Interview with Kenny Heatley, First Edition

24 June 2024

KENNY HEATLEY: Joining me live now is Shadow Finance Minister Jane Hume. Jane, it is concerning, isn't it? Good to see you, good morning. About this change of tune. Talking about what the next decision could be. More and more, we're talking about a potential rate hike coming because of this sticky inflation.

JANE HUME: Indeed, Kenny. And that puts Australia as one of the outliers around the developed nations where we're seeing interest rates come down and inflation come down as well. Australia, however, despite the fact that the RBA has put up interest rates 12 times just in the last two years alone under this Government, is now saying that it is considering additional rate hikes if inflation doesn't come down. The Coalition have been saying for some time that this is being driven by that excessive spending that we're seeing come out of federal governments. And indeed, Michele Bullock has repeated that both federal government and state government spending is in the RBA's thinking when they're making decisions about rate hikes, that means that the RBA is doing all the heavy lifting to get inflation back down. It's like having one foot on the brake and one foot on the accelerator, and that's why it's so hard for Australians to get hold of their cost of living. Because inflation is the thief in the night. It erodes your savings, it eats away at your purchasing power and it lowers your standard of living. Unless governments can use their fiscal firepower to bring inflation back down, contain their spending, well, Australians are going to keep on suffering and paying the price for Labor's failings.

KENNY HEATLEY: Turning to nuclear now, a Coalition government so we're hearing, would so far would continue to roll out renewable energy while we wait for nuclear. But already we are seeing solar pumping out so much energy through the day that on sunny days, it's sending wholesale electricity prices on some days into negative territory. Does that make nuclear financially unviable in the private sector? And that's why they will be Commonwealth owned.

JANE HUME: Kenny, Australians expect and indeed deserve cheaper, cleaner and consistent energy. And that's the real issue here, as Labor's renewables only approach, having all their eggs in one basket is actually pushing up the price of energy. And we can see those reports coming out of Victoria today where the gas that's leaving the system is only going to make the problem worse. 90% of baseload power is going to come out of our energy grid over the next ten years. And Labor's ideological approach to energy means that prices are only going to get worse. There is no replacement for that baseload power. The Coalition have said that in the long term, nuclear should be a part of a balanced energy mix that will, in the long term, bring prices back down. This is but one part of our energy policy that we have announced in the last week. Of course, there is more to come. We will have more to say on gas. We'll have more to say on renewables. But this is a sensible common sense approach.

KENNY HEATLEY: But has it has the Coalition. My question is, has the Coalition done any modelling as to whether a nuclear power plant would be viable and stack up in the private sector? Because we do know that with more and more renewables coming on board that coal fired power plants are becoming less and less financially viable, would nuclear suffer the same fate having it in the mix with renewables?

JANE HUME: We have said that we will introduce nuclear power to Australia with a government owned approach. It will be a run by run owned by government, but run in partnership with experts in the field to build and operate these coal fired, these nuclear fired power stations. And the reason for that is that there is an expectation from the public that the government should be responsible for this new form of energy. Now, in the long term, there will be multiple sources of energy, there will be renewables, there will be gas, and there will be nuclear energy. And the combination of the three will bring prices down. And that's what we've seen in overseas examples, places like Ontario that has a proportion of nuclear in their mix have seen their energy bills. About a third of that we're paying in Australia right now.

KENNY HEATLEY: Jane Hume, appreciate your time this morning. Thank you.