Interview with Bridget Brennan and Emma Rebellato, ABC News Breakfast

16 April 2025

BRIDGET BRENNAN: To dive into today's news, we're joined now by Shadow Finance Minister Jane Hume, good morning.

JANE HUME: Good morning, good to be with you.

BRIDGET BRENNAN: How are you feeling about the campaign? At a little over the halfway point, because the polls are pointing to the Coalition losing a little bit of ground so far.

JANE HUME: Well, we're not interested in the polls. We're interested in what it is that we're hearing on the ground and right around the country. We're hearing people crying out for change. The cost of living crisis that has occurred under Labor has seen Australians go backwards. They're actually poorer than they were three years ago and that's certainly playing out in the feedback that we hear, which is why it's been so important that the Coalition has committed to a 50% reduction in the fuel tax. That's $0.25 per litre, every time people fill up. That will give them about an additional $14 every time they go to the bowser. That will make a real difference to people's hip pockets every single week. Not just families, but also businesses. Also the cost of, you know, freight to supermarkets or businesses that need to travel around it will make a real difference to people immediately. That will happen the moment a Coalition government comes to office.

EMMA REBELLATO: We've seen a survey in nine newspapers this morning saying Labor's housing policy is getting more cut through with voters. Why isn’t yours?

JANE HUME: I'm actually surprised about this because at the last election, Labor committed to building more houses. Their signature housing policy built zero houses, doughnuts. Now they're after an additional $10 billion to build an additional 100,000 homes. That's 100,000 per house. You can't build a granny flat for $100,000. The Coalition are offering a comprehensive policy to dealing with Australia's housing crisis. We want to make sure that we reduce net migration to sustainable levels to reduce the demand on housing. We want to make sure that we build the enabling infrastructure to boost supply. That could unlock around half $1 million, half a million homes over the next few years. We want to make sure that we incentivise new home buyers with deductible interest on their, on new builds, and also allowing young Australians to access their superannuation to help with their deposit and we want to reform the industry by making sure we deregister the CFMEU that has pushed building costs up so high over the last few years in particular.

BRIDGET BRENNAN: You've got to have the tradies to build the houses, so integral to our workforce. A lot of tradies go to TAFE. Would you continue the government's policy of many fee-free places for TAFE? Because there's been a video going around of Sarah Henderson saying that perhaps you're not that supportive of the policy. What is your clear policy on TAFE funding?

JANE HUME: So the problem is with fee-free TAFE is that plenty of people start their TAFE courses but they don't finish it. The completion rates are so extraordinarily low. Now, we've said that we want to see more young Australians get into trades, particularly construction, and that's why we're going to support an additional 400,000 places into, uh, into apprentices. We're going to support the businesses to take on apprentices to build that capability, particularly in the construction industry, but also others into the future.

EMMA REBELLATO: But just to be clear, does that mean you will definitely reverse the fee free TAFE policy?

JANE HUME: We don't believe that fee free TAFE is delivering on its promise. People are starting courses, they're not finishing courses. So if you've got an unsuccessful policy, why would you continue it?

EMMA REBELLATO: Let's talk about the international story that broke yesterday, which, um, got a lot of attention during the campaign regarding the reports that Indonesia was considering allowing Russian aircraft to be based in its territory, which later found out was false, what the Indonesian government told the Australian government. Penny Wong has said this morning on ABC News Breakfast that Peter Dutton is too aggressive and too reckless to be Prime Minister as a result of his comments yesterday. How do you respond to that?

JANE HUME: Well, it was a bizarre comment. I mean, it sounds very defensive from a Foreign Minister. Clearly she was blindsided by this report and has been on the back foot since. Now, we're not going to apologise for having a strong leader that will stand up for national interests, particularly with a track record in national security, as opposed to Anthony Albanese, who's been very weak on this issue.

EMMA REBELLATO: But don't you think Peter Dutton jumped the gun? I mean, he said that, uh, there's no relationship, sorry, that, um, he criticised the relationship between Australia and Indonesia. She's saying that he fabricated a statement by the Indonesian president. Did he go too far?

JANE HUME: Well, we've actually asked for a briefing from the Foreign Minister and from the Defence Minister on this issue, what it was that they knew and when they knew it, because let's face it, there are some serious national security implications in this report. If Penny Wong didn't know about it before yesterday, we want to understand why.

BRIDGET BRENNAN: Let's continue on foreign affairs. The American President, Donald Trump, has said pharmaceutical imports are his next rolling wave of this tariff war that we've seen erupt around the world. How would a Coalition Government deal with Donald Trump? Because he's becoming increasingly erratic. It's very difficult to know what the next move is and a lot of his decisions are not in Australia's interests, are they?

JANE HUME: Well, look, let's start with the premise that an escalating trade war is in no one's interest. It certainly isn't in Australia's interests and we will always stand up for Australia's interests in any negotiations with any other nation. We want to make sure that we build on the good relationship that we already have with America, on all sides of the aisle. We've built on that relationship over many, many years, whether it be military and national security relationships, whether it be economic relationships. So that's what we would base our future negotiations on relationships.

BRIDGET BRENNAN: You wouldn't look to distance ourselves from the American Administration? Because, you know, increasingly, this is no longer an Administration that seems to care whether or not its decisions damage Australian businesses and the Australian economy more widely?

JANE HUME: Well, the US has always been an important strategic partner for Australia in both militarily and security wise, but also economically. We would build on those relationships and that's not just whoever's in the White House. Our relationships transcend whoever's in the White House and we've demonstrated that we can do that before. And of course, we'll do that again.

BRIDGET BRENNAN: All right, Jane, thanks very much for your time this morning.

JANE HUME: Nice to be with you.