Interview with Kenny Heatley, First Edition

19 May 2025

KENNY HEATLEY: Liberal leader Sussan Ley says smaller taxes, better schools and national security will be centre to her vision to win back voters, according to The Australian this morning. But there's pressure from inside her party and from some National MPs to dump net zero by 2050. Well, joining me live is Shadow Finance Minister Jane Hume. Good to see you this morning, Jane. Thanks so much for joining us. Do you think that Sussan Ley is on the right track with those priority areas in her vision to rebuild?

JANE HUME: Kenny, just before we begin, can I say on behalf of the Coalition that our thoughts and prayers are with President Biden and that we wish him well for a speedy recovery and a good treatment journey? On Sussan Ley, I thought that the message that she sent today was very consistent and quite buoying for all Coalition, not just Coalition members, but Coalition supporters out there, that those truly are those Liberal Party values that are important to us, freedom and choice and personal responsibility embedded in things like our education policy, in our economic policy and our tax policy, and also in national security. We'll be going through a process over the next few weeks, months about making sure that those particular values, those principles that we've held dear for many years, are reflected in our policy offerings, because we want to make sure that we respect and reflect and then represent modern Australia.

KENNY HEATLEY: Would you like to see a new Coalition continue with a net zero by 2050 policy, and if so, can that be achieved with the Nationals?

JANE HUME: A coalition agreement is being discussed right now between Sussan Ley and David Littleproud. Those discussions are ongoing and in good faith and I understand that they are making good progress. But the most important thing right now is that we make sure that we present a policy offering which will be discussed within our individual party rooms and our collective party rooms, that is far more representative of what it is that modern Australia want to see in their coalition. Now we'll spend the next three years making sure that we provide a robust opposition, holding the government to account for some of their terrible policy decisions. And we can see some of them already playing out on the national stage. But by the time we get to that next election, we want to make sure that we have a credible policy approach. Now on net zero. I look, I have a personal opinion on that, of course, and that would be that, uh, you know, the electorate has sent us a very clear message what it is that they want in their government. Abandoning net zero, I don't necessarily think is consistent with that. That's a discussion for the party room.

KENNY HEATLEY: Okay. Labor's contentious $3 million superannuation tax plan may pressure high skilled workers into early retirement. What's your reaction to that?

JANE HUME: Well, this tax has been bad from day one and that's why we opposed it from day one. And not only said that we would oppose it, but repeal it when we got into government. The reason why it's bad is threefold. One, it's a tax on superannuation, which a lot of people have made plans. They've already put their money into superannuation on the deal that there was a contract there, that it would be taxed in a certain way. They might have made different plans for their money if they had have known that this tax was on its way. So that's the and it's a broken promise. I mean, let's face it, the before the election, before last, the government said Labor said there would be no new taxes and no changes to super. They immediately backflipped on that promise. The second reason, though, that this is a bad tax is it's a tax on unrealised capital gains. Now, we've never had a tax on unrealised capital gains before. That's taxing profits before you've actually made profits. The third reason it's a very bad tax is because it isn't indexed. Now, while the government says it only affects a small number of people, it's actually going to affect more and more every year. And Murray Watt belled the cat just yesterday when he said that this is their key revenue source. Now that I think is quite frightening for Australians that have relied on a consistent superannuation system for many years. But now we're hearing, too, that it's going to make people not just change their behaviour, but even leave the workforce sooner. That's going to be bad news for productivity. And we know that productivity has tanked in Australia for over the last few years, it's actually gone backwards by about 6%. There's no way we can have consistent economic growth unless we boost productivity.

KENNY HEATLEY: Yeah, we've got ten seconds here, Jane. But should the tax rate for companies be lowered to improve productivity?

JANE HUME: Well, can I tell you that we tried to lower company tax rates about a decade ago. Now. We were successful for small businesses. We were unsuccessful for larger businesses. But that is one way lower taxes is always going to be a way of increasing productivity. If that's something the government wants to consider, I think you'll find an opposition with a very broad mind on that one.

KENNY HEATLEY: Jane Hume, appreciate it. Thanks for coming on the programme this morning. Talk soon.

JANE HUME: Thanks, Kenny.