Doorstop, Parliament House Press Gallery

13 May 2024

JANE HUME: Happy Budget week. After two years of failed policies and wrong priorities, the Coalition's concern is that the Government is going to once again hand out the wrong Budget. Australians are poorer than they were two years ago. In fact, their real disposable incomes have gone down by about seven and a half per cent. So for someone on a $100,000 income, they're actually around $7,000 worse off and that's because of decisions this Government has been making. We want to see Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers bring down a Budget that goes back to basics that restores those fiscal guardrails tax to GDP ratios making sure that your spending ambitions don't exceed your economic growth targets. And of course, making sure that any surplus you deliver is not on the basis of windfalls but on the basis of structural structural change, particularly leading out to the medium term. We want to make sure that it restores our standard of living by taming inflation, getting those energy prices under control by increasing supply. And of course, by restoring standard of living and our prosperity and opportunities for all Australians, making sure that young people can get into their first home. Making sure that particularly small businesses are rewarded for effort. That doesn't seem to be what we've seen from any of the announcements so far. This is a typical Labor big tax, big spend Budget. That is not what Australians need right now.

JOURNALIST: Treasury's expecting inflation to get back to target range potentially by the end of this year. Do you welcome that? Do you believe that?

JANE HUME: Well, it's amazing isn't that only six days after the RBA has released its inflation forecasts, the Treasurer's forecasts can be so vastly different. I think it's now up to the Treasurer to explain why he is so much more optimistic than the RBA. Is it because he expects because of his increasing expenditure that interest rates will stay higher for longer? And of course, that will mean that private sector consumption goes down further, even though his public sector spending goes up. Is it because unemployment is going to increase or is it because consumer sentiment is going to be so poor because of the economic outlook, that that consumption that aggregate demand goes down? Quite frankly, none of those sound like good news. But it's up to the Treasurer to explain why his inflation forecasts are so much more optimistic than the independent RBA.

JOURNALIST: What risks do you think Jim Chalmers is running by putting this particular timeline on inflation so close to the federal election as well?

JANE HUME: Well, this is certainly going to be a test for the Treasurer but the real test of the Treasurer is whether he can bring down on Budget that goes back to basics that supports small businesses, not just large businesses that have been the winners that have been picked by this Government as part of its Future Made in Australia strategy, which no one fully yet understands. At this stage. It just seems to be very large subsidies for very large businesses to support industries in which we might potentially be never, never be competitive. It seems to be big subsidies, up to half a billion dollars for quantum computing. Now, you don't need to convince me of the benefits of quantum computing as a form of Digital Economy Minister, but we do need to understand why this half a billion dollars of taxpayer money has gone to an American company when there are so many good Australian companies that are also investing in this space. Indeed, the Chief Scientist herself did not necessarily sound convinced that the company that the government has handpicked is going to reach a commercial outcome any quicker than those based in Australia and run by Australian scientists.

JOURNALIST: Which are the subsidies that the Opposition wouldn’t be backing?

JANE HUME: Well, I can tell you what we wouldn't do. We wouldn't be expanding on another $2.2 billion on a Suburban Rail Loop boondoggle in Victoria. We wouldn't be spending $450 million on a failed referendum that nobody wanted. We wouldn't be spending $40 million advertising a tax cut that everybody's gonna get anyway. And certainly we wouldn't be spending half a billion dollars without an explanation on an American company that looks like it might not have a commercial quantum computing solution any faster than any of the Australian companies.

JOURNALIST: You mentioned getting energy prices down. Would you support the extension of the rebates? Well,

JANE HUME: Well, the rebates are only a band aid on a bullet hole. Essentially, you're subsidising Australians for paying higher prices because of Labor's failed policies. The only way to sustainably bring energy prices down is to put more supply into the system. That's certainly one of the recommendations of my Cost of Living Committee that handed down its Interim Report last week, bringing more energy supply into the system, making sure that there are approval processes that are viable and fast tracked for those new energy sources, including nuclear in the longer term, to make sure that we have an energy mix that not only brings down emissions, but also increases supply and lowers prices, making our system far more reliable and affordable. It's the only way we're going to fund a real future made in Australia.

JOURNALIST: Jane, do you support a cap on international students?

JANE HUME: Well, this is something that we've only heard about in the last few hours. Certainly, you know, we want to understand how it is going to affect the university sector. And I think that's probably discussions that are going to occur today. But what we do know is that immigration has really gone out of control under this Government. There were 100,000 new immigrants in February alone. Now the Labor Party is still insisting that it's going to meet its fiscal financial year targets but quite frankly, I can't understand how that is going to be possible. Just with the numbers that we've seen so far, and of course, that's the only reason why we're still not in recession. We're already in a per capita recession. Economic growth has decreased so far that the only thing that is propping us up is this high migration figures. We'd like to see a government deliver a budget that's actually going to genuinely fuel long term economic growth, with small business, from small business not picking winners from large businesses and taming inflation.

JOURNALIST: So do you think the economy could be hurt by reducing the number of international students coming in?

JANE HUME: Well, potentially that is the case. I'm sure that's what the university sector will argue. We certainly know that maintaining the big Australia approach that Labor have championed for the last two years because they've essentially let the migration system get out of their control is something that we would like to see addressed. How that's going to be affected with a cap on foreign students we’ll wait to see.

JOURNALIST: So you don't know that yet, necessarily a university cap is the way to crack down on migration?

JANE HUME: Well, we'd like to see a holistic approach to the migration data. I mean, as we said, it's gotten out of control already. It's almost double the target that Labor themselves set in the last couple of Budgets. It's certainly around 180,000 more than the Coalition had at its peak. So immigration really is out of control is the only thing that's fueling growth right now. That's no way to run an economy.