Interview with Laura Jayes, AM Agenda

14 August 2024

LAURA JAYES: Joining me now is the Shadow Finance Minister Jane Hume. Jane, thanks so much. I want to ask you about the CommBank full year cash profit. It's a little bit better than economists expected. It is still down, though. But essentially, Matt Comyn is saying the Australian economy is in pretty good shape, and these interest rate rises are working in terms of bringing down inflation.

JANE HUME: Well, certainly the interest rate rises are working to reduce consumption, particularly private sector consumption. You don't need to look too far to find mortgage holders who are really having to scrimp and save, making some very difficult decisions about their household budgets, because more and more of their disposable income is being eaten up by those high interest rates, and they were hanging out last week for some relief that obviously wasn't coming, wasn't forthcoming from the RBA. In fact, the RBA turned around and said that they weren't even considering an interest rate cut. They were potentially considering an interest rate hike, and that unless they saw softening expenditure growth from the Government, they didn't see that coming anytime soon. Moreover, they said that they weren't seeing interest rates come back to that target, the inflation comes back to that target band now for a further six months right back, right up now, until mid 2026, before it hits the mid part of that band. That's that's a concern for those mortgage holders, because, as I said, they're making really tough decisions about their budget, and that's why the Coalition has been calling on the Government to do the same with theirs, without that slowing down of expenditure, which the RBA is forecast to double its expenditure, growth forecasts have doubled. We're going to keep seeing higher interest rates for longer, higher inflation for longer, and Australians will pay the price for that.

LAURA JAYES: Look, headline we have from Matt Comyn, you know, private investment is still happening in Australia. They're pretty optimistic about the economy, but you're right. There are pockets of Australia where the news isn't so good. I mean, yes, people are keeping their jobs, but they're also needing more than one job to pay the mortgage. The Bluesfest in Byron Bay is another example of economic conditions really affecting grass roots events and people and families in a way that's not, you know, always headline news.

JANE HUME: This is so sad. Not only are we seeing businesses fail at record rates, we saw record number of insolvencies in May. We've heard that one in 11 hospitality businesses in my home state of Victoria, are expected to fail before the end of the year. But you know, this is not unsurprising news that Bluesfest is being canceled. There's been a number of music festivals that have been canceled, but you can see now how those high inflation rates, that reduction in real disposable income, can affect not just your immediate decisions, but also affect those sort of secondary and tertiary decisions, things like, can I afford to go to the doctor if I can't get bulk billing? Well, that has a long term health effect. Can I afford to pay for my kids school uniforms and books? That was something that Les Twentyman pointed out to us at the Cost of Living Committee, and that can have effects on school attention rates or retention rates and truancy rates, and can have long term educational outcomes and of course, when our cultural events start shutting down, well that has effect on the quality of all of our lives. That's why getting inflation under control is so important. It's not just that it eats away at your savings and it erodes your purchasing power, but it reduces your standard of living and can reduce your quality of life.

LAURA JAYES: We just had Peter Dutton say that all migration, humanitarian visas from Gaza should be paused at the moment. Anthony Albanese said, well, Gaza, you can't get anyone out of Gaza at the moment anyway, and all checks are done by ASIO. Why is it necessary to have an immediate ban, however temporary at the moment?

JANE HUME: Well, you can see why the Coalition opposition is concerned about this. It was only 10 days ago or so that Mike Burgess, the head of ASIO, raised the threat level to probable. Yet we heard at Senate Estimates that some of the reasons that have been issued from those coming from Gaza have had security checks that have taken less than 24 hours. Have been approved in less than 24 hours, some in as little as one hour. This is an area that has a Government, Hamas as their Government, and that has been identified by this Parliament, by this Government, as a terrorist organisation.

LAURA JAYES: Ok, so Jane, are you drawing a direct link here to the increase in the terrorist threat to probable, to the humanitarian visas that are being issued for people in Gaza, that are now here in Australia?

JANE HUME: What I should say, what I would like to say, is that Australia has been extraordinarily generous in its humanitarian visas, particularly for those coming out of war zones in the past, and you think of Tony Abbott's offer to Syrian refugees to come here. It was an additional 12,000 at the time. That's really important. But this is a fast moving and highly febrile environment. If the security checks can't be done adequately, it puts Australians at risk. Now that's why the Coalition.

LAURA JAYES (INTERRUPTS): But do you think they have been done adequately?

JANE HUME: That’s why the Coalition have signed a Letter to Tony Burke, we heard that if they've been done in 24 hours and some as little as an hour, it's kind of hard to imagine that they have been. Certainly not to the satisfaction of the Coalition or ordinary Australians, that’s why we have written that letter to Tony Burke.

LAURA JAYES: Sorry, really sorry to interrupt you, but we're just tight for time, and I just want to be really clear on this. Because you get briefings that I don't. So have you been given assurances by ASIO or anyone in Government that you know the risk, the terror risk being moved to probable is not because of the visas that have been issued out of Gaza and those people now in Australia. Is there a direct link there?

JANE HUME: Well, that's not a briefing that I have received, but I think that the ASIO boss was perfectly clear that the threat level has been raised in Australia. There are lots of hot spots around the world, but this is one of them. We want to be generous with our humanitarian regime, but at the same time, we have an obligation to keep Australians safe. We have asked Tony Burke, the new Minister, to make sure that ASIO does appropriate checks of those, to cease all, temporarily, cease, all visitors from Gaza, from that area, unless, they can be assured, of those appropriate checks. But more importantly, those that have already come here to make sure that they are retrospectively, have security checks to make sure.

LAURA JAYES: So you want to make sure that they have new checks and that should happen intermittently, maybe every 6 months or 12 months. Is that what you're saying?

JANE HUME: Well, that is up to our intelligence and securities agencies. I'm not going to tell them how to do their jobs, but we want, well, that's up to them, as to how the appropriate way is to deal with this cohort. But what we're saying is unless we can be assured that those security checks have been done and that we are not inviting people in that are active supporters of terrorist organisations, particularly Hamas, which we have identified here. Then, we can't be assured that we're keeping Australians safe. That's the Government's first job, to keep Australians safe. If they can't guarantee that that's the case, then there should be a temporary pause on visitors from that area.

LAURA JAYES: Okay, Jane Hume, thanks so much for your time.

JANE HUME: Thanks Laura.