Interview with Laura Jayes, AM Agenda

5 March 2025

LAURA JAYES: Joining me now is the shadow finance minister, Jane Hume looking at those numbers from our numbers man Tom Connell. Jane, does it give you hope or a little bit of trepidation?

JANE HUME: Laura, from the very beginning of this term of Parliament, Peter Dutton has said that we intend to be a one term Opposition, that he could see a path back to return to the government benches. And he's absolutely right, but it's been helped by a really poor government and a weak leadership. We've seen a standard of living go backwards by 8.7%. 27,000 small businesses go under. Economic growth coming to a standstill, productivity going backwards, and mortgages going through the roof, with 12 interest rate rises under this government. So there's a lot of angry voters out there in my home state of Victoria. We certainly have felt a difference on the ground that I haven't seen in Victoria in the 20 or so years that I've been involved in politics as either a volunteer or as a Member of Parliament. It is quite extraordinary. What unfortunately, Tom has assumed there, of course, is a uniform swing, and that really happens, but we would expect to see some shifts in some seats that perhaps we wouldn't have seen in many years past.

LAURA JAYES: Yeah, look, you did point out that things are never uniform, so there is going to be pockets of differences in the States absolutely. We have seen Labor, you know, it feels like we're in a campaign already, quite frankly, because we've had these big spending measures. First, we had on Medicare and bulk billing. Secondly, we had, yesterday, this commitment that Chris Minns has been calling for, for public schools, for nigh on two or three years, a $5 billion commitment. Can the Coalition with your nuclear policy and train as well afford to match those commitments? I know you've already committed to the bulk billing thing. But what about public schools in New South Wales? Is there any risk that you'll claw any of that money back?

JANE HUME: Well, certainly, this is one of the reasons why we've been calling on the Government to hold a Budget, to have a budget, rather than just a fiscal statement or an economic statement, because just a statement doesn't require a charter of budget honesty. We saw in the MYEFO figures back in December last year, a very small amount that looked like it was, or what I say, very small, a modest amount set aside for election commitments in decisions made but not yet announced. And unfortunately, though since then, we've seen $20 billion of commitments made and announced by the government. Now, where is that money coming from? Unless there is a budget, we won't be able to see that we after the transparency so that we can understand exactly where Labor are getting this money from.

LAURA JAYES (interrupts): Won’t we get that in PEFO.

JANE HUME: And I think they get their public deserve to know that. Well, that would be a very, of course, PEFO doesn't occur until very close to the election. We would like a Budget so that we can understand exactly where Labor think that this money is coming from. We know that they've spent $12 for every $1 that they have saved. That's a real issue. Getting that fiscal restraint under control is profoundly important for the economic prosperity of the country.

LAURA JAYES: So would you try and claw back that money from public schools or not?

JANE HUME: That policy is not one that I've seen, it's not one that we've considered, and you know, potentially, it will be one that will be discussed by the Coalition. And so I don't want to preempt that. I don't understand the policy details myself, but what I will say is that there are a series of policies that are being announced by the government at the moment, and we don't understand where the money is coming from. The Coalition will go to this next election with a better bottom line than a Labor Government, and there's a good reason for that. That's because their spending profligacy has, in fact, made inflation stay higher for longer, made interest rates to higher for longer, and Australians are poorer for it, we won't see that.

LAURA JAYES: But Jane this public school funding is pretty important, because yesterday, Anthony Albanese said, and it was Chris Minns understanding that this money, it wasn't just an election promise. It didn't depend on the outcome of the election, because it was, it was going to be spent. This is comes down to the Gonski modelling. So I think Australians need to know whether or particularly in New South Wales, whether you know public school funding is at risk if you win?

JANE HUME: I can assure you that public school funding is not at risk. But what I would like to understand is the details of this policy, A, where the money is coming from, and B, what the responsibilities of the states are. I mean, let's face it, state schools are run by the states. They're the responsibility of the states. The federal government does have some role in in the education system, but the way that that split is arranged, well, we wouldn't like to see that done in a sustainable way, making sure that all states are on an even footing, and that schools receive and families receive the opportunity for the, not only for their schools to be appropriately funded, but for choice to be embedded into our system and to our education system.

LAURA JAYES: So it's almost $5 billion announced yesterday. So are you saying the Coalition would look at that and see whether that amount is right, whether it’s too much.

JANE HUME: I haven't seen the details of that policy. Laura, what I want to understand is where that funding envelope is coming from. Is it being removed from another part of the education funding envelope? Is it additional funding? If it is additional funding, where is that coming from? This is why we need a budget so we can understand, abiding by the charter of budget honesty exactly where Labor's funding promises are coming from, because they're coming thick and fast. This is a government that said that they were going to be fiscally responsible. They have shown complete disregard for that commitment that they made three years ago, and Australians are paying a price for that.

LAURA JAYES: Well, speaking of the Budget, we've seen year after year, the Budget rely on bracket creep to fund a lot of these policies. Now, the Teals say that that should be indexed to inflation. Is that something the Coalition will support?

JANE HUME: Isn't that extraordinary that these same Teals that are now decrying the insidious effects of bracket creep were also the ones that supported an Albanese government to go back on its promise, a promise made two elections in a row, to go ahead with the original stage three tax cuts, which would have eliminated bracket creep for around 90% of all Australians, earning between 40,000 and 200,000 throughout their lifetime. So the Teals are fantastic at this. They say one thing, and you know, do another. The ultimate in hypocrisy. Let’s face it, if you vote Teal…

LAURA JAYES: I mean bracket creep is a problem.

JANE HUME: Bracket creep is a problem, and relying on bracket creep is a problem. But unfortunately, the government has put the budget in such a dire situation. Now we have deficits, as far as the eye can see, and in fact, those deficits have got worse. Last week, I asked Katy Gallagher at Senate estimates to show me where the budget had improved, where the budget bottom line had improved, between the budget and MYEFO because the cash the underlying cash deficit, the underlying cash balance, the budget deficit, had actually worsened between last year's May budget and the MYEFO update. And that's because Labor's just endless appetite to spend and to spend is making the budget situation worse. That has repercussions, economic repercussions for the private sector. It has economic repercussions for households and for businesses, which is why the Coalition Opposition, has been calling for fiscal restraint responsibility in spending, a restoration of those budget guardrails that were always the rules by which we maintained a discipline that kept the budget under control, made sure that we had a tax to GDP ratio that meant that we weren't taxing aspiration out of society, and that spending didn't grow faster than the economy. That's not happening now.

LAURA JAYES: But what about the indexing of income tax thresholds? Is it a good idea?

JANE HUME: Well, we will go to the budget, sorry, we will go to the election with a policy, with a tax policy that I'm not going to announce on your show this morning. I'm terribly sorry.

LAURA JAYES: Will you do something about bracket creep?

JANE HUME: You can be guaranteed that a Coalition, that a Dutton Coalition, will deliver lower and simpler and fairer taxes, because we know that if you tax your population too much, you suck the aspiration out of society. It's one of the great drivers of productivity. Productivity under this government has tanked. We need to inject productivity back into our economy. This is one of the ways. There are plenty of others. That includes low energy prices. It includes things like industrial relations laws that work for both the employer and the employee, and most importantly, includes cutting red tape and regulation on these policies

LAURA JAYES: But on this policy specifically, are you open to considering it, or have you got other ideas?

JANE HUME: I haven't seen the Teals policy. The Teals, they're not serious players. They’re never in a room where decisions are made, they’re great on the media but never in a room where decision.

LAURA JAYES: We don't need to see the detail of it, but the indexing, I mean, it has been done before, not in Australia. Would it work? Would you consider it?

JANE HUME: Well, I would like to see what the implications of that are for a budget that is increasingly in deficit, in deficit for the next 10 years, because of decisions that this Albanese Government has made that are costing Australians more every single day,

LAURA JAYES: So are you saying those budget actually needs the inflationary high moment. As you see it, you might have to maintain that?

JANE HUME: Peter Dutton has been clear that we want to deliver tax relief to ordinary Australians, and we have announced tax policies, particularly for small businesses. But right now, those great, big, substantial tax reform measures that the Teals call for but have no power to ever deliver, they simply can't be delivered and maintain that fiscal discipline, that budget repair at the same time now, that will be our aim. Of course, we want more people to keep more of what they earn. That's how you inject aspiration back into the economy. But the most important thing we can do right now for all Australians is to repair that budget as quickly as possible, and to make sure that we deliver prosperity into the future, not keep having governments that endlessly spend in a profligate way, costing Australians more.

LAURA JAYES: Okay, let me quickly ask you about work from home. This announcement yesterday, this is seen in some quarters as an anti-women policy. Did you once support this work from home culture and is it anti-women?

JANE HUME: I think you must be reading from the Labor talking points. What a nonsense. I mean, let's face it, work from home is not a gendered policy in the first place. It's available, well, it's available to everybody. But it's also a very common sense proposal. If you accept a job with the Australian public service, I think the taxpayer that's funding that job would expect you to do that job from the office.

Now, we're not banning work from home, far from it, if it works for the individual and their team and the department. Well, that's fine. But at the moment, the CPSU, the Community and Public Service Union, and the Minister Katy Gallagher, who, funnily enough, was put in her position by the CPSU have agreed to an enterprise bargaining agreement that allows public servants the right to demand to work from home full time. Now that is not an efficient and effective way to deliver public services. We've heard stories about people working from home full time, but in fact, caravanning around Australia with their family. They're not even available to speak to on the phone most of the time. We've had stakeholders tell us that they've turned up to Canberra offices to meet with public servants, and they get into a meeting room, and everybody comes in on the screen or dials in. There are actually no public servants in the building to take meetings with stakeholders that have flown to Canberra for the purpose. Now we want an effective and efficient public service. This is not an unreasonable request. All existing arrangements will, of course, be honoured, but it's about culture. It's about understanding that a public servant's responsibility is to deliver for the taxpayer. It's not just about your personal productivity. It's also about your team's productivity and building the capability of the next generation who will look to their to their seniors for inspiration, for education and for information. If you're not in the room, well then how do you deliver that?

LAURA JAYES: Jane Hume, always good to talk to you. Thanks so much.

JANE HUME: You too, Laura, see you soon.