Interview with Laura Jayes, AM Agenda

23 April 2025

LAURA JAYES: Let's go live now here in the Melbourne studio to Jane Hume, the Shadow Finance Minister, great to see you. Got a bit to get through. Let's start with the IMF, because they have downgraded growth, global growth, Australia part of that. It's significant from what Labor had in the Budget just a couple of weeks ago. What does this mean in terms of where our budget should be? I mean, both sides of politics are fighting to spend more money and not talking about debt and deficit. Are you going to do that in the final weeks of this campaign?

JANE HUME: Yeah, this is a significant warning from the IMF. The downgrade of Australia's growth forecasts should be setting off alarm bells. But more importantly, the IMF warning that Australia needs to improve its fiscal buffers, again, its economic buffers, otherwise, we won't be prepared or resilient in the case of economic shocks, that should be, I think, the big red flag from the report that's come out overnight. One of the things that we have said is that we will bring the budget back to a path of structural surplus, a credible path to structural surplus.

LAURA JAYES: When?

JANE HUME: Well, it's going to take some time, because so much of that windfall revenue gain that has come through from the Labor government in the last couple of years has been squandered or it's been spent in recurrent expenditure baked into the Budget. That's irresponsible economic management. We want to see growth, expenditure grow, at a pace that is on par with the economy, rather than growing at a much faster rate than the economy, which is where Labor have left us. That will take some time to get back into balance, but a credible path to structural balance is what we're aiming for. That objective has been removed by Labor from every Budget that they have delivered.

LAURA JAYES: Okay, but you've spent another $21 billion on Defence today. So what are you going to cut? That is the question of this campaign for the Coalition.

JANE HUME: So on the issue of the $21 billion for Defence. Let's face it, the most important responsibility of any government is to keep its citizens safe. This is something that Labor has failed to do. They ripped $80 billion out of the Defence Budget, the long term Defence Budget, and at the same time, we've seen warships off the coast firing near civilian aircraft.

LAURA JAYES: But as Phil Coorey points out, some of the spending and waste in defence, buying equipment that you don't need or redundant are legendary in the defence. So what kind of checks and balances are you going to have?

JANE HUME: So part of this 21 billion is going to be setting up a process by which defence capability expenditure is made. Now there'll be more announcements, more details about that today, from Peter Dutton and from Andrew Hastie. So I don't want to preempt that too much, but you have already seen that we've made announcements around Joint Strike Fighters, restoring that, because let's face it, if we don't get our men and women in uniform equipped with the capability that they need, well then we're failing in our first duty. Our second duty, though, is to keep the economy strong, keep Australians safe and keep the economy strong. Which is why that objective, to get back to structural balance is so important, cutting out the wasteful spending of government and there's been plenty of it and in case you want to see some of it, it's on a website, www.underlabor.com, there's so much wasteful spending.

LAURA JAYES (TALKS OVER): But you also match Labor on some of these big ticket items. Where are you going to cut? Can you give us broad you know, departments, broad areas. Don't give me the details, Jane, even though we'd like you to Jane, but where?

JANE HUME: So, you will see all of our costings next week. I can promise you that. Before the election, it will be made very, very clear. What I can say, though, is there is a concerted effort to go line by line, through the Budget as much as we can to see where that wasteful spending is occurring. Make sure that we redirect that into productivity enhancing expenditure so that we can grow the economy as well as reduce expenditure. That's how you get the Budget back into a structural balance.

LAURA JAYES: Well, at the moment, you don't have that buffer, and the world is changing rapidly.

JANE HUME: We agree.

LAURA JAYES: You've matched Labor on spending, and you also support this big government spending on the whole.

JANE HUME: We want to make sure that we deliver the cost of living relief when it's needed the most, which is right now, right now.

LAURA JAYES: But at some point, don't you need to stop being populist, because the opposite of being populist is actually telling people that it is going to hurt for a little while.

JANE HUME: Making the tough decisions.

LAURA JAYES: But we're doing this for you know, better days down the track. Is that a message that you're willing to deliver?

JANE HUME: We want to make sure that we deliver cost of living relief right now, that in a year's time, Australians can get some of their own tax back up to $1,200 for about 85% of taxpayers, that's their own money that they get delivered back. In the meantime, however, we want to make sure that we bring energy prices down by delivering more gas supply into the system. We want to restore our economic balance and our budget processes, bring the guard rails back around the Budget, whether it be a tax to GDP ratio, whether it be making sure that our spending doesn't outstrip the growth of the economy, or making sure that any windfall gains, that windfall revenue gains that come through through higher commodity prices don't get squandered on recurrent expenditure or on political whims of the day. We want to make sure that that is sequestered to a future generations fund so that every generation of Australians can benefit from the economic prosperity that comes from our resources sector.

LAURA JAYES: Okay, well, let's talk polling. I know you no one likes talking polling at this stage of a campaign, but you all do your own track polling, so it is a necessary part of any campaign for any political party. We have NewsPoll today showing that Peter Dutton has a big problem with women or the Coalition, more broadly, with women voters. You've been out on pre-poll. I was in Malvern yesterday. You know this is not scientific at this point. But, do you agree with Peter Dutton that it's not as bad out there as some of these polls would suggest?

JANE HUME: I was actually in Bass and Braddon yesterday down in Tasmania and it certainly wasn't feeling bad on the ground out there. In fact, I think that our candidates in both, well, our candidate in Braddon and our member Bridget Archer in Bass will be well supported. You've just seen Gisele Kapterian, one of the most extraordinary candidates in Bradfield, just on your screens a moment ago, and we have just so many women running in this election campaign that I'll be proud to work with. People like Ro Knox in Wentworth or Jaimee Rogers in Warringah, Katie Allen in Chisholm and Amelia Hamer in Kooyong. There are just, Nicolle Flint in Boothby, Maggie Forrest in Ryan. These women have the most extraordinary professional backgrounds. They'll make such incredible contributions to our party room. I can't wait to work alongside them.

LAURA JAYES: Yeah, Gisele and Nicolette are kind of a case in point on paper and a couple of years ago, Nicolette would have been a Liberal. Does that say anything about the modernisation of the Liberal Party?

JANE HUME: I think that that is a convenient excuse of the Teals, that they were disaffected Liberals, but they're not. They're simply Greens in good shoes.

LAURA JAYES: Really?

JANE HUME: Absolutely.

LAURA JAYES (TALKS OVER): Why do you say that? Because they talk about climate change?

JANE HUME: You couldn’t possibly say that Monique Ryan was a Liberal, that Zoe Daniel was a Liberal.

LAURA JAYES: Nicolette. I would say Allegra is very different to that, though.

JANE HUME: I don't think Nicolette is particularly different, either and the idea that she has, you know, set herself up as the Shadow Member for Bradfield for the last three years, that she has spent millions, millions of dollars campaigning ahead of this election.

LAURA JAYES (TALKS OVER): It sounds like you’re worried.

JANE HUME: Yet, I'm pretty sure that Nicolette is going to have a very bad day next Saturday week, because Gisele Kapterian is an incredibly strong candidate.

LAURA JAYES: You sound a little bit worried about that seat.

JANE HUME: Well, look, can I tell you that the campaign that the Teals are running has been very, very well funded and a little bit desperate and the gloss has worn off.

LAURA JAYES: What do you mean by that? What are you seeing that we're not?

JANE HUME: Well, it's certainly the gloss that has worn off. Because, let's face it, they went into the last election with three abstract nouns as their campaign slogans. Gender. Was it integrity and climate? Well, if you're serious about supporting climate, well, why would you not support a nuclear energy future with zero emissions? If you're serious about integrity, well, you can't fault Peter Dutton for his integrity and if you're serious about gender, why would you not support women like Gisele Kapterian or Ro Knox or Amelia Hamer, being in the room where decisions are made, these incredible professional women, being in, in the room where decisions are made, because Teals essentially have dealt themselves out of that opportunity by simply choosing to be independent rather than backing a political party.

LAURA JAYES: Okay, Jane, thanks so much. Good luck. We'll see you soon.