Interview with Steve Price, Paul Murray Live

20 August 2023

STEVE PRICE: And joining me first though is Shadow Finance Minister Senator Jane Hume. Senator, great to catch up with you. I just mentioned the ALP conference. They're very tricky things for a sitting Prime Minister. What did you make of that rallying speech to get 25,000 people out door knocking over the referendum and the yes case?

JANE HUME: I did notice in that opening speech that Anthony Albanese only mentioned the voice a couple of times, spoke about the cost of living an awful lot and yet there doesn't seem to have been a single policy, a single amendment, a single proposal to actually do anything about the cost of living, which is why it seems to have been left to the Coalition, to the Opposition, to remind the Government that this is their first responsibility because that's what's most important to all Australians, and that's why I'm here in Adelaide tonight, so that we can hold a cost of living committee inquiry tomorrow, and tomorrow we're discussing Transport and Tourism, which of course the prices of both had gone up and shot through the roof and we're also discussing the costs that are affecting small businesses. Then on Tuesday and Wednesday, we head out into remote and regional communities which of course have their own cost of living pressures, quite unique ones too. So we're going to be in Port Augusta and also in Alice Springs in the next two days to speak to people with community forums and also, I'm just going to do a little plug here if you don't mind Steve.

STEVE PRICE: Yeah, go for it.

JANE HUME: We would actually really like to hear from your viewers. Your viewers too, we have a website where you can do a five minute survey on how cost of living pressures are affecting you. So it's yourcostofliving.au, and your viewers can tell us, in Government how the cost of living pressures are affecting them, whether it's grocery prices, whether it's energy prices, it might be fuel, it might be housing, mortgages and rent, whatever it is, we want to hear about it because quite frankly, the Government has dropped the ball on this issue. It's raised the white flag and shrugged its shoulders and we want to see them do more to help you with what's most important to you, rather than talking about themselves at their annual conference, at their National Conference and, you know, let's face it to trying stop the CFMEU from running the nation's defence policy.

STEVE PRICE: In simple practical terms though, so what can a cost of living committee made up of opposition MPs actually do?

JANE HUME: Well, it's not just opposition MPs, I should say that there are Greens Senators and there are also members of the Labor Senate as well that are members of this cost of living committee. What we're looking for is implementable and practical solutions that perhaps people may not have thought about things like reductions in red tape, improving competition, reducing regulation and also there's opportunities to do things like remove tax barriers to encourage investment to improve competition in something like you know, energy. You know, we know that supply is one of the big issues, as it is in housing. So how do we open up more supply of housing to bring down costs for all Australians because let's face it, when inflation is high, the cost of living will keep increasing and right now that core inflation is more than double the RBA’s 2 to 3% band. The Government seems to have turned over the responsibility for reducing the cost of living to the Reserve Bank. The Reserve Bank only has one tool in the shed, you know, it's only got interest rates. So that keeps ratcheting up because we're living trying to bring down inflation. We want to find implementable practical solutions that the Government can implement to reduce its pressure on inflation and that way, that's the only sustainable way to bring down the cost of living for all Australians.

STEVE PRICE: I know you've not started on this yet, but I mean, what are you hearing anecdotally about how tough it is for people out there? I mean, I'm in Sydney at the moment and where I'm actually staying at the moment, I have been quite surprised at the number of homeless people who are sleeping out rough in the streets, which in a city as wealthy as Sydney, I just shake my head when I see that and think to myself, what's Australia doing to these people? So what are you hearing about how hard people are actually doing it right now, Senator?

JANE HUME: Some of the statistics that we're hearing are really quite confronting and particularly from the charities and not for profit sectors and we've been hearing a lot from organisations like FoodBank and the Salvation Army and St. Vincent De Paul. Things like the increased demand for services from financial counselors, because people are finding themselves in debt that they simply can't find a way out of. FoodBank has seen such an explosion in demand for their services, because people can't afford to put food on the table anymore. In fact, one of the food charities when we said to them, what's the one thing that the Government could do to help you because, you know, there's been such incredible demand for their services for ordinary people, sometimes two income families, and they said, if we could bring down interest rates, that would make a difference, because all of a sudden they're seeing families with mortgages, for the first time asking for the help from charities because of that increased cost of living, that's really confronting and it should be a wake up call for Government that this is their number one priority. Reducing the cost of living must be their number one priority. Because unless you can bring down inflation, well then you're simply going to see your purchasing power eroded, your savings eaten up and your standard of living reduced, and if a Government has one responsibility, it is to improve the standard of living for the population.

STEVE PRICE: We're doing the numbers, we see today in the Sunday papers the Treasurer next week, Jim Chalmers, is expected to release the Intergenerational Report. Now, I was quite surprised when I heard that this report throws ahead up to 40 years, but it is expected to show huge amounts of money ballooning in Government spending over those next 40 years. Particularly on aged care, because we're getting as a nation older healthcare, which always soaks up so much of our Budget. The NDIS, just seems I mean, you know, we all are largely supportive of the NDIS but there are parts of it being rorted as Bill Shorten has told us, and that's gonna start draining our coffers as well plus defence. So 140 billion is the estimate that we'll have to raise extra each year between now and those 40 years. That's an almost impossible task without a complete change to the way the economy is run, isn't it?

JANE HUME: Well, it does sound to me like a Trojan horse for raising taxes, an excuse to not go ahead with those stage three tax cuts. But let's face it, this whatever we've seen for the Intergenerational Report, and you're right, we've only seen a little bit of it so far, is nothing new, in fact, the Intergenerational Report from only two years ago, because Jim Chalmers has brought forward the Intergenerational Report, used to be every five years, now it's once every term of Government, is actually no real news here and not only that, but the Budget said the same, that we knew that aged care that in the NDIS and that health, we're going to be the three biggest costs to the Budget. What it doesn't do, unfortunately, is provide any solutions particularly to things like growing the economy, so that as a proportion of the economy, those additional costs aren't on a growing proportion of the economy. So I think that's a real concern. With the NDIS, you're absolutely right, the costs are skyrocketing. In the last term of Government, we did propose some reforms to the NDIS, which were knocked back by the Government. Of course, now that Labor are in power, they've looked at the NDIS and realised that it is out of control. It's growing at around 14% per annum. Now, what they've decided to do and what they announced in the Budget in May, is that they would reduce those costs to only 8% per annum. Problem is, there were no policies to back up that promise. It was just pulled out of thin air. They said, well, that's right. Well, we'll work that out at a conference that we're going to do in November. Well, you know, you can't budget that way. You can't say, you know, we're gonna put a price cap on a cost cap audit. That's not how budgets work. So let's see some policies that are actually going to reduce the NDIS. The good news is and this is really important to understand, that Peter Dutton has said that we will work with the Government to reform the NDIS to make sure that it is sustainable into the future because it is profoundly important. He's also said that about aged care, because we know that the cost of aged care is going to increase. We want to make sure that aged care and the NDIS are sustainable into the future so that all Australians that need aged care, and all Australians that need the NDIS can get the services that they need and deserve. But in order to do that, you'd have to make some hard decisions. We will help them with that. But they seem to have knocked back the offer.

STEVE PRICE: Senator Hume, good luck on your listening tour. I appreciate your time tonight. We'll talk again soon.