Interview with Laura Jayes, Sky News

8 May 2024

LAURA JAYES: Let’s go live now to the Shadow Finance Minister, Jane Hume. Jane, is that a wry smile I saw just off camera there looking at Simon's report? You've got to admit that the Labor Government at the federal level is doing a lot better than Victoria.

JANE HUME: Well, the Labor Government at the federal level has only been in for two years. But I think that yesterday's Victorian budget should be a warning shot right across the country. This is what happens with a Labor Government that has settled in for the long term. The Labor Government in Victoria clearly cannot manage money. It has sent Victoria broke and it is now having to unwind even its own commitments. Somehow, we're now no longer funding hospitals in Victoria but are instead funding the boondoggle of the Suburban Rail Loop. and that's been assisted by the decisions being made by the Federal Labor Government too. If you want to look at waste mismanagement, you don't need to look any further than the Labor Government in Victoria. 

LAURA JAYES: Okay, given what Michele Bullock said yesterday about inflation and where rates might go this year and what she is willing to do if necessary. What does that mean for cost of living relief in the Budget from Jim Chalmers? Does it need to be very targeted perhaps and minimal?

JANE HUME: I don't think Michele Bullock could have been any clearer in yesterday's statement of monetary policy. Quite frankly that was a reasonably dire outlook that she was presenting us. She was saying that inflation is going to stay higher for longer, which means that interest rates stay higher for longer, that growth forecasts are flat, that real wages are flat, that productivity has gone backwards. These are the real concerns for Jim Chalmers now, and they will be tested in this upcoming Budget, which is why the Coalition has been calling on Jim Chalmers to restore fiscal responsibility and honesty in this Budget, use those guardrails that were always a feature of Coalition budgets to make sure that you spend within an envelope, aim for a structural surplus, not just a windfall surplus, tame inflation and restore our standard of living, and then restore our opportunity and reward for effort so that small businesses can thrive so that families can get ahead. These are the tests for Jim Chalmers in the Budget next week. Let's see if he can make them. From the sounds of things from the announcements that we've had up until now, it's all been about the spend. There's been very little about the save. Any save that they have announced simply hasn't been structural. It's been over one year. That's a real concern. I think that they haven't made those hard decisions. The surplus that all the pundits are expecting is clearly being driven by two things. It's being driven by bracket creep, and it's being driven by high commodity prices. That's the hard work of other people, not the hard work of a Labor Government, to get the Budget in, put it under control to rein in their spending ambitions, and to tame inflation. 

LAURA JAYES: So you’ll support spending cuts? 

JANE HUME: Well, we want to see what the structural saves are going to be in this Budget because quite frankly, if the Government can't make those structural saves in the Budget, that's simply fuelling aggregate demand and making the inflation problem worse, and you can see that that's what Michele Bullock is talking about. She's saying that the Reserve Bank has by no means decided to take its foot off the pedal at this point in time because it has to go harder on monetary policy, if the Government isn't going to use its fiscal policy to tame inflation. 

LAURA JAYES: So what about cost of living measures? You know, we're hearing today that there'll be an extension or increase in federal rent assistance, do you think that would be inflationary?

JANE HUME: Well, potentially, so. Again, this is simply a band-aid on a bullet hole. The best way that you can reduce prices, the best way that you can reduce rents, the best way that you can reduce the cost of going to the supermarket or paying your energy bills is to get inflation under control. So what is the Government doing to tame inflation? So far, it only seems to provide subsidies, which is essentially dealing with the symptoms, not the cause. We want to see the Government deal with the cause of inflation because that's the only sustainable way to bring the cost of living down for all Australians. 

LAURA JAYES: Jane Hume, thank you, and thank you for your time.