Colleen Harkin on The Rita Panahi Show Sky News Australia – 19 May 2026

Rita Panahi:

Joining me now for more on this is News Corp senior writer Patrick Carlyon, and Institute of Public Affairs research fellow Colleen Harkin. Colleen, at this stage, I don’t know if this Labour government is just inept, economically illiterate, or a little bit callous.

Colleen Harkin:

Yeah. Look, it’s difficult to know. It could be all of those three, Rita. Look, the issue here is that it feels to me like it’s been a thought bubble to attack what he sees as wealthy people, without actually considering the consequences of this. Because there are plenty of trusts that are set up for inheritance for death, the children who have been left orphaned. There’s lots of reasons why people have a trust, it’s not just for the wealthy. And there’s also a lot of questions around when these changes happen to the stamp duty component of it. Who’s paying that? They haven’t worked that out with the states. It seems like it was just thrown out there as an idea without proper consultation with the industry, and it’s all coming back to bite.

Rita Panahi:

Well, Patrick, this budget has been wildly unpopular. The net approval rating is -25. That is something else. That is right down there with the least popular budgets. And it seems like it’s deeply ideological. It’s not a common sense budget. It’s not based on facts and figures. It’s more based on ideology, going after the rich.

Patrick Carlyon:

Absolutely. You look at Bill Shorten’s budget in 2019, he actually carved out the trust element. That wasn’t part of Bill Shorten’s, and we know what happened to Bill Shorten. The electorate said, “No, thank you.” He wanted to change a lot of things.

Rita Panahi:

He was silly enough to actually take policies to an election.

Patrick Carlyon:

Yes, that’s right.

Rita Panahi:

And allow people to make a decision. This government lied and lied and lied and lied about this issue and then-

Patrick Carlyon:

And I think-

Rita Panahi:

… sprung it on us.

Patrick Carlyon:

You’re right. I think this budget is unusual, because it has something for everybody to hate about. Whether you’re young or old. If you’re young, you’re going to miss out on the tax breaks that your parents had. If you’re old, you’re going to be taxed in ways you haven’t been. If you’re a renter, there’s all sorts of panic and confusion as to how it’s going to fall for you. And if you’re an investor, you don’t really know where you’re at. It is ideologically driven, and there’s a lot of unintended consequences. If you look at the way both Jim Chalmers and Albanese have stumbled over details of this, it’s like they didn’t actually know it. They weren’t across it in the way that they should have been.

Rita Panahi:

No. Well, we’ve talked about them being economically illiterate, but let’s talk about renters a little bit more. You mentioned renters. Treasurer has been slammed after he claimed that the government’s housing tax hikes would increase rents by just around $2 a week. AMP chief economist, Shane Oliver, told the Daily Telegraph, “The incentive to go into property is less now, so new investors will need to impose far more significant increases in rent than $2 a week.” And Yellow Brick Road boss, Mark Bouris, also said, “Treasury’s modelling of a $2 a week increase is completely inaccurate. It is wrong.”

Colleen, you don’t need to be a Mark Bouris or an expert to know that the impact on rents is going to be fairly dramatic. It was the last time Labour pulled this. We’ve seen the experience elsewhere, including in New Zealand recently. Where they, again, got rid of negative gearing, saw rents soar, and then the new government reversed track and went back to the old policies.

Colleen Harkin:

Well, there is evidence of what happened here in 1985 when they quarantined a negative gearing, rents in New South Wales went up 20%. It’s not like we don’t know what to prepare for. And they’re doubling down on immigration, which is one of the great pressures on housing. They’re continuing on with that and not addressing that issue at all.

But have you ever seen anyone with a better example of getting up on the ladder and then kicking it out from underneath themselves for the next generation? I don’t subscribe to the view that negative gearing should be removed or tampered with, but if you do believe in that, like Chalmers says that he does, he’s kept it for himself and his generation and he’s prevented the younger generation from accessing it. The very thing that he says has caused the problem, he’s maintaining for a section of the community that has already benefited from it, and not allowing the younger people to access it. And those capital gains tax scenarios where younger people, they’re building up their nest through shares, through crypto, through investing in themselves through business programmes, he’s increasing the tax on them. He’s done the exact opposite of what he’s saying that he’s doing.

Rita Panahi:

And it seems, Patrick, renters have a better understanding of this policy and its impact than the government and Treasury modelling does, because only one in 10 renters said this budget would leave them better off. And we’re told this is designed for their benefit, it’s designed to help them enter the property market. And they’re telling us, “No, we’re going to see our rents rise and it’s not good for us.”

Patrick Carlyon:

That’s right. And, look, I’m going to take Mark Bouris more seriously than Jim Chalmers on this. There are all these consequences that are only… We’re talking about this eight days after the budget came out, or seven days. How often do you talk about a budget for that long? The world likes to move on. There’s great confusion and there’s great panic, and I’m going to listen to Mark Bouris. If he’s saying rents are going to go up, he’s probably right. I’m not going to trust the treasurer, who really has stumbled on a lot of these details in so many ways.

Rita Panahi:

Well, it’s all got to do with the rental pool. It’s not just the impact on removing the incentive to invest in property, but you’re incentivizing people to sell their property investments. If you’ve got less properties available for rent, it’s a simple supply and demand game and you’re going to see rents go up. We’re going to see the impact of that, and it’ll be interesting to see if the government acknowledges its mistake. Because to this day they refuse to even acknowledge that bringing in huge amounts of people every year has an impact on the housing crisis. Just simple supply/demand economics 101 seems to be beyond this government.

Now, let’s talk about this clip from SBS. This is something that no doubt shocked their lefty audience and their lefty presenters. This was on Insight earlier tonight. And here you have a proud Australian of Fiji-Indian heritage talking about his feelings about One Nation.

SBS Host:

Ronil, your family came to Australia about 40 years ago from Fiji. What do you think about One Nation?

Ronil:

I reckon she’s fantastic, to be honest with you. Someone who loves her own country so much, that’s not racist. You have to have pride in your country. And we came from Fiji as well, and we came to this best country that we call home here. I call myself Australian, I call myself Fijian, or Indian. I’ve put a Australian flagpole in my front yard. And you come to this country, embrace the Australian way of living, or you know what, you stay where you are.

SBS Host:

We’ve heard some of Pauline Hansen’s comments about race. Do you think her party promotes racist ideas?

Ronil:

If you really look into it, she’s really only trying to protect her own country, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it. If someone coming into my house, I will protect my house from someone if they’re bringing different values into my house and trying to teach my kids something different. Well, you’re not welcome in my house.

Rita Panahi:

Colleen, this notion that migrants will not back One Nation, it’s a little bit naive, and it really misses the point that migrants aren’t some massive voter block who are just going to blindly follow one side. They’ve got their own views. And you’ve got migrants who come from backgrounds that are very socially conservative, that are very aspirational, and that is something One Nation can appeal to.

Colleen Harkin:

Oh, very much so. And more Ronils, please. Terrific comments from him. Migrants come here for a better life. They get here, they have the better life. The dysfunction that says that they then don’t appreciate what they’ve come to is missing the point of why they’re here and what they value. IPA research says that 77% of migrants adhere to Australian values, and 56% of them say they don’t want more migrants. They’re here enjoying what’s here. And the idea that they’re just this one big voting block is just simply not true.

Rita Panahi:

Patrick, One Nation see greater Western Sydney as a massive opportunity for them, so I think they understand even better than the Liberal Party. That as a conservative political party, you can appeal to voters of all backgrounds. You don’t have to limit yourself to white people of a certain age.

Patrick Carlyon:

Look, I think you make the point. A lot of migrants who have come to Australia have been successful, and they are very patriotic. And patriotism has been a dirty word for so long, hasn’t it? And I think what One Nation represents is that coming together, that sense that it’s okay to be proud of your country. And I think so many migrants feel that pride. This is the country, as Colleen said, that they came to for a better opportunity. And I think you look at Western Sydney, there’s so many different migrant blocks there. And it’s not monochrome. It’s not to one thought. It’s about aspiration, it’s about pride, and it’s about patriotism. And that really has got lost in the last four or five years with the whole ideological woke agenda. It’s been repressed.

Rita Panahi:

And Colleen, I think this latest budget is such an own goal for labour when it comes to that group. And again, we’re going to generalise a little bit here, but you do see migrant groups who come to this country with very little. And we’ve seen it for decades now with the Greeks and Italians generations ago where they come here with nothing and very quickly they have set themselves up, they’ve entered the housing market, they may have started a small business, worked crazy hours to make sure their kids have a better life. They’re highly aspirational. And the policies that we saw, whether you were talking about negative gearing or the capital gains tax, it’s going to hit them hard.

Colleen Harkin:

Oh, definitely. And there’s that scenario about the harder you work, the more the government’s going to take off you. That’s not appealing to anybody. We’ve got lots of young people here who are aspirational. Young 25 to 35 year olds who want to get ahead, they want to make their mark in the world. And they’re being told, “We’re going to penalise you more.” It’s a shocking budget. I don’t think anybody likes it. To Patrick’s point before, it annoys everybody.

Rita Panahi:

It annoys everybody. Well, maybe it’s united the country, so well done there treasurer. Just quickly before you go, I want to ask about the Giggle v. Tickle case. After that controversial decision on Friday, The Daily Telegraph put a question to New South Wales Minister for Women, a simple question you think a child could answer. What is a woman? How do you define a woman? Well, here’s what Labour front venture Jodi Harrison, Minister for Women said. “As this matter may be subject to further legal processes, it would not be appropriate to comment on the specifics of the case.” She went on to say, “The matter was considered by the federal court under Commonwealth anti-discrimination law, and questions about the legal framework are ultimately matters for the federal government.”

Colleen, that’s a very odd way to answer a question about how you define a woman, isn’t it?

Colleen Harkin:

The Minister for Women, it’s the only job she’s got. It’s not like it’s buried in the deep tiny print there somewhere, is it? Minister for Women should be able to answer that question succinctly.

Rita Panahi:

That’s troubling. Colleen Harkin, Patrick Carlyon, thank you so much for your time tonight.

This transcript with Colleen Harkin talking on The Rita Panahi Show Sky News Australia from 19 May 2026 has been edited for clarity.