Interview with Peter Stefanovic, First Edition

25 March 2025

PETER STEFANOVIC: Shadow Finance Minister Jane Hume, live in Canberra. What do you make of that, particularly on this Budget morning?

JANE HUME: Unfortunately, Pete, that's not a surprising analysis. We've been saying for some time in the Coalition that the cost of living has been the number one issue for all Australians. In fact, Australians are around 8% worse off now than they were when the Albanese Government came to power. That's how much your standard of living has gone backwards under this government. Which is why it's so important that tonight at the Budget, we want to see, first and foremost, that the government can restore our standard of living, our lost standard of living, that Deloitte Access Economics say won't come back now until 2030 on current settings. We want to see inflation come under control sustainably, not just Band Aid solutions, but a sustainable reduction in prices. Most important, we want to see a restoration of our prosperity and opportunity, because we have to grow the economy in a way that's going to give opportunities for all and finally, we want to see those Budget disciplines, those guardrails, put back into our system, so that we can guarantee that in the future, Budgets won't run out of control, spending won't run out of control, debt won't run out of control. Those guardrails are a discipline that have served Australians well for so many decades. They've disappeared under this government. We have to see a Budget that's going to deliver not just for the next five weeks, but for the next five years.

PETER STEFANOVIC: So just on spending and discipline. There has been huge spending, to be sure, but the Coalition has matched most of the recent policies. So how is that more disciplined spending on your part?

JANE HUME: Well, actually, over the last three years, we've disagreed. We've knocked back around $100 billion worth of spending ambitions of the Labor Government. Now, some of those unfortunately got through the Parliament anyway, but that doesn't mean to say that we agreed with them. In fact, spending would have been far more disciplined under a Coalition Government, because of those really important fiscal guardrails. If you allow your spending to grow at a faster rate than the economy over the medium term, over the long term, well, of course, you're going to end up with deficits, as far as the eye can see. That's why we want to see a return to structural balanced Budgets over the medium term. I would love to see say that a Coalition Government could deliver that in one or two years, but so much of this Labor spending has been baked in, that's going to be really hard to unwind, but under a Coalition Government, you'll see a restoration of those disciplines that will take us back to a structural balanced Budget over the long term.

PETER STEFANOVIC: Long term, you mean 10 years?

JANE HUME: Well, medium term, that's 10 years.

PETER STEFANOVIC: They, I mean, they did get two surpluses. Unemployment is still low, inflation is coming down, wages are moving upwards. So could the economic story be worse?

JANE HUME: Don't you think that those surpluses are such a disappointment? I mean, we said at the time that they were windfall surpluses. Jim Chalmers and Katy Gallagher claimed that it was because of good fiscal management. But if that's the case, why is it that we've now got deficits as far as the eye can see? Those windfall surpluses, unfortunately, have been squandered. They've been wasted away, and now we've got red ink on every single page. That's not good economic management. The only reason those surpluses took place at all was because of high commodity prices and because of the hard work of Australian families managing their budgets in a cost of living crisis, because of those high inflation rates and high interest rates. That's not good economic management.

PETER STEFANOVIC: Jane, just a quick one to squeeze in here. Police looking at a second Amelia Hamer sign tampered with in the Victorian seat of Kooyong. What are your thoughts on that?

JANE HUME: Well, I think police are investigating that second incident, but the first one was quite eye opening. It's very, very disappointing that somebody that preaches integrity in public could do this behind the scenes. However, I suppose we shouldn't be surprised. Monique Ryan confronted some of our young volunteers and said, if we wanted to play, get dirty, get dirty tactics, well then she'd participate in dirty tactics and now that's what we're seeing.

PETER STEFANOVIC: Jane, we'll leave it there. Thank you. We'll chat again soon.