to be a home owning democracy.

Tom McIlroy

Tell us a bit about the work that's going on on the Coalition side. Sussan Ley is obviously in her early months as the Opposition Leader. You're new in the portfolio. What's the morale of the side like after a difficult loss and the early steps in this rebuilding phase? I'm interested in your insights on how it's going.

Senator Bragg

Well,it's been a character-building period, and in some ways humiliating, embarrassing. But ultimately, we have a really important role to be an effective Opposition. The Democrats used to do a great job in the Senate of keeping the bastards honest and using the Senate Committees and the processes of the Parliament to make sure that we get accountability for the people over expenditure of funds, over the administration of programmes. That's really motivating. I find that very motivating. I really care about that. Then fashioning together a policy agenda that can solve problems like housing is also very motivating. We're very lucky to be in these roles. We're very lucky to be leaders in our community. We have certainly some soul searching to do. We have some naval gazing to do, perhaps. But really, I think the opportunity for us there with our economic team in particular where I am, is to fashion together an economic agenda that can move Australia in a direction we need to go in. I'm loathe to sit there and think about all the woe is me stuff. I mean, it's been humiliating. It's been humiliating, it's been embarrassing, but now we've got a team that's very strong, and we just have to get on with the job.

Tom McIlroy

Do yout hink that the good policy process that you describe, and indeed holding the government to account in the meantime, leads to good politics? Do you think that's one way that the Coalition can win back some of the metropolitan voters that you've lost, and potentially rebuild your position in the cities?

Senator Bragg

I think for sure. Clearly, we had a failure in the last Parliament on policy, also on positioning. Clearly, we made some mistakes. I think, for example, blaming migrants for causing the housing crisis was a big mistake. Of course, having a larger population has made it harder to get a house. There's no question about that. More people living in Australia means you need to build more houses. The fact that we've lived through a period where you've had a surge in population, but you've had a collapse in housing construction, that's just a reality. But I don't think it's a good idea for us to lump that all on migrants. I think that was a mistake. We just have to be more conscious of the way that we fashion together our properly thought through policy prescriptions, but also the way that we talk about them. We have had, I think it's fair to say, some marketing and brand issues. I think some Australian's would say, we haven't done as much as we could to protect minority interests; that there's been a perception that we have not always been as kind to people as we could. We're in this endeavour because we want to help the country, we want to help people. Certainly, I don't get out of bed every day and think, well, how can I make life harder for minority groups. I think we've got to be conscious that our internal process yields ambitious policy, but when we take it to market, that we are conscious that we're living in a very diverse community, and we've got to ensure that we are the true torchbearers of liberalism, which is where you seek to protect and govern for all people rather than this perception that we've had from time-to-time that we are not interested in protecting minority interests or certain minority interests.

Tom McIlroy

I think multicultural communities in many ways could be a natural constituency for the Coalition, but some might have been turned off by rhetoric from people like Peter Dutton and others in the Coalition at the campaign. I wonder if you agree with that, that they might have got the message that the Coalition didn't speak for them and was potentially blaming them for some of the challenges.

Senator Bragg

Look, I think we know that. It's funny. I mean, someone said to me, well, If you're a migrant, you got blamed for the housing crisis. If your parent was a dual national, you could get deported. That wasn't a very good starting point for our campaign. It's just not what we're wanting to achieve. We're not wanting to make people feel unwelcome. I'm the child of a migrant myself. We love multicultural Australia. A lot of us do a huge amount of engagement with multicultural communities and it's just a real shame that some of those positions were taken and that some of that engagement was really undermined. So, there's multicultural communities, there's other minority groups. But, the point of liberalism is that we treat everyone equally before the law. We want to look after everyone, and we have to make sure that we do a better job in our policy formulation, but also positioning going forward, I don't think it's any great secret. Clearly, you have to have a policy-led recovery. I mean, you're not going to win a seat or win a new election unless you've got good policies. We need to put our faith in our new processes, which are going to be hopefully yielding very strong and very different economic policies from the government, and ultimately, I think that's where we will make back some ground.

Tom McIlroy

Are you at all concerned about the policy message and positioning from the net zero debate that's happening within the Coalition now?

Senator Bragg

Look, I think that most people understand that Australia has to be a part of international agreements. The net zero thing is… I mean, it's something that is seen as a very important measure as to whether you are cognizant of the risk of climate change. In large part, I think the financial markets have already made up their mind, I mean, it's over, because the wall of money is going to these investments, renewable investments. But it's also the case that China is funding and opening a lot of new coal-fired power stations. They're also doing a lot of renewables. The idea that you have to choose, I think, is misguided. I think you can avail yourself of all technologies. But my position is that ultimately, Australia will be part of international agreements to cut emissions. Partly, that's formed because the international capital markets have already made up their mind.

Tom McIlroy

Just to backtrack one second, you mentioned homelessness earlier. Is that something that you think the Coalition should be speaking more about in the coming term? Will you potentially be leading a homelessness policy for the next election?

Senator Bragg

Yes. I mean, we should have had one for the last election, and we will definitely have one for the next election. The starting point here on homelessness is you need to build more houses, otherwise you fuel the crisis. Right now, under this government, we have the highest level of homelessness on record. The fact that the government talk about all their housing bureaucracies doesn't actually yield any results. What matters is actually building houses. That will be a core part of our homelessness policy, but obviously, there'll be more than that.

Tom McIlroy

Okay, Andrew Bragg, you're one of the hardest working members in the Federal Parliament. You're constantly in the media and up here in the Press Gallery. You're in Senate committees and working hard in the Senate Chamber as well. Tell us about a time when you're not at work. If you had a bit of free time, if you had a free day, how would you spend it? Give us a sense of your pleasures outside of politics.

Senator Bragg

Well, I'd probably like to go for a long run. I discovered running when I was at university in Canberra, actually, at ANU. I've always been a bit of a runner. Unfortunately, you collect a few injuries from time-to-time, but right now, things are okay. Look, I like to go for a run. I'm also quite an avid walker. Look, I'm quite a busy person, so I like to walk, I like to run. Then I guess I'm quite a big reader, but I also, these days, like to take in information through Audible and audiobooks. That maybe sounds very dorkish, but that would be maybe a nice morning.

Tom McIlroy

A run with a podcast or an audiobook in your headphones?

Senator Bragg

No, separate to that. I'd probably do the run with some music, and then I'd listen to the audiobook while I was doing some other things. But yeah, there's one I'm reading at the moment, one I'm listening to right now called Chokepoints, which is about how America has used financial sanctions, effectively, as a method of non-lethal war, which has been hugely effective.

Tom McIlroy

That's great. You must get through a few good audiobooks if you're using them for downtime.

Senator Bragg

Well, I feel that, I mean, I'm in public life. I'm in politics. I feel like I should try and do as much as I can while I'm here. The ability to…well, you need to have lots of information in your head to be effective. And so effectively, I figured that that's what I should be doing right now, and maybe later on I'll do less stuff. But right now, I try and be as hungry as I can.

Tom McIlroy

I think that probably speaks well to our listenership as well. Andrew Bragg. It's great to have you on the pod. Thank you for making some time for us today.

Senator Bragg

Thanks, Tom. Appreciate it.

[Ends]