Interview with Lisa Millar, ABC News Breakfast

15 August 2024

LISA MILLAR: Australia's jobless figures will be revealed today, with everyone from economists and politicians to the Reserve Bank keeping a very close eye on the data. Also taking a look at it, Shadow Finance Minister Jane Hume, who joins us from Canberra. Good morning, welcome to News Breakfast.

JANE HUME: Thanks, Lisa. Good to be with you.

LISA MILLAR: What are you anticipating we're going to see in the jobs data today?

JANE HUME: Well I won't anticipate what we'll see in the jobs data today. But you're right. There are an awful lot of economists and commentators that will be on tenterhooks and so they should be. We saw some wage data come out on Tuesday, which confirmed what we already know, that real wages have been going backwards even though wages go up because inflation is still too high. That means that your real wages have been going backwards. So if you're feeling poorer, that's because you are poorer. You can buy less with the same amount of money than you could just a year ago and certainly much less than you could two years ago since Labor came to office. That's why we've been saying to Labor that they need to tackle inflation rather than simply put Band-Aid solutions through subsidies. If you can't tackle inflation at the source, well, then the cost of living will keep getting worse for Australians.

LISA MILLAR: Right. So the Reserve Bank Governor has said, you mentioned subsidies. She suggested that government spending hasn't been helping fight inflation. So you would support getting rid of energy subsidies? You would ditch them?

JANE HUME: Well there's all sorts of decisions that Governments make with the taxpayer money that they have, the most important thing.

LISA MILLAR (INTERRUPTS): But that's a tangible one there. Would you get rid of the energy bill subsidies or not?

JANE HUME: Well, I think the Reserve Bank Governor made it pretty clear that while the energy subsidies would be welcomed by households, they're not helping to get inflation down. A lot of economists have actually said that this is simply smoke and mirrors and a political trick, because while headline inflation comes down temporarily, it then ticks straight back up again. So it's essentially delaying the problem, as long as the problem of tackling inflation is delayed. Well, interest rates will then stay higher for longer. The Reserve Bank has to do all the work and of course it's then mortgage holders that do all the heavy lifting and it's not just mortgage holders, it's also renters. It's also businesses and that's why we're seeing our economy grind to a halt. The most important thing that the Government can do is make sensible spending decisions, wind back that natural urge for a Government, and particularly a Labor Government, to spend to help the RBA to do its job and bring back down those mortgage rates, those interest rates sooner.

LISA MILLAR: Can we just talk about the unemployment rate, focus back on that. Because it was, they're thinking that it's going to be steady either at about 4.1 or maybe tick up to 4.2. That's what a lot of people are anticipating today. When you're looking at what's happening with the economy and that inability to get a handle on inflation. Do you accept then a higher jobless rate is part of trying to cool the economy, and it's almost a needed thing. What's your view?

JANE HUME: Well, this is what the Reserve Bank is referring to as a soft landing. It's walking a very narrow path between slowing aggregate demand down, using interest rates and making sure that unemployment doesn't go too high because it does have that dual mandate. For me, I'll be looking at employment figures to see whether the jobless numbers are coming from the private sector or the public sector or increased job numbers, I should say, are coming from the private sector or the public sector. Anecdotally, what we're hearing in the Cost of Living Committee that I chair is that the private sector is laying people off in my home state of Victoria. We heard just last week that 1 in 11 hospitality businesses are expected to shut their doors before the end of the year. That should set off warning bells.

LISA MILLAR: But that's interesting. You talk about the private sector. I just want to jump in there because the Australian businesses that we've been seeing reporting over the last week or so, for example, JB Hi-Fi seem to be indicating that people are still spending, they might just be spending on cheaper brands and people have taken it from that, the economy is ticking along that it's not what you're suggesting.

JANE HUME: Well, there's no doubt that the Australian economy has shown extraordinary resilience, but it does seem to be teetering on an edge. And another interest rate hike could potentially tip it over that edge. And I know that that's exactly what the Reserve Bank are conscious of when they make their decisions. That's why it's so important that we wind inflation back. If we don't wind inflation back, then the Reserve Bank may have to make that tough call to raise interest rates again or to keep them higher for longer and ordinary Australians will end up feeling the pain. That will flow throughout the economy. We're already in a per capita recession. The only reason our economy is still continuing to be in positive territory in terms of growth, is because of those incredibly high immigration figures that we've seen over the last two years.

LISA MILLAR: Jane Hume, on another issue, do you agree with your leader, Peter Dutton, that Palestinians fleeing a war zone in Gaza should not be granted visas?

JANE HUME: Well, I think that all Australians would agree that the appropriate number of supporters of terrorist organisations to come to Australia should be zero. Should be zero.

LISA MILLAR: But that’s not what Peter Dutton said yesterday. So back to the question. Do you agree that no one fleeing, no Palestinian, should be granted a visa?

JANE HUME: Our concern is that the appropriate security checks simply are unable to be done right now and indeed, the evidence that we've heard in Senate Estimates was that some of those security checks took less than an hour. That's a real concern. The Government have confirmed that they, in fact, issued visas to people fleeing Gaza, that then had to be revoked afterwards. So clearly security checks are not being done appropriately. We want to make sure that the safeguards are in place so that we can help people that are fleeing a war zone, as we have done for decades. We did it with Syria. We did it after the evacuation of Kabul in Afghanistan. But this is really important. Our first priority must be keeping Australians safe.

LISA MILLAR: So you don't think the national security agencies are doing their job properly?

JANE HUME: Well, I think the national security agencies are doing the job that they can with the tools that they have. They can only respond to Government policy. We want to make sure that Government policy is there to ensure that the people that we are taking in from Gaza, and we want to, our humanitarian effort should be there, but

LISA MILLAR (INTERRUPTS): It was pretty straight up and down yesterday though, from Peter Dutton, when he said no Palestinian at the moment should be granted a visa and I'm asking you, do you agree with that statement?

JANE HUME: If we cannot do the security checks to ensure that those who are fleeing Gaza are not supporters of Hamas, well, then we have to take a temporary pause until we can be assured of that. We must do that to keep Australians safe.

LISA MILLAR: But Tony Burke was saying, the new Minister, has said that national security won't be compromised, and certainly we're not hearing from ASIO that they feel that national security is being compromised.

JANE HUME: I think in fact, we have. We've heard that security checks are taking less than 24 hours and sometimes less than an hour. I don't think that gives great comfort to anybody and we also heard that visas are being issued and then cancelled afterwards. Again, this is a concern and we want to make sure that the safeguards are there to keep Australians safe. We do not want supporters of a terrorist organisation here and the terrorist organisation is the Government in Gaza. It's so important that we have the time to make sure that the people that are coming to Australia, that we can look after, you know, will not pose a threat. I think that that's fair and reasonable.

LISA MILLAR: Jane Hume, are you concerned about the impact that this might have on social cohesion in Australia? Comments by Peter Dutton and this kind of debate?

JANE HUME: I think social cohesion in Australia has been, you know, rapidly diminishing since October 7th last year, largely because the Government has prevaricated over its positions. It's tried to be one thing to one group of people and one thing to another. I know that I live quite close to a quite a large Jewish community in Victoria, and they feel under threat. They feel that the weight of Anti-Semitism on their community everywhere they go, that's unfair and unreasonable. This is something that we need to all work together to make sure that we can get past this social unrest. We don't want to bring the conflicts of overseas here to Australia. We live in a peaceful, multicultural nation. That's our most important thing and in order to maintain that, we have to make sure that we don't bring active supporters of terrorist organisations to Australia. Even with the best of goodwill.

LISA MILLAR: We're going to have to leave it there. Jane Hume, thank you for your time.

JANE HUME: Thanks, Lisa.