Interview with Ben Fordham, 2GB Breakfast

25 February 2025

BEN FORDHAM: Yeah, we were due to talk right now to Senator Jane Hume, the Shadow Minister for Finance, about a few things, but I might just ask her about this one first. Jane Hume good morning to you.

JANE HUME: Good morning Ben.

BEN FORDHAM: So interesting how quickly things can move when an election's not too far away and also when common sense kicks in. We were told that funding for Red Nose Charity had been cut. Now, the Prime Minister says it's back.

JANE HUME: Such an important organisation, too. I know that the Coalition has a proud record of funding Red nose. In the past. I think we gave them an additional $400,000 in 2021. So it was disappointing to hear that potentially the Albanese Government was planning to cut that funding. It's such an important service. Our concern, of course, is that they've ignored the importance of mental health support generally. In fact, you know, that's why, one of the reasons why Peter Dutton has committed a Coalition to ten additional Medicare funded mental health services as part of our health commitment.

BEN FORDHAM: Now, you're in the news today and this relates to Matt Kean, the former New South Wales energy minister and treasurer. The Coalition has flagged that it may dump the chair of the Climate Change Authority if it comes to power. Is that right?

JANE HUME: Well, the Climate Change Authority has done such good work in the past. There's some really clever public servants, highly independent, that have worked for the Climate Change Authority. Our concern is that the organisation has been politicised in such a way that it's now being used to cost out opposition policy. That's not its job. In fact, it's supposed to deliver policy on climate change to the government of the day, including things like how they're going to get to a 2035 target, how they're going to meet their commitment to make a 2035 target. Now they've dodged and weaved and said that they're going to put it off, but that's the Climate Change Authority job. And that's what Matt Kean's job is not to talk about nuclear policy because that's not the government's policy.

BEN FORDHAM: You say, “I cannot imagine that we maintain a climate change authority that has been so badly politicised”.

JANE HUME: Yeah well, I cannot imagine that we would maintain a commission, a Climate Change Authority that has essentially been used as a puppet by the government.

BEN FORDHAM: Okay. So that means Matt Kean is on borrowed time if the Coalition wins.

JANE HUME: It's not my call to make, but I just can't imagine we would maintain such a useless organisation or a useless head of an organisation that's simply there to throw rocks rather than actually do something constructive.

BEN FORDHAM: We're chatting to Senator Jane Hume, the Shadow Minister for Finance. There was a crazy revelation during Senate Estimates yesterday. You asked an official from the Department of Parliamentary Services about the cost of office supplies. A former senior bureaucrat has spent $56,000 on furniture for her office in 2021, and that included a $20,000 desk. But the 20 grand desk is not being used.

JANE HUME: It's quite extraordinary, isn't it, that not only that you could commission a desk like this, but it is clearly so opulent that they're now embarrassed by it, so they've put it into storage. Nobody can use it. Nobody is special enough to have this ridiculous desk. But even, you know, for $4,500 on a fridge, a wall unit, you know, $9,000 on a table. The problem with this, of course, is that it's emblematic of a culture. It was a ridiculous thing to do. If you think that this is a good use of taxpayer money, then you're in the wrong job. Every dollar that either a politician or a public servant spends is a dollar that somebody else has earned first. Now a $20,000 desk, that's like the entire tax paid by one average Australian earning the average wage in a year.

BEN FORDHAM: You know the crazy thing about it, Jane, is that when you first asked the question, no one was sure where the desk is.

JANE HUME: Well, that's exactly right. It look, the information about that desk had come to me in quite a mysterious way. The fact that they hadn't even reported on it, that they did not have to report on such expenditure, I think, is emblematic of a culture that needs to change.

BEN FORDHAM: What does the desk do? What does it, what does it do? Magic tricks for 20 grand.

JANE HUME: I haven't seen the desk. To tell the truth, I don't know what this magic desk does, but what I will tell you is. At the same time, the department has said that they've spent $35,000 on new special sit stand desks for parliamentarians in the past year, but they were unable to tell us how many desks that figure provides. But if they're all getting bespoke desks, well, that figure would have cover about 1.85 new desks.

BEN FORDHAM: Well, when they find the $20,000 desk that's apparently gathering dust in storage, please let us know. Thank you so much for jumping on the line.

JANE HUME: Pleasure to be with you, Ben.

BEN FORDHAM: Good on you. Jane Hume the Shadow Minister for Finance.