Interview with Peter Stefanovic, First Edition

16 September 2024

PETER STEFANOVIC: Will train for a minority government and win the next federal election, according to a Freshwater Poll out this morning that's in the Australian Financial Review. Joining us live is the shadow finance minister Jane Hume. So Jane, a poll is, of course, just a snapshot in time, but are you still buoyed by that this morning?

JANE HUME: Pete, won't come as any surprise if I say that the only poll that matters to the Coalition is the one on election day.

PETER STEFANOVIC: Yeah, I get all that, but you must be, you must be energised by these numbers today. Are you not?

JANE HUME: Well, to tell you the truth, I don't know whether energised is the phrase I’d use. Because the reason why these numbers are so bad is because Australians have woken up to the fact that they are worse off under Labor. That they are worse off than there were two and a half years to go years ago. That Labor have taken their eye off the ball and allowed inflation to run out of control, and that's affecting everybody's hip pocket. That their real disposable income has gone backwards by 8.7% because of high inflation, high interest rates being pushed up by that high inflation and higher taxes. It's not that people are just feeling poor, they, in fact, are poorer, and that's now playing out in their sentiment towards the government. At the same time, we've also seen the economy going backwards. Productivity going backwards.

PETER STEFANOVIC: If you’re in minority government, if all this is true, who are you going to team up with? Who are you going to buddy up with to get things done?

JANE HUME: Well, we have no intention of being a minority government Pete. It would come as no surprise that the Coalition has said from the very beginning of this term of government that we intend to return to government benches in our own right and and that's that's the plan. Quite frankly, the Albanese government has an awful lot to answer for here. If the public are coming out with baseball bats, that's on them, and they have good reason to do so, because they've essentially taken their eye off the ball. They're fighting everything other than inflation and the cost of living is the number one issue. Everything has gone up under labor. Gas has gone up 33% rents have gone up by 16% electricity has gone up by 14% and that's after subsidies. Food's gone up 12% no wonder people are angry with Labor.

PETER STEFANOVIC: Okay. Just want to get to this Moira Deeming, John Pesutto defamation trial. It starts in Melbourne today. Could well be weeks of claims and counter claims. How damaging could this be for the Vic libs, just as polling suggests they were on the right track?

JANE HUME: Again, you know, I can't comment on a case that's before the courts. I think that the Victorian people have made it pretty clear that what's important to them is the fact that they have been living now for years under a chaotic, incompetent, and, let's face it, corrupt government, and that's what they're crying out for help on. This is not, this is not a first order issue for Victorians who are really doing it tough in this cost of living crisis. It's in Victoria, where housing prices are going backwards, but rents are still going through the roof. In fact, rents are going faster there than almost anywhere else in Australia. Taxes are higher than anywhere else in Victoria. Growth is going backwards, unemployment is going up and inflation is higher. So no wonder Victorians are angry with Jacinta Alan and her corrupt and incompetent Labor government. They are the canary in the coal mine for bad economic management under a Labor Government.

PETER STEFANOVIC: Just trying to squeeze in some questions before I go to this press conference in Florida Jane. News Corp papers reporting today your own Liberal MPs want to revoke tax cuts. Is this true?

JANE HUME: It will come as no surprise that the Coalition wants lower and simpler, fairer taxes. We've been saying that for a long period of time, when stage three tax cuts were reversed, one of the key reforms, which was to remove that insidious bracket creep disappeared, and that's really unfortunate. Restoring stage three tax cuts as they were, will be impossible because of the cost involved. The fact that this government has so little appetite for tax reform, I think is a grave disappointment. That said we've already announced significant tax tax policies going into the next election that we would increase the threshold of the instant asset write off and make it a permanent feature of the tax system. We certainly won't be touching negative gearing and capital gains tax, and most importantly, we will repeal the superannuation tax on unrealised capital gains. But there will be more announcements from the Coalition on our tax policy.

PETER STEFANOVIC: Why do you want to clip the wings, then, of self funded retirees who've worked hard their lives and paid their fair share of taxes. Now they've got to pay more for aged care.

JANE HUME: We know that the aged care system needs reform, because the most important thing is to create a sustainable aged care system into the future. There's going to be a demand for over 100,000 new aged care beds just in the next 20 years alone. And yet, at the moment, none are being built, and about 50% of our aged care centers, residential aged care centers, are in the red. That's not a sustainable aged care system. We said at the outset of this term of government that we would work with the Government in any sensible reforms that they had to aged care to make sure that there's a sustainable aged care system into the future. That's what we've done. We've worked on a financial framework where the burden for that aged care reform is shared by everybody in an equitable way. That set that legislation will now be brought on, and we'll get a chance for proper scrutiny within the Senate where it should be, where it should have been months ago, we'll get to hear back from stakeholders, they will have their say.

PETER STEFANOVIC: Okay, Jane, we'll leave it there, appreciate it though, we'll talk to you again soon.