Interview with Andrew Clenell, Sunday Agenda

3 March 2024

ANDREW CLENELL: All right well Joining me now at the desk is the Shadow Finance Minister Jane Hume. Jane Hume, are you disappointed this morning?

JANE HUME: No, quite the opposite. I think the Liberals have their tails up this morning. You know, Dunkley was not a marginal seat. 6.3% isn't marginal in anyone's language but this morning it definitely is a marginal seat. In fact, it is one of the most marginal seats in Victoria. It was a really good campaign. We had a fantastic candidate. We left nothing on the field. We had all of our volunteers out there and it was really good feeling in the room last night. So I think the Liberals to be proud and they should be really optimistic about our chances of the next election.

ANDREW CLENELL: Well, just on that the government's had its troubles, hasn't it? And is 4% enough to say we can win the next election?

JANE HUME: Well, the government has had its troubles but it's troubled they're up its own making, and I think that really came became really clear last night. What I was really pleased to see was that the primary vote for the Liberal Party increased. In fact, it was the best primary vote that we've seen in about a decade in Dunkley and with the best TPP, two party preferred vote that we'd seen since about 2016. So since before the redistribution that saw us lose Dunkley, so this is a very positive result for us. Now, I want to make sure that we were not overcook it here there's work to be done. But at this stage in the electoral cycle, I think that we can take this as a very positive sign.

ANDREW CLENELL: Can Peter Dutton win seats in Victoria?

JANE HUME: Well, I actually thought that Peter Dutton was really well received in Dunkley. He was down there about five times at least.

ANDREW CLENELL: And why didn't he come yesterday?

JANE HUME: Well, he was down there about five times. It wasn't about Peter Dutton though was it. It was about the people of Dunkley, and it was about Nathan Conroy. Who was a genuine local. Married a local girl, a great migrant story. And, and he already demonstrated that he was committed to community service and his role as mayor.

ANDREW CLENELL: Labor are going to point towards the fact that didn't come on the last day, and Albanese was here. What's your response to that?

JANE HUME: Labor could point to anything that they like. If I were Labor, I'd be looking towards some of those seats that have really tight margins already. And being a little bit more worried about what's going on in their own backyard rather than what's going on with Liberals.

ANDREW CLENELL: Does this show the government Stage 3 gamble was worth it? Was the broken promises worth it?

JANE HUME: You know, I didn't actually get a lot of feedback on that in the booth. I would have actually thought that if this gamble had paid off, you would have seen their margin or their, you know, their primary vote go up a little bit more and we didn't really see that. I think was you actually that said that this was going to be a slow burn. That people of course will you know, don't pocket the extra $15 a week, of course, they're going to it's the cost of living crisis. And these are areas where people were really doing it tough, but will they thank you for the lie in the long term? I don't know. I mean it was a pretty low price to pay to sell off your integrity.

ANDREW CLENELL: What strikes me, the government's going to whack you with two things or that you're going to be whacked with two things. Not all of it's the government. One is potential rate cuts at the end of the year. And the other is a big cost of living package in the budget. Do you think that that could set your political prospects back any of those?

JANE HUME: Yeah, look, a lot of people as we we're saying are you know, really feeling the pinch. Real disposable incomes have come back on long way in the last 18 months. If you're on $100,000 salary, your real disposable income has dropped around $8,000. Now that's not coming back. Even if inflation does slow down. We all want to see inflation come back to band. But the problem is it's staying higher for longer because of the decisions that this government is making. If inflation stays higher for longer when interest rates stay higher for longer an interest rates, particularly in a place like Dunkley, which is a big mortgage bills are a real problem down there. So I actually think that even if things don't the statistics improve, that doesn't necessarily mean that prices are coming down prices are still way too high.

ANDREW CLENELL: Do you think when it comes to election time, you'll get rid of the, you'll pledge to get rid of the 37 cent rate of tax?

JANE HUME: Well, we made it pretty clear now that the state straight tax cuts as originally legislated have been junked. These were this is genuine reform, getting rid of that entire tax bracket was a significant change to our tax system. And clearly, a Labor government has no appetite for genuine reform of the personal income tax system. So unfortunately, it cannot go ahead the way it was originally legislated. We are committed to lower and simpler and fairer taxes we are committed to addressing bracket creep. Can we do it in the same way? No, we literally cannot because they were due to start on the first of July 2024. But we will go to the next election with a tax package that is in keeping with the principles of the Stage 3 tax cuts.

ANDREW CLENELL: What about the state for the indexing tax brackets? Do you think that's doable?

JANE HUME: Well, I don't think that there's an enormous appetite to index tax brackets right now, but what I will say is that I can commit that we will go to the next election with a tax package that delivers lower and simpler and fairer taxes, because that is the only way that we're going to be able to inject that aspiration back into the economy. And let's face it, economic growth is essentially at a standstill. Productivity is going backwards. We have sucked the aspiration out of our society and out of our economy. That's a failure of this government. And it's something that the Liberals won't abide by.

ANDREW CLENELL: Alright, the other thing is you can be caught on the hop later this year if the economic circumstances go the government's way in terms of an early election. So when does the policy rollout happen for you guys? Isn't Peter Dutton this budget reply speech where we start seeing a lot of policy?

JANE HUME: Well, I would love to be able to announce all of our policies right here right now on Sunday morning agenda with you, Andrew, but unfortunately, I won't be doing that. Look, the policy process is well underway. It has been for some time through Shadow Cabinet and Shadow ERC as he would as you would imagine, it's a pretty organised process. Watch this space.

ANDREW CLENELL: But should we watch budget reply speech more than other budget reply speech?

JANE HUME: You should always watch budget in reply speech. It's a very important speech.

ANDREW CLENELL: All right, does this nuclear energy policy risk almost everything for the Coalition if Labor launches a scare campaign around it?

JANE HUME: Well, I mean, I think we're pretty good at organising scare campaigns. We've seen that many times before. But quite frankly, what they've done with their energy policy is put your ideology ahead of price. People are paying way too much for their electricity bills. Way too much for their gas bills. Cheap and affordable energy has been one of the foundations of particularly my state and Victoria's economic prosperity for decades. That's been cast aside at some stage, if we're going to reach net zero emissions, we're going to need to do so in a way that ordinary Australians can afford. Nuclear energy is one option. We're not saying it's the only option. But why would you not consider it as part of your energy mix? It seems nothing but ideological belligerence not too.

ANDREW CLENELL: Are you comfortable with Sussan Ley's tweet, re the immigration detainees?

JANE HUME: I know you spoke to Sussan Ley last night and I'll be honest with you, the only people that have been talking about that tweet are either journalists or labor staffers. I didn't hear anybody talking about it on the booths yesterday. Quite frankly, the situation remains there's still 149 criminal detainees that are wandering around Australia and that are reoffending against Australians entirely unnecessarily because this government were incompetent. They let them out unnecessarily before they'd heard the decisions of the High Court. And even though we have given them the power with these preventative detention orders, to put them back into prison, they've failed to do so. Quite frankly, I think it's the Labor Party that has something to answer here.

ANDREW CLENELL: Are you comfortable with the Advanced Australia campaign in Dunkley?

JANE HUME: Yeah I didn't actually see much of it to tell you the truth. I did see the truck roll past at one stage yesterday, but that was the first I heard of it. I know that there's a lot of people frothing at the mouth, about the Advanced campaign. To be honest, what I saw at the booth, not just yesterday, but throughout the pre-poll were some pretty serious menacing tactics, by unions, and by some, by some, some labor operatives.

ANDREW CLENELL: What were they doing?

JANE HUME: Well, I had at one stage I had two guys standing on either side of me just you know, talking in my ear. They were standing behind Nathan Conroy that would stand behind his wife whispering things in here. It was actually really menacing. Now the good news was at one stage when it got really tough. Some of the police popped out they were plainclothes policemen to introduce themselves to these gentlemen.

ANDREW CLENELL: Which union was that?

JANE HUME: I'm not entirely sure which one it was. But I think that they know who they are. And I'm pretty sure the police know who they are too.

ANDREW CLENELL: Shadow Finance Minister Jane Hume. Thanks for your time this morning.

JANE HUME: Great to be with you Andrew.