Interview with Natalie Barr, Sunrise

4 September 2024

NATALIE BARR: The latest GDP figures are set to be released this morning and they’re expected to show the slowest economic growth since the end of the 90s recession. It comes after figures yesterday revealed Australia's account balance plummeted $4.4 billion over the June quarter, prompting a war of words in Canberra about where to lay the blame. For their take, let's bring in Shadow Finance Minister Jane Hume and Housing Minister Clare O'Neil. Clare, we'll start with you. Inflation slowing behind expectations and growth is expected to hit a five year low. Things are not looking too good, are they?

CLARE O’NEIL: Well, we are going to see some economic figures today that the government's concerned about. But your viewers at home don't need any economic figures to tell them that our country is doing it really tough right now. And that's why our government is doing everything we can to help households manage those cost of living pressures that they're facing. The tax cuts that kicked in on the 1st of July energy bill, price relief, those big changes to bulk billing and prescription medicines. And by the way, a million jobs have been created while we've been in office. So these are really important measures, but not the other really, you know, big and important thing we need to do is make sure that we're managing the budget in a way that assists the economy to recover. So we've seen two back to back liberal deficits turned into labor surpluses. So I recognise that things are really tough out there for people and just know that the government is doing everything in our power to help households and get the economy back on track.

NATALIE BARR: Yeah, on the ground, though, it's hard. I think something like 10,000 businesses have gone out of business in the last year. Jane, you hit back at the Treasurer recently saying Labor’'s decisions have put a handbrake on the economy. How can the government get our finances moving again? What would you do?

JANE HUME: Well, that's a good question, Nat, because you're right. Jim Chalmers seems to have blamed everybody else other than himself. First of all, he blamed international factors. He's called Peter Dutton divisive. Now he's blaming Michele Bullock for not lowering interest rates sooner. But the fact is the economy is stagnating. We've been in a GDP per capita recession already for the last 12 months. Interest rates are not coming down anytime soon.

NATALIE BARR (interrupts): We know that. So what would you do?

JANE HUME: Inflation is still too high and productivity has gone backwards in this country. Well, unless you can sustainably get your inflation under control by reining in that government urge to spend, unless you can sustainably get energy prices down by putting more supply into the system, unless you can make your industrial relations system more flexible, not less flexible. Wind back your red tape and your green tape to get those projects and those businesses, you know, thriving again and get taxes lower and simpler and fairer, well, you're going to continue to have an economy that just bumps along the bottom rather than prospers and thrives.

NATALIE BARR: We'll get those figures in today. Let's have a look at this topic. There are growing calls this morning for dental to be included on Medicare. The Prime Minister is facing internal pressure, with several Labor MPs calling for the issue to be part of the government's agenda in the next parliamentary term. Clare, do you think Medicare should also cover dental in some way?

CLARE O'NEIL: Well, I think it's a really important point that's being made. Nat and a lot of your viewers at home probably wonder why. You know, when something goes wrong with the rest of their body, it's covered by Medicare, but if it relates to teeth or oral health, it's not covered by Medicare. So Labor's policies with regard to Medicare this term are really clear. You've seen us make big investments in bulk billing to turn around that bulk billing rate, those changes to prescription medicine, rolling out Medicare health clinics across the country, these are really big and important reforms to our healthcare system. But I'm not surprised to see Labor MPs raising this because Labor is the party of Medicare. We invented it, and in each term of government, we do big and important things to protect this most important part of our healthcare system in Australia.

NATALIE BARR: So do you think dental should be included in Medicare?

CLARE O'NEIL: It's not Labor's policy for this term, but I just make that point that I'm not surprised to see Labor people raising this because it's a really important issue for our constituents.

NATALIE BARR: Jane, what about the Coalition? I think the cost would be about $45 billion a year. It's a lot, but a lot of people need it too.

JANE HUME: It's an enormous amount. And no, it's not Coalition policy. But I'm not surprised to hear that Labor backbenchers are now beginning to panic and actually adopting Green's policy rather than abiding by the policies of Cabinet. Today, we've heard that there are more leaks coming out from Cabinet. This does seem to be a Government that is beginning to panic. The whites of their eyes are showing in the lead up to the next election, and they're lashing out and grabbing hold of any lifeline they can, but the most important thing that they can do is get the economy under control.

NATALIE BARR: Let's talk about social media. This is something that is on every family's radar I guess. Social media giants have been put on notice to do more to protect kids online. Australia's eSafety Commissioner has given the platforms 30 days to provide data on the number of children who hold accounts and outline how they block underage users. It comes as the Commission considers imposing further age limits on social media sites. Clare, are you hopeful these companies will respond to the eSafety Commissioner's request?

CLARE O'NEIL: Yeah, I mean, well, responding is the least that they could do. I'm a parent of three young children, and I absolutely know that one of the most stressful things about parenting in today's age is just that worry you have about what your kids are able to access online and who they might be talking to. It's something that we didn't even have to think about a generation ago. We do want those social media giants to step up and do more. You know, often they'll say the right things in the media. I see them doing bugger all about helping protect our young people online. So the eSafety Commissioner is out collecting that information, and the government is looking at ways that we can try to help better protect young people. The issue, of course, is around enforcement, and so that's the work that the Safety Commissioner is doing with those platforms.

NATALIE BARR: Yeah, Jane, it's hard, isn't it, because what do we do? We're now asking them how many kids are on their platforms. What if they just don't provide the information.

JANE HUME: Well, this is something that the Coalition announced some time ago, that we believe that kids under the age of 16 shouldn't go on to social media without parental consent, and the Government agreed. And in fact, they announced in May that they were going to have a trial of age verification software to ensure that kids can't get onto social media without that verification. But nothing's happened since May. There's been no tender put out for that contract. There's been no person appointed to make sure that that happens. That's a real concern. So it relies on the eSafety Commissioner to do the hard work here. Hopefully the social media giants will respond, because this is really important.

NATALIE BARR: Yeah, and I'm not sure any of that software is in operation anywhere around the world. We might check into that. It's a really hard one that we all want, but it's really hard to enforce at the moment. Thank you very much. We'll talk to you next week.