Interview with Natalie Barr, Sunrise
26 March 2025
NATALIE BARR: Now the Treasurer's pre-election Budget held little surprises for many Aussies overnight except one, tax cuts for every single Australian. The government is hoping to sway millions of undecided voters with modest cuts which would end up saving the average earner $536 a year but the plan won't kick in until the middle of next year, where it starts by letting taxpayers keep only an extra $5 per week. For their take let's bring in Shadow Finance Minister Jane Hume and Independent Senator Jacqui Lambie, good morning to both of you. Jane, Angus Taylor says the Coalition is not going to support these ones, but he said 70 cents a day, at a time when people are doing it tough isn't enough. Does that mean you're going to do bigger tax cuts?
JANE HUME: Nat, this clearly was a Budget not for five years or even fifty years, this is a Budget for the next five weeks. The tax cuts that have been introduced by this Labor Government are an insult to those families that have been doing it so tough for so long. An average family has gone backwards by around $50,000 under Labor. People are poorer under Labor, because their standard of living has gone backwards by 8%. 73 cents a day in 15 months time is nothing, it's not even going to touch the sides for most Australians, that's why we won't be supporting what is clearly a cruel hoax and an election bribe.
NATALIE BARR: Okay so you want big tax cuts, is that it?
JANE HUME: Well we want to see genuine tax reform, but at a time when we can afford to do so because let's face it the Budget is in the red as far as the eye can see. We're looking at a $42 billion deficit just this year and we've now officially hit it, it's a trillion dollars in debt so I'll tell you.
NATALIE BARR (TALKS OVER): Weren't you against the last tax cuts?
JANE HUME: I'll tell you who's really worse off and that is the next generation of Australians
NATALIE BARR: Weren't you against the last tax cuts, but you want bigger ones now?
JANE HUME: We supported the last tax cut because let's face it Australians were really doing it tough, that was a meaningful change. This is simply an election bribe, it's a cruel hoax being placed on Australians, it's entirely unfair. Clearly this was a Budget that Labor didn't want to deliver, when they realised that they had to this is all they came up with. I think it's profoundly disappointing and Australians should be rightly upset.
NATALIE BARR: Jacqui, you look like you want to say something, is it a cruel hoax? What do you think of the tax cut announcement?
JACQUI LAMBIE: Oh my goodness, I cannot wait to see their Budget reply on Thursday night. What have they become the Grinch or something? Have they, because quite frankly, let's be honest, the Opposition Treasurer Angus Taylor has been an absolute trainwreck the last three days. Even Sky is calling it. Seriously, what is in your Budget paper apart from you spending $360 billion on nuclear power plant that is completely going to blow out of proportion, so let's be conservative and say that's going to cost $500 billion and that is the best plan of attack that we heard you come out with.
JANE HUME: I don't know what numbers you’re using there Jacqui, that’s nonsense.
JACQUI LAMBIE: If that is all I don't I, I you know, I if that is the best thing and that's the only thing you've got to say this morning and people are doing it so tough and they're trying to give them every bit of room, whether it's on the PBS, or anything else um, putting more GPs in, all the rest, you know, putting the public service in that you are going to cut Jane. I want to know this this morning. Are you going to go in and cut Veterans Affairs again? Are you going to put that out to consultants because you took a lot of my mates out over that nine years and you spent $20 billion of taxpayers money to consultancy firms. Are we going back to those days Jane, because veterans want to know that this morning. Are you going back and moving those public servants who are finally finding their seat over such complex medical issues, are you going to cut the guts out of DVA, are you going to contract that out again?
JANE HUME: I’m sorry Jacqui, I have no idea what it is that you’re talking about.
NATALIE BARR (TALKS OVER): I know what she's talking about.
JACQUI LAMBIE (TALKS OVER): I asked you about your Public Service cuts. Oh my god.
NATALIE BARR: I have a very good idea Jane what she's talking about, because it’s one of the Coalition's policies, seems to be to cut public servants by tens of thousands, but as we know with the Morrison Government, then a lot of consultants are hired back, at sometimes a bigger cost i think that's what we're talking about here, Jane.
JANE HUME: So during Covid, of course we hired consultants to come in and help us, because we needed to bolster, we needed to bolster the public service to deal with the Covid crisis. Now unfortunately...
JACQUI LAMBIE (TALKS OVER): Oh my god.
JANE HUME:...we've actually, not only has the public service blown out by more than 36,000 now it's now 41,000 new public servants, that's more than a 20% increase in just 3 years alone.
NATALIE BARR (TALKS OVER): But didn’t you hire 54,000 consultants?
JANE HUME: Yet standards of services to the public have diminished. It now takes about 76 days to apply for an age pension and yet it was only 30 days under a Coalition Government.
NATALIE BARR (TALKS OVER): But you’re going to cut them.
JANE HUME: It now takes five times longer to apply for a low income card than it did under a Coalition Government and yet we've now seen about 7 and a half thousand people added to the Services Australia payroll. Not only that, have we seen people added to the payroll, but they've been given an 11% pay rise and that hasn't been accounted for in this Budget. Public sector wages are flatline. Somewhere, there is a black hole in this Budget and we need Katy Gallagher and Jim Chalmers to front up and tell us where it is.
NATALIE BARR: Let's go on the energy rebate, Jacqui, you have had something big to say on that?
JACQUI LAMBIE: Yeah I absolutely have, it hasn't been targeted and we have spent billions of dollars giving people like myself and you Nat too and I'm sure that you don't need it, tax cuts neither does Jane Hume she does not need those tax cuts. Now if we have targeted those people that actually need that money down here we could have tripled what they are getting and giving them a bigger cut or at least giving them something else on the table. That is really worrying, we don't target things very well um in this country and it's like Defence spend. We have a lot of waste in there because we don't target, that's where a lot of taxpayers money is going and Jane Hume once again I want to get back to those public servants, because I want to know how many public servants you are going to get rid of in Tasmania. Because most of those public servants, darling, are not sitting here in Canberra. They're not sitting there, how many are you taking from Tasmania today?
JANE HUME: Jacqui, I, again...
JACQUI LAMBIE (TALKS OVER): No idea, because you don't have a plan of attack Jane. All I've heard out of you this Budget is negative negative negative, but you have no answers.
JANE HUME: That’s because the future of Australia is at stake here Jacqui.
NATALIE BARR (TALKS OVER). They are not sitting in Canberra, they are in Queensland and Victoria and regional centers.
JANE HUME: I'm sorry, I don’t hear what the question is.
JACQUI LAMBIE: You have no plan of attack, you keep going and going and going, it's all negative and you have no plan of attack. Australians are starting to laugh at you. You are becoming a joke, the Liberal Party is becoming a joke, because there is nothing on paper that is positive in what you're going to do for this nation.
JANE HUME: We have a plan to get Australia, we have a plan to get Australia back on track. We need to get the economy back to basics, we need to make sure we bring down power prices by putting gas into the system, we need to get affordable homes to ordinary Australians, we need to rein in this migration program that's gone out of control, 1.8 million migrants and we need to keep Australians safe most importantly. That's what you'll be hearing in the Budget reply on Thursday night and you can wait until Thursday night before you hear the details.
NATALIE BARR (TALKS OVER): Ladies just before we go, Jacqui, this election is neck and neck and it hasn't even been called yet. It may, the future of this country may be in the hands of Independents, who are you swaying towards?
JANE HUME: Heaven help us.
JACQUI LAMBIE: You know what it is um and that's really rude Jane, those Independents, those Teals down there have actually really performed since they've been in, so give them a go.
JANE HUME: Really?
JACQUI LAMBIE: From one woman to another, that was not polite. Yes, they have...
JANE HUME (TALKS OVER): Don’t call me darling, darling.
JACQUI LAMBIE: So, have a look at their performance, I know that you people don't like them, okay, so you know it's it's there's just no need for that. They've performed really well. Let's be honest, you just don't want them in there, that's really frightening. There, you know what there is a place for every ordinary Australian in this Parliament and every move that you make when you're doing electoral reform, you're taking every chance off them and that's the truth of the matter.
NATALIE BARR: Okay, we might leave it there. Thank you very much for having your say both of you, we'll see you next week.