Interview with James Glenday, ABC News Breakfast

3 February 2025

JAMES GLENDAY: Parliament is returning in Canberra this week, possibly for the final sitting period before the federal election and the Shadow Finance Minister, Senator Jane Hume joins us now from Canberra. Jane Hume, good morning.

JANE HUME: Good morning James.

JAMES GLENDAY: I just wanted to start off with this, these fresh sanctions on the group Terrorgram. The government has announced those today. Is that a good move?

JANE HUME: Yes. We will be supporting any moves that will strengthen the governments’ approach to anti-Semitism and these terrible attacks that we've seen. This is simply following the UK and the US's lead. My concern is that it is too little, too late. The rise of anti-Semitism that we've seen in Australia is profoundly disturbing, whether it be firebombing of childcare centres, or graffiti and vandalism on people's homes and businesses and cars, fires in synagogues and now this latest attack that we have seen, the caravan full of explosives that was clearly meant for a mass casualty event. Our concern is that anti-Semitism has been allowed to continue unchecked in this country since October the 7th, and that the Australian Jewish community is now calling for stronger action and we haven't seen that from the Albanese government. They have been, particularly the Prime Minister, has been weak in his response on anti-Semitism. We should be able to do more. Mandatory sentencing for those that are committing terror offences of up to six years, mandatory sentences for those that are carrying symbols of terror and tougher penalties, particularly for those that are inciting violence against places of worship. These are things that the Albanese government could have done and they've failed to do so.

JAMES GLENDAY: The government rejects that and will say that, you know, you're just politicising this issue. But I do want to move on to some other topics because it is a busy day. You're the Shadow Minister for the Public Service, and Peter Dutton says you plan to trim the size of it, saving billions after the election. Do you have a better idea than Peter Dutton where you might make these cuts? A Department, for instance?

JANE HUME: The size of the public service has blown out by 20% in just two and a half years under this government and yet you'd be hard pressed to find an Australian that feels that they are 20% better served. Let me give you an example. Services Australia has increased the number of public servants by 4000. Yet wait times to get a low income card have increased by fivefold. It takes 48 days to apply for a pension, which is up from around 30 under the Coalition and the Parenting and Children's Helpline or Information line, you can now have wait times for up to an hour. That's with these increased numbers of people.

JAMES GLENDAY: Senator, sorry to interrupt, but the government says the reason there's more public servants is because of its cut back on the use of external consultants, bringing them in house, making it cheaper for taxpayers. So if you do win the election and cut these public servants, is it going to be more expensive, and will some of those wait times you're talking about blow out even further?

JANE HUME: 36,000 new public servants have been costing the taxpayer a permanent $6 billion a year. Now that is nothing like what the government claims to have saved from removing consultants. In fact, consultants have been used for surge capacity, and they've been used to fill knowledge voids, technical voids, particularly in a time when technology is changing so rapidly, there will always be uses for consultants. And it's nonsense to say that the government has cut the use of consultants. They're still there. We discovered only a couple of weeks ago that the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade have employed a consultant to establish a strategy around a First Nations approach to foreign affairs, which is ironic considering they have also appointed a First Nations ambassador at a cost of $380,000 a year to do exactly the same thing. So if you don't think that there is duplication and waste under this government, I think you're kidding yourself.

JAMES GLENDAY: Just lastly, on this topic, when the Coalition was in power, Robodebt occurred, it was the subject of a Royal Commission. The PwC tax scandal as well, which was through consultancies. Can you reassure Australians that if you do cut, win the election and cut the public service, that these sort of scandals won't happen again?

JANE HUME: We have said time and time again that we will ensure the essential services that Australians expect and deserve, but a bloated public service service is not the way to deliver them, and in fact, it's certainly no way to grow an economy which can only come through the private sector. Australians rightly expect and deserve an efficient and effective public service, but not a bloated one.

JAMES GLENDAY: Just on a slightly different topic outside your portfolio, Donald Trump started a trade war slapping tariffs on China, Mexico and Canada. Are you worried about that? If it could happen to Canada, could it happen to us? Should we be speaking out and saying we've got your back Canada, we're going to stand up to this kind of action?

JANE HUME: Australia has always had and maintained a strong trading relationship with the U.S and in fact, Australia, the Australia U.S. The U.S is the largest source of foreign capital that comes to Australia. In the last Trump administration, the Coalition made sure that Australia avoided tariffs. We would hope that those strong ties can do so again, but you have to make sure that you have the right people doing the negotiation with the Trump administration.

JAMES GLENDAY: I’m going to let you go, but I just wanted to fire one last question about you. Your policy to write off the cost of business lunches. Do you know how much that's going to cost, and will maybe cutting the public service a bit help pay for some of those sort of things?

JANE HUME: So, a tax deduction for small businesses to take their clients or their staff out to lunch, if you’ve got staff that are retiring or having a baby, this is a good thing. It rewards good performance of staff and and it helps build businesses for clients, but most importantly, it will help the hospitality industry that have been at the pointy end of the cost of doing business crisis that we've seen under Labor. Now we will release the costings for all of our policies prior to the election, as we have always done, as Labor have always done.

JAMES GLENDAY: We'll wait and see what they look like. Senator Jane Hume, I do appreciate your time this morning ahead of what's going to be a busy week.

JANE HUME: Thanks James.