Interview with Laura Jayes, AM Agenda
30 November 2022
LAURA JAYES: Welcome back. To Canberra now because the former Prime Minister Scott Morrison is about to be censored by the House. It is a Parliamentary rebuke, it doesn’t really mean much, but it is taking up a lot of time in the House today. We have heard from the former Prime Minister Scott Morrison, now I want to bring in the Shadow Finance Minister Jane Hume now. Thanks so much for your time, Jane. We heard a considered speech by Scott Morrison this morning. I think there is a lot of people that will be nodding along at home saying “yep, it was a tough time, you made mistakes, let’s move on”. But, by the same token, Scott Morrison didn’t really apologise for making those moves. Would you have liked to have seen more contrition on his part?
JANE HUME: Well Laura he has apologised to the Ministers, that were involved. He did that personally. I think that’s an important thing to point out. I think the other thing that came out of the Prime Minister's speech to Parliament today was that, of course mistakes were going to be made in a high pressure environment like that where lives and livelihoods were at stake. If that is the worst mistake that the government made, I think that potentially, that's a very good outcome. In fact, we need to acknowledge the good work that was done. Yes, he said it was a mistake, but it didn't have any consequential outcome whatsoever. What I thought was most telling though, in this entire censure motion was Tony Burke, who spoke about parliamentary conventions. He said that you know, question time, for instance, is a parliamentary convention. That you don't need to turn up to question time, but people do. That what the real breach here by Scott Morrison had been of one of parliamentary convention. Now, if you really want to understand the disingenuous of this government it was in that phrase alone. Because just less than 24 hours ago, this government presented a sitting calendar for the next 12 months, that removed a quarter of Senate Estimates time. Senate Estimates is there for scrutiny and accountability so that you can ask questions of the government and see what's going on under the hood, which is exactly what they were talking about today. Yet within the same breath, the same 24 hours, they had removed scrutiny of their own government. Now, quite frankly, if you wanted any proof that this was in fact, a political stunt, that this was payback. Well, I think it was there in that one phrase from Tony Burke.
LAURA JAYES: I accept your point, but do you really think the two are comparable? Sorry have you still got me? Okay, we've just lost audio to Jane here. She can't hear me; we will return after the break.
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LAURA JAYES: Welcome back you’re watching AM Agenda and the Shadow Finance Minister Jane Hume is back with us with gremlins in the system all ironed out. Let me get back to it. So, I want to move on from the censure motion because we are running out of time. I want to talk about women, because your part of this review. I know you can't say much about where this review is up to, but this has all come to the fore once again, because we see another liberal woman in New South Wales losing preselection. What’s going on here?
JANE HUME: Well, I am not going to talk about the review Laura, and the reason why I'm not going to talk about the review is because the review that Brian Loughnane and I were undertaking on behalf of the Liberal Party was about the election loss. That review is going to have a number of recommendations that are about the election loss and making sure that we don't make the same mistakes twice. It's not about women in the Liberal Party. There are elements of course, that are about making sure that we appeal to all Australians…
LAURA JAYES: But when we do finally see this report, will there be added context around what the Liberal Party has done, needs to do, how they have failed with women candidates?
JANE HUME: Well, I'm not going to talk about what's in the recommendations. I'm not going to talk about the report. It's not my report to talk about yet it belongs to the Liberal Party. And it is up to them what they do with it? Well, this is the thing. It's up to the Liberal Party and the federal executive to decide whether they want to release it publicly. It's an internal document. So, it's not meant to be outward facing so that we can learn from our mistakes, and make sure that we don't make them twice. But you know, that said, this is an important issue. This has come up whether it be in the Victorian election, whether it be in New South Wales preselection, whatever it might be, it is really important that the Liberal Party is speaking to all parts of Australia whether it be women, whether it be younger people, whether it be multicultural communities, this shouldn't be a revelation. We know that women didn't support us, in particularly professional women, didn't support us as well as they should of in the last federal election. That's something that we need to address, because it's very important that we voice on modern Australia. We don't need to be modern liberals, in inverted commas, but we do need to be a voice for Modern Australia.
LAURA JAYES: Yeah, okay, well, I mean, endorsements is a problem. Well, Matt Cross who's a really good candidate by the way. He unfortunately, if you look at the women quota issue, knocked out Natalie Ward, are endorsements admission here because my understanding that Paul Fletcher personally endorsed Matt Cross is that a problem? Do you see it as an issue?
JANE HUME: I really am not going to comment on New South Wales state politics. I'm a Victorian and there are things that you know that there's an awful lot going on in my state too. So, what I will say that issue is, actually one of the features of the Victorian election was that we put forward a hell of a lot of really good female candidates and they didn't get up. Now of course, if you want to change the numbers in Parliament, you've got to make sure you put up the candidates, but the candidates have also got to get elected. That was a problem for us, because when you have an election that goes backwards, it doesn't go your way, you lose good people. So the number and the ratios change with that. That's something we've got to address too. Look causation and correlation are very different things. But it is something that we want to address.
LAURA JAYES: Okay. Jane, we got through a second time lucky. We'll see you soon.
JANE HUME: Good on you. Thanks Laura.