Interview with Patricia Karvelas, ABC Afternoon Briefing

27 January 2025

PATRICIA KARVELAS: To discuss this and more, let's bring in my regular Monday political panel, Shadow Finance Minister Jane Hume in the studio with me and Employment Minister Murray Watt, live from Brisbane. Welcome to both of you.

MURRAY WATT: G’day PK. G'day, Jane. Congrats on the new programme.

JANE HUME: Great to be with you guys.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: I'm very very lucky to have people as senior as you both and senators. I love senators, as you both know. I want to start with the criticism that the Prime Minister has levelled at Sussan Ley. She’s actually responded this afternoon saying that it was a symptom of the Prime Minister's activist days, that he didn't get this. Murray Watt, I'll begin with you. She obviously thinks it's a fair analogy. What's wrong with it?

MURRAY WATT: Well, I think what the Prime Minister had to say today was entirely valid. And it just shows yet again, that Peter Dutton and his most senior members are always more interested in fighting culture wars than actually providing policies that will help the Australian people when they need that assistance. Over the last two and a half years from Peter Dutton and the Coalition, we've seen culture war after culture war. They spend the entire month of January and half of December arguing about culture wars in the lead up to Australia Day, all as a way of avoiding talking about what they're going to do to assist people. We know from their policies. They've already announced they will be cutting wages, they will be ripping into Medicare again, and they will be removing the cost of living relief that we have provided to people. So I think, again, Sussan Ley's actions are another weird statement from someone who's already said that free TAFE is wasteful spending. And, as Jim Chalmers pointed out, was the first person in the Coalition to say that they opposed our tax cuts. We’re focused on helping people.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Okay Jane Hume was it a wise analogy?

JANE HUME: This is extraordinary that Murray would go into an entire policy manifesto about a speech that was about Australia Day. It was about national pride. The analogy was about that drive and endeavour that Australians have for a prosperous and successful nation. Now, whether it was a clumsy analogy or not, that's for others to say.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: But, you admit…

JANE HUME: That's well, it wasn't my analogy. It wasn't my speech, but the speech was about Australia Day and about Australians. And for the Prime Minister to latch on to one analogy, rather than the sentiment, demonstrates the fact that he actually doesn't take Australia Day seriously, as the Coalition do. This is a really important day for us. I spent the day doing a citizenship ceremony down in Frankston, and you can be very proud of your indigenous heritage at the same time as the British institutions, at the same time as the multicultural nation that you can be. And all you have to do is go to a citizenship ceremony, see the tears in people's eyes to know that this is a great…

PATRICIA KARVELAS (interrupts): But was it a wise analogy? Elon Musk going to Mars and the Australian colonisation?

JANE HUME: Well, we should always strive for more, strive for endeavour, strive for a successful nation. That's what Sussan was talking about. I can't see anything wrong with that.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Okay, I'll bring you in, Murray Watt, because there was a line there I heard from Jane Hume where she said that they take more pride in Australia Day. That's the argument the Coalition's been making. How do you respond to that?

MURRAY WATT: It's just this rubbish argument that we hear for weeks in the lead up to Australia Day every year, from Peter Dutton and his colleagues like Jane Hume. The Prime Minister could not have been more visibly proud of Australia. Celebrating Australia Day, awarding our Australia Day winners. And guess who wasn't there to help celebrate Peter Dutton, the guy who bangs on for weeks about Australia Day and tries to pretend to have this imaginary fight, trying to argue that the government believes things that we don't, then doesn't even have the courtesy to show up to celebrate the Australians of the Year.

JANE HUME: He was at a citizenship ceremony Murray, you know. So don’t be ridiculous.

MURRAY WATT: When Anthony Albanese was the opposition leader, he regularly turned up at Australia Day ceremonies and the Australian of the year awards because it was a bipartisan exercise. Peter Dutton doesn't do that and then wants to run around starting culture wars. And you know why? Because it distracts attention from his plan to cut wages, to cut Medicare, and to cut the cost of living.

JANE HUME: You can make stuff up all you like, Murray, but people have stopped listening. They want to see Australia Day stay on January the 26th, and they want to celebrate Australia Day for what it is.

MURRAY WATT: Australia Day was yesterday. Move on and talk about the fact that you want to provide tax subsidies to bosses, going to lunches…

JANE HUME (talks over): What are you talking about?

MURRAY WATT: Than actually helping people with their cost of living pressures?

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Well, I heard that the words Australia Day was yesterday, which is absolutely true. So I want to move on to another topic because there's a lot to talk about. We are entering, I think, election season very much. Let's talk about the latest Newspoll, if we can. Jane Hume, it does show that you are on the ascendancy. Is this your election to lose?

JANE HUME: Can I just say the obvious, which is the only poll, is the one on election day? That's the only one that matters. And that while polls give you an indication of the pulse of the nation, that doesn't mean that there's any room for complacency. This has been a government that has demonstrated weakness in leadership and incompetence. The cost of living has run out of control, and people are feeling that in the hip pockets, their standard of living has gone backwards. It's gone backwards by about 7.8% in the last three years. Economic growth is stagnating, productivity has gone backwards and we've seen 27,000 businesses go under. That is what's playing out in.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Are you seeing a danger in this idea that this is your election to lose?

JANE HUME: This is our election to win, and we will keep striving every single day…

PATRICIA KARVELAS (interrupts): Are you the underdog?

JANE HUME: to do exactly that, to do exactly that. Well, with the opposition, of course. We're the underdogs. We're not in government. We don't have the benefit of incumbency. And you can see the benefit of incumbency playing out in the $170 million that this government is spending on advertising its own policies, advertising tax cuts that would happen automatically, advertising a Future Made in Australia that hadn't even been legislated. Now it's advertising, strengthening Medicare when bulk billing rates have gone backwards in this country. So there is a benefit of incumbency, there is no doubt. But we will strive every single day to make sure that we get this country back on track.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Murray Watt, I'm not sure how you feel about incumbency. Incumbent governments have certainly been, having a hard time around the world. Is there a benefit of incumbency? How do you see yourself going into this election season?

MURRAY WATT: Well, yeah, I mean, you've only got to look around the world and see that incumbent governments, it is a difficult time that people are really struggling right around the world because of the global inflation surge that Australia hasn't been immune, from. Now, I think, you know, in terms of today's Newspoll, again, it indicates that the next election will be close. And what it makes very clear is that there is a very realistic possibility that Peter Dutton will be the next prime minister of this country. And I think that really brings home to people the choice that people will have at the next election. Do they want a Labor government that has changed our workplace laws in a way that has now seen wages rise above inflation for the first time in years, after ten years of being deliberately kept low by the Coalition. Do they want a government that is actually reversing the decline in bulk billing rates? After Peter Dutton, the worst health minister in Australia's history, began the rot of bringing down bulk billing? Do they want a government that's going to keep supporting them with cost of living relief, or do they want a liberal opposition headed by Peter Dutton, that has already said it's going to take the axe to our cost of living support? So I think the Newspoll does indicate that the choice is real for people and that the risk of Peter Dutton and Coalition is real, and I'm sure that people will give that some attention as we get closer to the election.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: So you're saying the risk of Peter Dutton becoming prime minister as you frame it is real? Is that an acknowledgement from you, Murray Watt, that you can see clearly that despite a big blitz over the summer period, the government is having trouble communicating or landing its messages?

MURRAY WATT: Well, again, you know, we're no different to anywhere else in the world where incumbent governments are feeling some level of backlash from the public because of the pressures that they are in. And that's why we've been working so hard to get wages moving again, provide that cost of living relief. Every single one of those things voted against by Peter Dutton, Jane and her colleagues. When we passed laws to get wages moving again, they voted against them. When we passed laws to provide energy bill relief, they voted against them. When we reworked the tax cuts in a way that was fairer for low and middle income earners, they opposed them and said they wanted to take them to an election. So again, I think that this really brings home the choice that people will have at the next election. We've seen Peter Dutton and Jane and others say that if they win the next election, they will change our workplace laws in a way that will cut people's pay. They're going to review Same Job, Same Pay laws that have improved pay for labour hire workers. They're going to go back to the system where bosses got to determine if someone was a casual worker, even if in reality they were a permanent worker, they're going to cut the scrap. The right to disconnect. These are things they have promised to do. We're not making this up. It's on the record. So that's the sort of future we'd face under Peter Dutton.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Let me give Jane Hume a right to reply there. Very interesting acknowledgement from Murray Watt that he thinks that there's a very, very live chance that Peter Dutton will become prime minister. Well, he thinks your electoral chances are pretty good. You can hear the campaign from Labor really being articulated quite clearly there from Murray Watt, I think on, you know, on issues from wages to cost of living relief. Do you accept that some people will look and think, hang on a minute. You did oppose some of these things that they were coming into Parliament, including the tax three, the stage three tax cuts. What will your answer be to that?

JANE HUME: Well, this has been a government that, with its wrong priorities, its broken promises, like its promise to maintain the stage three tax cuts and its misplaced policies.

PATRICIA KARVELAS (talks over): But didn’t the broken promise make them really popular?

JANE HUME: Actually made the, but it's made the situation worse. Why should you trust a government to say, it's okay? I'm sure we'll get it right next time. When they've failed so dismally in the last three years, they've had their eye off the ball. And in the meantime, we've seen 12 interest rate rises. We've seen prices cumulatively rise by 10%. And people's standard of living go backwards. It's not just that they feel poorer. They in fact, are poorer than they were three years ago. And they gave the government a benefit of the doubt. They gave them a pretty significant honeymoon period. And for that honeymoon period, that first 18 months, they were campaigning on The Voice while people were getting poorer, while things were going backwards. Well, now the government says it's focused on cost of living, but it's too little, too late, and that excessive government spending has kept inflation too high for too long and interest rates too high for too long. They need something different, they need a change. And they're looking to the Coalition for answers.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: I just want to take you before we go to our news headlines, just to the big story around the world. And that is the memorial of the Auschwitz memorial, 80 years. This is obviously a very painful time, but also a reminder of what happens when anti-Semitism goes and rises and so many people died there. The Prime Minister says the nation needs to work together to tackle anti-Semitism, and that Mark Dreyfus argues that you've politicised anti-Semitism. Has there been a politicisation Jane Hume? Does everyone need to take the temperature down?

JANE HUME: Well, there's been such a shift in stance on anti-Semitism that I think has been so confronting for ordinary Australians who are now seeing the Jewish community in Australia under threat, that they feel that they are unsafe in their own communities. That's very un-australian. So at the same time, and in the same breath as Anthony Albanese will say, we have to fight against anti-Semitism. He's then voting in the UN in a divergence from a long standing bipartisan positions that essentially put Israel in the column of our enemies, rather than our allies.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: We want our foreign minister, don't we, to be going to this memorial? For instance, Peter Dutton has raised questions around her going, we want the highest minister turning up to such a thing.

JANE HUME: Well, then the Prime Minister should turn up to it. If it really means that much to him, why isn't he there?

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Do you think he should?

JANE HUME: Be there? I think he probably should be.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Why isn't Peter Dutton there then?

JANE HUME: Well, because he's not the Prime Minister. He's the Opposition Leader. I would love to see the Prime Minister standing there at Auschwitz, because this is such an important day for our Jewish community. You know, this was a crime that was, in fact, an annihilation of 6 million people in a systemic programme that was possibly the most cruel and callous and monstrous crime in our history. Now, if the Prime Minister was sincere about tackling anti-Semitism, we'd do more than just the national cabinet that not just the Coalition, but now his anti-Semitism envoy has been calling for, that came out with nothing more than let's gather more data. He would get serious about anti-Semitism, raise the mandatory, raise the punitive measures, introduce mandatory sentencing for crimes, particularly against places of worship, because that's what the Jewish community expect. That's what they need to feel safe in Australia, in our home, and that's what they deserve.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Murray Watt, I want to give you a right of reply there, Jane Hume saying that the Prime Minister should have in fact gone to the Auschwitz memorial.

MURRAY WATT: Well, every time the Prime Minister goes overseas, the Coalition bagging for that, every time he doesn't go overseas, they bag him for that. It's just cheap political point scoring. And frankly, I would have thought that the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz would be one opportunity for Peter Dutton to not politically point score, but he couldn't avoid it because that's all he does. I think it's really disappointing. It demeans his role as opposition leader and as a prospective prime minister that he wants to politicise even events like the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. And I'd ask Peter Dutton and his colleagues to have a good, hard look at themselves about their constant desire to politicise an extremely serious and disgusting increase in anti-Semitism in our country. Of course, we've argued before about the things that the government has done to tackle this scourge setting up Operation Everlight and which, along with state forces, has now arrested dozens of people, as it should. And I hope those people go to jail for a very long time for what they've done, once that's determined by a court. You know, we've banned hate symbols in a way that Peter Dutton never did when he was in office for nine years. We banned doxing, the practise where malicious information is released primarily against Jewish people. Peter Dutton didn't vote for that legislation.

JANE HUME (talks over): This didn’t happen under a Coalition Murray.

MURRAY WATT: We are actually delivering significant change to tackle anti-Semitism, as any government should, and it would be a nice change to see Peter Dutton actually support that effort on a bipartisan way, rather than looking for cheap shots politically to have a crack at who's representing our country at an important international event. I mean, you know, for crying out loud, Mark Dreyfus is there, the attorney general, his grandmother died at Auschwitz, and Peter Dutton wants to have a fight about who represents our country. And as I say, it's just so that he can start wars on all sorts of issues in order to avoid talking about other things that Australians are very concerned about.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Well, Murray Watt, Jane Hume you will be our regular Monday panel. It's so excellent to get you together and look over the big issues of the day. Thank you so much.