Interview with Laura Jayes, AM Agenda

28 February 2024

LAURA JAYES: Well Labor's revised stage three tax cuts have passed through the Senate. The Prime Minister's welcomed the news as the attention turns to Saturday's crucial Dunkley by-election. Joining me now is the Shadow Finance Minister Jane Hume. Jane, great to see you. You voted for this last night. So are you happy where it's landed?

JANE HUME: Well, of course it wasn't a position that we took to the election. Indeed, it wasn't the position that Labor took to the election. But we now know that the Prime Minister lied more than 100 times in the lead up to the election and after the election, saying that he wasn't going to reverse the stage three tax cuts. It's extraordinary that he's out there doing a victory lap to celebrate that lie today. But we did see the tax cuts or the reversal of stage three tax cuts, the revised version pass the Senate last night without a hitch. There was an awful lot of frothing at the mouth, from the Treasurer in the House of Representatives yesterday saying that the Coalition were blocking it or holding it off in the Senate. What an absolute load of nonsense. There really was no urgency to get this through, because the tax cuts don't kick in until the first of July 2024. Anyway, which is four months away,

LAURA JAYES: Well perhaps political urgency was to do this before the Dunkley by-election. So as we go in, head into the Dunkley by-election, then Jane Hume, what are you telling voters in that electorate? What would you do if you win government at the next election? You keep these stage three tax cuts as revised by Labor but go one better?

JANE HUME: Well, we've already said that we will take to the next election. A tax package, an income tax package that provides lower and simpler and fairer taxes that's in keeping with principles of stage three. It's in keeping with the principles of stage three. Well, it won't be a full tax package. It won't simply be just, you know, the original stage three rehashed. We know that that simply can't happen. Now, the stage three tax cuts as taken to the election by both the Coalition and by the Labor Government have been completely junked, which is a demonstration I think, from this Labor Government that they have no appetite for reform of personal income taxes. That they have no appetite to see bracket creep reduced. Bracket creep is pernicious because it robs your future prosperity. That's something we're acutely conscious of and something that we will be factoring into a Coalition's tax package that will go to the next election.

LAURA JAYES: For everyone? So, would you look at removing that main bracket that's the problem there, when it comes to bracket creep, that Labor's put in that you removed? Would you look at removing that once again? And have you considered putting in another bracket at perhaps a higher level so I don't know four or $500,000 a year.

JANE HUME: So the original stage three tax cuts, which as you know, Laura, were part of stage one, stage two, stage three.

LAURA JAYES: Yeah.

JANE HUME: And that was a really carefully calibrated plan. That was fair, it maintained the progressivity of our tax system. But at the same time, it reduced bracket creep by getting rid of any bracket credit between $45,000 and $200,000. Now that is the vast majority of Australians over their working lives. That has been junked in order to reinstate that, even if we wanted to, would cost around $9 billion a year. Now there has to be a level of fiscal responsibility that is taken here. We know that we are not just the party of lower, simpler, fairer taxes. We also adhere to the rules of fiscal responsibility because that's the only way that the economy can get ahead. So we will go to the next election with that package that will deliver lower, simpler and fairer taxes, but it will do so in a fiscally responsible way.

LAURA JAYES: Yeah, $9 billion a year, it's a lot. I tell you how you could get back that money, you could junk that special GST deal that was done by the Turnbull Government by Morrison at the time when he was Treasurer, for WA. That'd be a good idea, wouldn't it? Or you just never get those words back?

JANE HUME: It's amazing the way that sort of, that the knee jerk reaction to how to fix all of Australia's tax woes seem to live with the GST. Of course the GST is the state's tax. That's how they fund their operations. I think that if the states would like to see changes in GST that they would come to us.

LAURA JAYES: No I'm talking about the deal that was struck by, with the previous government.

JANE HUME: Well, there were reasons for that deal. And then they are reasons of fairness and equity and I can understand why they were there.

LAURA JAYES: Alright, let's talk about the Dunkley by-election. I know you've been doing your duty on the booths. What's been the feedback? And if Labor is, you know, so terrible. You should be ramping this in the weekend, should you?

JANE HUME: Well, I know that labor are throwing everything at this by-election, obviously a 6.3% margin is very big. In any other election wouldn't be considered a marginal seat. But it does feel like a marginal campaign on the ground.

LAURA JAYES: Is it? I thought it was about 5%, 6% margin, no?

JANE HUME: No, it's six. 6.3% is the margin that's on the ground from the last election, and look, I think we need to be really honest about this. For a first term government, the average swing in a by-election since World War Two has been 1.5% which is not enormous. And in Victoria, my home state of Victoria which is, let's face it, a Labor stronghold in a by-election against an incumbent Labor government, the average swing has been around 0.7%. So, you know, I think that it's quite extraordinary when you see Labor out on the ground there. I was out on Saturday at a polling booth in Frankston. And I've never seen so many red shirts. Now, the good news was there were plenty of blue ones too, but certainly it muscled up. It felt like a marginal seat campaign. Now what we're hearing from voters on the ground is there is this white hot anger. There is this fury that the Albanese government has been focused on things that are important to them rather than important to the people of Dunkley.

LAURA JAYES: Like what? So, what's the white hot fury coming from, give us an example of what people are saying to you?

JANE HUME: Yes, so there's a lot of people that are feeling, feeling poorer and rightly so. You know, if your disposable income is going back 8.7% in 18 months, you're really feeling it. It doesn't matter whether they're at the bowser or at the grocery checkout or paying their electricity bills or their gas bills, everything's going up. And there is fury that the Albanese Government really hasn't been responding to their needs. Instead, they spent $450 million on a Voice referendum last year in which Dunkley clearly voted No, made it very clear that that wasn't the referendum question that they wanted to answer. And, I think that that's been beginning to play out now. Now the good news is we have a terrific candidate down there. Nathan Conroy has been the mayor for three terms. He has been elected by his peers. He is a young man with a great migrant story, a young family who's struggling with the cost of living himself writing rising mortgages and he has, you know, is really embedded into his community.

LAURA JAYES: Okay, that said. I mean, the government's on the nose according to you got a really good candidates anything short of a victory and taking that seat the weekend would be a failure then.

JANE HUME: 6.3% is an enormous margin in which to expect to win a by-election and I think we need to be really clear about that, you know, we this this thing, the boundaries have changed. It's a very different thing to the one that Bruce Billson held so well for so many, for so many years. That said, you know, we're leaving nothing on the field here. We've run a good campaign with a fantastic candidate. We have enthusiastic volunteers and a good story to tell. And we are hearing that from the voters. We are hearing that from the voters. Well, it's a we would have

LAURA JAYES: Well that's not what I'm hearing actually. I put these to you, the feedback I've been getting. I speak to Simon Welsh once a week he does focus groups. He's been very focused for Red Bridge Group on Dunkley. Speaking to voters there and he says the overwhelming feedback is apathy. So voters hate both major parties. Is that not some of the feedback you've been getting?

JANE HUME: No, that isn't the feedback. I've been getting down there and whatever it is that people feel for a party, they can also feel quite passionate towards a candidate. We actually have seen a lot of, you know, nostalgia and sentiment towards the like Peta Murphy, and that's fair and reasonable. I don't know whether that necessarily determines people's votes, but there's certainly a lot of goodwill towards Peta and her family down there. At the same time, we've also seen a lot of enthusiasm and support expressed for our candidate Nathan Conroy, because he has already delivered for Frankston in his role of bear and we know that he'll deliver for Dunkley too.

LAURA JAYES: Okay, not long to wait and of course, we'll have all the coverage here on Saturday night. Jane, we'll see you soon.