Interview with Raf Epstein, ABC Melbourne Mornings

16 October 2024

RAF EPSTEIN: Jane Hume is Shadow Finance Minister. She is one of the Liberal Senators for Victoria. She's part of Peter Dutton's Shadow Cabinet. Jane Hume, good morning.

JANE HUME: Good morning Raf, I know the answer to your question.

RAF EPSTEIN: No, don't say it on the air.

JANE HUME: I know, I know, but I'm so excited that I know it.

RAF EPSTEIN: I'm not going to make a comment because I don't want to imply it's either easy or hard to know the answer. Simple question, does it matter that the PM bought a house?

JANE HUME: Look, his personal circumstances don't matter. In fact, personal circumstances of politicians shouldn't matter at all. I think the question is more about timing and the tone deafness of it. There's a lot of Australians out there, out there that are struggling, not just with the cost of living, although that is the number one issue, but also with housing, finding appropriate housing, finding a place that they can rent, finding a place that they can afford to buy, and the fact that he has bought this house, this very, looks like a lovely place, is probably inappropriate at this time and of course, it also means that his colleagues now have to go up and out and clean up on media to try and explain this decision away. You can imagine that, you know, Australians are waking up today and asking themselves the question, was this the right call for a Prime Minister to make right now?

RAF EPSTEIN: So if we're talking about his property, then, like, have you got an investment property?

JANE HUME: I don't. I don't, unfortunately.

RAF EPSTEIN: Is it a fair question to ask a politician every time they come on the radio? Have you got a property beyond your own house?

JANE HUME: I don't know whether it is. I don't know whether it is. You know, people's personal circumstances are their own, and you don't know (interrupted).

RAF EPSTEIN (INTERRUPTS): I’m just trying to find the line there, forgive the interruption Jane, because you're not sure if I should ask everyone if they’ve got an investment property, you aren't, you're willing to criticise the PM, I'm just trying to work out when you think we should or shouldn't talk about the politician's personal circumstance?

JANE HUME: Let me be clear again, I'm not criticising his decision. If he wants to make decisions for his family, if he wants to make decisions for his retirement and his marriage and all those things, that's fine. It's the timing and the tone that is the problem, and it means (interrupted).

RAF EPSTEIN (INTERRUPTS): But criticising the timing is criticising him. Is there really a separation? That's a false separation, isn't it?

JANE HUME: Well, I don't think it is. I think making this decision while he's Prime Minister, at a time when people are really struggling with the housing crisis and struggling with the cost of living, was a little tone deaf. It was tin-eared. Now, that's on him. They're questions for him to answer. But what people own and how they own, we make declarations. It's all made public. Indeed, as I think you mentioned earlier, the ABC have done an entire article on everything that politicians own, and that's the right to do. So that's why we make the declarations. But I think this one was a mistake, and I would imagine that his colleagues feel that way too, because they're the ones that are going out and doing the clean-up today.

RAF EPSTEIN: Quarter past nine. Jane Hume is with us from Peter Dutton's team. She's Shadow Finance Minister. I suppose maybe, maybe the biggest question for you as Shadow Minister, Jane Hume, you guys spoke up hill and down dale last time you were in opposition about a debt and deficit disaster, you doubled the debt before covid. You said you'd produce a surplus, and you didn't. That is, like, that's, that is a core, key part of your party's identity. You spoke about a debt and deficit disaster. You doubled the debt before covid. Why should we trust you this time?

JANE HUME: Well, Raf, in fact, we balanced the budget at MYEFO in 2019, just before covid hit and thank heavens we did. Because if we hadn't had that balanced budget back in 2019 we wouldn't have had the power to be able to respond to covid economically the way we did.

RAF EPSTEIN (INTERRUPTS): Not an answer to the debt question.

JANE HUME: But unfortunately, debt is one of those things that accumulates, and the more you bake in government spending into your budget bottom line, well, that can (interrupted).

RAF EPSTEIN (INTERRUPTS): You had six or seven years to address the debt, and in that six or seven years, you doubled the debt. This is a question that goes to the heart of your claims for government and credibility. You doubled the debt. How come?

JANE HUME: Sorry Raf, we also grew the economy and we grew the economy at a faster rate than we grew government spending. Unfortunately, this government has not done that. Economic growth is stagnating, yet government spending now is higher than it was at the peak of covid. So that makes your structural deficit far worse. It's why we've been pushing the government to make sure that its fiscal response (interrupted).\

RAF EPSTEIN (INTERRUPTS): You didn’t do it.

JANE HUME: Well, Raf under us, the economy grew (interrupted).

RAF EPSTEIN (INTERRUPTS): And so did the debt.

JANE HUME: And government expenditure grew at a slower rate than the economy. That's one of those guardrails that we want around budgets, around fiscal responsibility, and something that the Coalition has been talking about.

RAF EPSTEIN: They delivered two surpluses, you never delivered a surplus. This government has delivered two.

JANE HUME: There had to be a lot, was a long period of time to get that budget back into a balanced position prior to covid, when we responded to covid (interrupted).

RAF EPSTEIN (INTERRUPTS): You’re not taking credit for them getting a surplus are you?

JANE HUME: Well Raf, we actually had a balanced budget in 2019 and then, as you know, we threw the kitchen sink at covid and that was what people expected us to do.

RAF EPSTEIN (INTERRUPTS): You can't take credit for a surplus, you can't take credit for a surplus over the last few years because you've balanced the budget three years earlier, before covid. That is like, are you really saying that you are, the Coalition is the reason this government delivered a surplus years later?

JANE HUME: No, no Raf. You're saying that.

RAF EPSTEIN: Ok, well, tell me if I’ve heard it wrong.

JANE HUME: No, yeah, you have. The reason why the government has delivered a surplus is twofold. One is inflation, because inflation delivers bracket creep. Everybody hates inflation, except for governments, because it means that their revenues increase from bracket creep, when people move up the income scales and deliver more and more tax and the other reason that this government has delivered a budget surplus is from high commodity prices. Now they're windfall gains. They're not structural changes. And unfortunately, this government has shied away from, its shrunk away from, those genuine reforms that would deliver structural change. Now we said when we went into opposition, that we would work with the government to make structural changes to the budget on aged care, on NDIS. But unfortunately, unless the Coalition has pushed them into making those changes, the government hasn't done it, and, in fact, has made the situation worse. We're now spending more than we did at the height of covid. That should be an alarm bell for Australians that want to see a fiscal responsible government.

RAF EPSTEIN: I think the government's going to use your dodge about an expanding economy. But in the time that I've got left as Shadow Finance Minister, the government's announced a range of things they're targeting. Extra charges on debit cards, surge pricing for tickets. I'm assuming you're generally supportive of where they're going, all those little extra charges we are all paying. They're trying to reduce them. Do you support that?

JANE HUME: Well, I saw this announcement this morning, and the first thing that occurred to me was, it does sound like a plan for a plan for a plan. Whether anything actually gets legislated is another question.

RAF EPSTEIN: Well it’s called process.

JANE HUME: Well, this will be the third announcement in as many weeks that Labor has made on a crackdown on something. The first was on shrinkflation, and yet, last week, with the Cost of Living Committee, government, the Public Service officials, couldn't tell us how the government's plan to tackle shrinkflation was actually going to make a single difference, a bit of difference at the checkout. The next was on surcharges, but that was only on debit cards. It's not on credit cards and actually, this is a review that the RBA was already doing. Now, today's announcement, I'm sure, will be welcome, but unless it's going to make a difference to the cost of living right now, I think Australians will rightly be cynical.

RAF EPSTEIN: You blocked most of their measures that made a difference on cost of living. You blocked like the energy bill relief?

JANE HUME: Well no, in fact, the energy bill relief went through, and Australians were pleased to see it, I'm sure. But as Bill Shorten said on an ABC program, it wouldn't have even touched the sides. What people want to see is genuine change, that is going to increase supply of energy and bring down prices in both the medium and the long term, because low energy prices are one of the great drivers of productivity, they also want to see changes to industrial relations laws to make sure that the balance has shifted back between the employer as well as the employee, so we can employ more people, but we can do so in a way that that doesn't mean so many of our businesses, and particularly small businesses, aren't struggling under the strain of cost of living and cost of doing business pressures, and we want to see a deregulation agenda. My concern is that some of the announcements today, may in fact, double up on State laws and that will simply add another red tape burden on small businesses that are already, just hearing under the burden of regulations. They're telling us this every single day, the government seems to have an anti-productivity agenda rather than a productivity agenda. We want to see an agenda that's going to grow the economy and bring down the cost of living for households.

RAF EPSTEIN: Thank you for your time today.

JANE HUME: Great to be with you, Raf.