Interview with Ali Moore, ABC Melbourne

24 April 2025

ALI MOORE: Every Thursday we do have a regular catch-up with a senior politician for the federal election. Last week it was Labor's Richard Marles. Today, Jane Hume is a Shadow Minister for Finance, Liberal Senator for Victoria, and she joins you now. Jane Hume welcome.

JANE HUME: Hello, Ali. How are you?

ALI MOORE: More to the point, how are you, actually? You've got just over a week to go. How are you holding up?

JANE HUME: Busy. I'm actually, believe it or not, sitting in my car in Brighton. I'm outside one of the polling booths here in Goldstein with Tim Wilson, who has been standing there all day. He is very sunburnt. But it's extremely busy.

ALI MOORE: I hadn't thought about that…

JANE HUME: Still even at this hour.

ALI MOORE: Sunburn, I guess, is one of the risks. Huge numbers, though. I mean, you would know that standing outside a pre-polling booth that huge numbers have been turning up to vote early. Is that good for the Coalition?

JANE HUME: To tell you the truth, I don't know whether it's good or bad for any one particular party. Certainly the feeling on the booth, though, has been quite buoyant. Lots of people are very enthusiastic to vote early. I do think that there is a tendency for people who are voting early to know exactly what it is that they are voting for. You know, they couldn't wait to get to the ballot box. So it could go either way.

ALI MOORE: So you don't think it matters that, you don't think it matters that some of your key policies like defence, for example, only came out yesterday or domestic violence, which came out today?

JANE HUME: I think that people are voting more on policies that have either already come out or they're hearing them on the news the night before. So I don't think that that's a problem.

ALI MOORE: Just on defence, the question of funding, one of the big issues around your promise to boost the defence budget by $21 billion over the next five years is, of course, the question of where the money comes from and Peter Dutton has said it will come in part from cutting Labor's $10 a week tax cut, and that's worth 17 billion over four years. But you've also pledged some short term relief, the cut to fuel excise for a year, the tax rebates for low and middle income earners. Both those moves amount to $16 billion so you're saving 17, but you're spending 16. So that's not really helping with the 21 billion for defence, is it?

JANE HUME: Well, Ali, all of our costings will be made very clear before the election. That will all be made entirely transparent, so you'll get to see them all. And just trying to hypothecate one piece of legislation that we've voted against or that we've opposed to, one alternative spending proposal is probably not the right way to do. And we've said, I mean, actually, we've opposed around $100 billion worth of Labor's commitments in the last three years. That includes things like the $20 billion Rewiring the Nation fund, or the $14 billion on the mining tax credits, including green hydrogen, which clearly isn't viable. We've said that we're going to stop that unsustainable big government increase to the size of the public service and bring it back down to COVID levels over five years, and we're going to unwind things like Labor's very expensive and badly designed subsidies for electric vehicles. So all of these things and more are what contribute to the savings. And we're making very clear that our priorities include $21 billion in defence spending over the next five years. And that will take defence spending as a proportion of GDP up to 2.5%, because obviously these are precarious times. We can't take peace for granted. And this demonstrates our commitment to keep Australians safe.

ALI MOORE: So you mentioned the public service there. And just today, Peter Dutton has confirmed that plan to cut 41,000 public service jobs will only apply to Canberra-based jobs. And you've said very clearly that those cuts will exempt frontline services and national security. So you've got Labor, you've got David Pocock, you've got a couple of others all saying, well, it's just not possible because you haven't got enough. I think there are 70,000 public service roles all up in Canberra. Do you know how many of them are frontline? I mean, are you basically going to be cutting everyone but the frontline to get to 41,000?

JANE HUME: Well, should be very clear, Ali, we're not cutting public servants all in one go. This happens over a period of time, happens through natural attrition. We know that around 10,000 or so public servants retire or resign each year just through natural attrition.

ALI MOORE (interrupts): Are they in non-frontline positions in in Canberra?

JANE HUME: Well, some of them obviously are at frontline, but we've said that they will be replaced. What we want to make sure though, and we've always said from the very beginning, is that this has been a Canberra-focused policy. More than half of the new 20% increase of public servants that has been appointed just in the last three years are Canberra based. And that's costing taxpayers an additional $7 billion a year. That's an eye-watering amount. So if you did want to hypothecate one saving to one spend, you could say that only three years of what Labor are spending on public servants, additional public servants, I might add, a 20% increase, could have gone to defence and keeping Australians safe.

ALI MOORE (interrupts): No, but can I just clarify numbers? If we are talking 41,000 jobs, non-frontline in Canberra, out of a total of 70,000, is that right? You are going to cut more than half of the current public servants based in Canberra?

JANE HUME: So again, let me be very clear. When you say cut, it sounds like everybody loses their jobs on day one. Natural attrition is the way we will get there and we will do it…

ALI MOORE (interrupts): But you're going to do it over five years aren't you?

JANE HUME (continues): And we would do it over a number of years. Now, I think this is really important to understand. We want to make sure that we maintain services to the public, that Australians get the public service that they expect and deserve, but this idea of constantly growing the public service, this bloat of bureaucracy, hasn't actually improved public services. And I know we've had this conversation before, but things like approval times for environmental approvals have blown out.

ALI MOORE (interrupts): No, sure and look you have made the point.

JANE HUME (continues): But the size of the public service, the size of that department has doubled.

ALI MOORE: But ok, so if it is over time, can we just clarify, the end result is that there will be less than half the current number of public servants based in Canberra and if you if that is over time what is the over time? Can we say in five years I mean you must know because you're working on this to make your budget savings, at what point will we have less than half the current number of public servants in Canberra?

JANE HUME: We will make sure that that the public service comes back to its COVID levels like not pre-COVID levels, post-COVID levels, I should say, and that services are delivered, the services that that you expect, that you deserve, that you pay for. But we don't want to see that bureaucratic, that middle management bloat. That is what's occurring in Canberra. We're not getting better services delivered for that bureaucratic bloat. So, and again, I will point to the size of the Health Department, which has grown by 40%, but at the same time, bulk billing rates have collapsed. Things like Social Services department has grown dramatically, but it now takes you 96 days to get your your PBS safety net approval.

ALI MOORE: Which, Jane, you have made that point in the programme before. So can I, just a final quick question because our time is almost up, but just EV policy and electric vehicle policy and tax breaks. We've been talking about that today. The Coalition says there's been no backflip. You're always going to get rid of the fringe benefits tax exemption for electric vehicles. Do you think that is going to mean fewer electric vehicle sales?

JANE HUME: Well, that's an interesting angle to take. This should not have been a surprise. We voted against this legislation at the time when we said that we'd repeal it because essentially Labor's change means that you don't have to pay fringe benefits tax on electric vehicles. They thought that was going to apply to about 5,000 electric vehicle purchases a year. It's now applying to 100,000. It's costing half a billion dollars a year, which is just eye-watering. Labor certainly didn't expect this. And more importantly, I think this is really an unfair proposal because it means that, you know, those that either can't have an EV because they can't afford it or can't have one because it's entirely inappropriate is essentially subsidising those that can. And we don't think that's fair.

ALI MOORE: Jane Hume, good to talk to you. We'll talk to you again, no doubt, before the election.

JANE HUME: Great to be with you, Ali.

ALI MOORE: Jane Hume there, Shadow Minister for Finance, Liberal Senator for Victoria.