Interview with Ali Moore, ABC Melbourne Drive

28 March 2025

ALI MOORE: Well, Jane Hume is the Shadow Minister for Finance, Liberal Senator for Victoria. She'll join you regularly through the course of the campaign, as will her colleagues from the other side of politics. Jane Hume welcome.

JANE HUME: Good afternoon Ali.

ALI MOORE: You sound quite chipper. Are you happy that this campaign is finally, actually officially underway?

JANE HUME: I am. The starter's gun literally goes off at Parliament House when the, you know, the big cannons go off, after, when Parliament is prorogued. So it does, get sort of put a little pep in everyone's step. And we've all jumped on planes. And head back to our respective states. And I've just got off that plane now and got back to the beautiful town of Melbourne.

ALI MOORE: Very good. Uh, hot town of Melbourne too today. Let me start with the speech last night and the gas reservation policy first. How is that going to work? Do you want to set aside more gas for domestic consumption? You want that supplied at a lower price than the export price. How do you force the big exporters to do that?

JANE HUME: So as everybody will know, Australia is paying some of the highest power prices in the world. We've been very concerned about rising power bills as one of the big pressures on the cost of living of ordinary Australians. We know that Anthony Albanese promised 97 times before the last election to bring electricity prices down by $275, but in fact, most Australians are paying up to $1,300 more than Labor promised that election. This is why this is such an important election commitment to get gas back into our system, back into our domestic supply, to bring energy.

ALI MOORE: But how do you achieve it? How do you force the big exporters? How do you intervene in the market to get the outcome you want?

JANE HUME: So this has already been operating in Western Australia and it operates well over there…

ALI MOORE: Yes. But it was written into the original West Australian supply agreement. It's not written into the agreement that the Queensland producers have. So how are you going to intervene to get what you want?

JANE HUME: So the plan is to establish an East Coast gas reservation. So what this does is it requires a proportion, somewhere between 50 and 100 petajoules of the spot cargo exports. That's really important. There's two kinds of gas exports. There's the gas exports that are contracted in advance. And then there's this spot exports. Now that's the stuff that's done opportunistically if you like, to take advantage of price fluctuations. So we will be asking the gas exporters to set aside some of their spot cargo exports, to be delivered to the domestic market. This will bring in an additional 10 to 20% of the East Coast's demand. So that's gas that would otherwise be exported. And that gas is sold on the domestic market then is sort of decoupled, if you like, from overseas market. And that protects Australia from international price shocks.

ALI MOORE: I understand that…

JANE HUME: It drives down the wholesale price of gas.

ALI MOORE: But if you want to drive down the wholesale price, you're essentially asking gas exporters to take what they would sell on the spot market at a higher price, put it into the domestic market for a lower price. How do you make them do that?

JANE HUME: Well, actually, when the Coalition was last in power, we negotiated with the gas exporters to essentially do exactly that, ensure supply for the domestic market. And that's why gas prices, they did peak at about 2017, but they came back down after the Coalition negotiated directly with them. We can do that again. We don't think that the Labor Government can do that. And the reason is, the Labor Government have demonised gas over the last three years. They've done massive interventions into their market through things like the capacity investment scheme and price caps. And we know that has really put the gas exporters on the back foot. Moreover, what we want to do is give them what we want, we give them what they want, which is fast tracked approvals...

ALI MOORE (talks over): So, do you trade?

JANE HUME: to open more projects.

ALI MOORE: So how do you…

JANE HUME: That’s what the gas producers want. We want domestic supply. They want access to more exploration to more to faster approvals. We can work with them.

ALI MOORE: So how do you get that gas from Queensland to Melbourne?

JANE HUME: Well, there's also, um, some funds set aside in that to ensure that we have, a strategic basin plan, essentially, so that we include gas in the capacity investment scheme. And we have a critical gas infrastructure fund that's $1 billion in a critical gas infrastructure fund, and that will increase gas pipeline and storage capacity.

ALI MOORE: Can I move on to nuclear? We were making the point that it was only mentioned twice last night. And yet it is your signature policy, your answer to the future energy needs of this country. Are you sort of trying to pretend it's not there?

JANE HUME: I think this is just the most bonkers argument I have ever heard. We have been talking about this policy for not just months, but years now, this completely transformative, game changing policy.

ALI MOORE: But we still don't know so much about it. We have no specific timeline. We have no specific costings. Yes, we've got all the frontier economics modelling, but you've not at any point said on this date we will do this, on this date we'll do this. Here's the costings for this and this is how we're going to pay for it.

JANE HUME: Well actually that's not true at all. Ali, we have said almost all of those things. We've identified the seven sites which we'll be targeting. We have said that we need community consultation in each of those sites, because we're not going to start rolling this stuff out against the will of the community. Now, the good news is each of these communities have retiring coal fired power stations, and those communities are very, they have high energy IQ. They're very energy savvy. They understand that when you have an industry that involves a power generator in your community, it creates multi-generational jobs. Now, those multi-generational jobs are disappearing because those coal fired power stations are retiring. They can see the benefits in nuclear energy, and that's why they're very open minded to it. We've named places like in the Latrobe Valley. Look, the one that actually was, I think most heartening for me, uh, was in Western Australia, in Collie, there's a coal fired power station that is retiring there in the state election in WA It was the seat with the largest swing towards the Liberal government. Now, I thought that was very encouraging. They can see that there is enormous benefit for their community in transitioning from coal fired power to nuclear energy. So I think that this is a very clear policy, and I think it's one that many people and many businesses have embraced. Certainly, the business community now speaks to us as if nuclear energy is essentially an inevitability.

ALI MOORE: Jane Hume just a final question, although actually I might ask you a question about political slogans, but 41,000 public service positions are going to go. You know the number. You must have a fair idea of where they are. Can you guarantee as a party that those jobs won't end up in contractors hands, instead that they won't be outsourced?

JANE HUME: I can absolutely guarantee that frontline services will not be touched. We want to make sure that frontline services are bolstered and strengthened, not diminished.

ALI MOORE: But if that's where the growth is in public service positions, you'll have to find the positions somewhere else. But that wasn't actually my question, my question is…

JANE HUME: No, not necessarily that's not the case. I can tell you that the public service has grown by 41,000 over the last three years, and yet your standard of service has actually gone backwards. It now takes around 76 days to access an aged pension. It used to take around 35. It takes three times longer…

ALI MOORE (interrupts): So you're not cutting frontline staff?

JANE HUME (continues): to get a low income card than it did under a Coalition government. In fact, the size of the Health Department has increased by 40%, but your bulk billing rates have dropped by 11%. The services that Australians are receiving are not reflective of a bigger public service. We want to deliver better services, not a bigger public service.

ALI MOORE: Okay, but just to go back to my original question, sorry, we're up against the clock here, but just 41,000 public service positions. Can you guarantee none of them will end up being outsourced positions off the public service books, but still contract positions?

JANE HUME: That’s not our intention. But if the Labor Government tells you that they don't use contractors or they don't use consultants, that is an absolute nonsense we have.

ALI MOORE: So you'll keep, you will potentially outsource some of these jobs.

JANE HUME: No, that's not what I said. In fact, I said that is absolutely not our intention to do so. We want to make sure that Australians receive better service and better value for their taxpayer dollar. And I don't think that that's unreasonable. I think that should be the expectation of taxpayers.

ALI MOORE: Jane Hume you, you are up for election. Not all senators are, but you are.

JANE HUME: I am.

ALI MOORE: We're talking political slogans this afternoon. The slogan for your party is Back on Track. Have you got your own slogan? Is there a Jane Hume slogan?

JANE HUME: My way or the highway.

ALI MOORE: Oh, okay, I like that.

JANE HUME: No it's not. It's terrible, isn't it? How stupid. No, I love Back on Track. I think it's terrific. But I have to admit, my very favourite one ever for the Liberal Party was, ‘Hope, reward and opportunity’. I think that was back in the Howard days, but I, loved that because I actually thought it was very reflective of what we feel is important.

ALI MOORE: Jane Hume I much prefer my way or the highway, but that's just me. Good to talk to you. We'll talk to you regularly through the course of the campaign.

JANE HUME: Good on you. Thanks, Ali. See you later.

ALI MOORE: Senator Jane Hume, Shadow Minister for Finance, will join you regularly, as will politicians from all political persuasions.