Interview with Danica De Giorgio, AM Agenda

6 December 2023

DANICA DE GIORGIO: Welcome back to the program. Well, a reprieve for homeowners ahead of the festive season. The Reserve Bank has decided to leave interest rates on hold over the summer at 4.35%. It comes up to five rate rises this year and 13 since May last year. Joining me now is Shadow Finance Minister Jane Hume. Thanks for joining us. So a brief reprieve but how long for? Of course, people are spending during this Christmas period. How much pressure do you think that that will put on inflation?

JANE HUME: Well, that's a very good question and quite frankly, the RBA’s message yesterday was loud and clear that inflation is going to stay higher for longer and that means that interest rates are going to stay higher for longer. They're now at the same rate that they were at a for 2011 when Labor were last in government and this is a real concern for Australians going into Christmas who are going to have a really tough time. Whether it be putting presents under the tree or turning on the Christmas lights, turning on the air conditioning or buying Christmas dinner for their families. Now we've seen a drop in real disposable income of around 5% in the last 12 months and that's two to three things. It’s due to those high interest rates. It's due to inflation, and it's due to higher levels of taxing so Australians are really doing it tough and quite frankly, unless the Government comes up with a plan to tackle inflation, this will continue and the RBA Governor has said that our inflation problem is a homegrown one. It's not coming from overseas. This is a problem that needs to be dealt with domestically, which is why we're calling on the government to have a plan to tackle inflation. They seem to be talking about just about anything else.

DANICA DE GIORGIO: All right, let's talk now about the detainee saga. Will the opposition help pass this preventative legislation and give Labor the support?

JANE HUME: Well, not only will we help pass it, but we brought it on early in the Senate yesterday. In fact, the Coalition has been leading the charge in trying to keep Australians safe because the Government has failed to do so. They failed, the Minister failed to submit to the High Court an appropriate submission that would have kept people behind bars when the High Court handed down his decision which was about one detainee, they instantly released 140 without considering the consequences. They didn't deal with the idea that they might lose that case. They could have put these preventative detention measures in place months ago, and they didn't have any solution when those 140 detainees went out into the community, one of them became lost almost immediately. Three of them have now allegedly re-offended. This is a crisis and quite frankly, it's happened on the watch of two Government Ministers, Minister Giles and Minister O'Neill. They have failed in their first and foremost duty to keep Australians safe. They need to resign and quite frankly, this is a test for Anthony Albanese, he needs to sack them for their incompetence.

DANICA DE GIORGIO: Can the Government be solely blamed for this, the decision ultimately came down to the High Court?

JANE HUME: Certainly the Government has blamed the High Court, they blame the High Court, they blame the department for giving them the wrong advice. They blame the opposition, they blame Peter Dutton although I can't understand what it is for because quite frankly, this would never have happened under a Dutton led Government and it didn't happen in the last Coalition Government. They have been caught asleep at the wheel; they've been flat footed in their response. They're now scrambling to essentially to legislate we have been calling for now for weeks and of course we will help them through because this is urgent and frankly, though, I was very disappointed to see that they didn't take up our amendment which would have added a level of transparency.

DANICA DE GIORGIO: Alright, so you're still gonna give it support then even without that amendment?

JANE HUME: Well, that will go through our parliamentary processes as it should because quite frankly, this has been so rushed. We only received the legislation on Sunday night. It passed through the Senate yesterday. We want to make sure that this expedited rush legislation is absolutely right, because the first priority is to keep Australians safe.

DANICA DE GIORGIO: Jane Hume we have to leave it there. Thank you very much for joining us this morning.

JANE HUME: Thanks.