Interview with Tom Connell, Sky News

TOM CONNELL, HOST: That dramatic music must mean it’s time for Hume & McAllister. Each week the Shadow Finance Minister and Assistant Climate Change Minister face off and fire up on the big issues and start by talking. And I’m not allowed to interrupt, although I’ve got the clock today. Thirty seconds each. Jane, why don’t you go first. What’s been on your mind this week?

SENATOR JANE HUME, SHADOW MINISTER FOR FINANCE: Okay. In case you missed it, Tom, the RBA board minutes revealed that the RBA are still very concerned about persistently high inflation. And, in fact, they said that they have a low tolerance for inflation returning back to the band of 2 to 3 per cent any later than expected. Now, already that’s expected to be two years away. That’s two more years of financial pain for ordinary Australians.  Our concern is that the government is making the situation worse. They’re doing so by interventions in the gas market that are turning away supply and pushing up prices, by taxes on truckies and farmers pushing up the price of groceries, and, of course, by that additional $188 billion of spending that’s fuelling aggregate demand. Jim Chalmers must come up with a plan to address inflation directly – not just the symptoms but the causes – or Australians will pay the price.

CONNELL: Jenny, what about you?

SENATOR JENNY MCALLISTER, ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR CLIMATE CHANGE & ENERGY: Thanks, Tom. Well, the Albanese Government is training Australians for the jobs of today and for the jobs of tomorrow. So, this week we’ve delivered a landmark National Skills Agreement to unlock billions of skills and also for national prosperity. It’s the first agreement of this kind in over a decade, and the former government, of course, couldn’t or didn’t land any such agreement with the states or territories. So the Albanese Government is making the investments that are necessary in the training sector so that we can fill the jobs that are there today, Australians are ready for the jobs of tomorrow as well.

CONNELL: All right. Well, returning to our top story and what has dominated parliament this week – of course, the Israel-Gaza conflict. Comments this morning from Cabinet Minister Ed Husic, he says that he believes the Palestinian people are being effectively collectively punished and there’s not enough sympathy for their plight, including the civilians that have been killed and injured. Do you agree?

MCALLISTER: Well, this has been an incredibly difficult fortnight, I think, for the people of Israel and the people in the occupied territories. And it’s also been a really distressing period, of course, for Australians who’ve watched these tragic events unfold. Australia has quite rightly condemned Hamas for their grotesque terrorist attack on Israeli civilians. And in doing so indicated that we stand by Israel and its right to defend itself. But at the same time – and I was pleased that the Parliament joined in this as well in the resolution that was put through both chambers this week – the Parliament has been really clear that the protection of civilian life matters, and that’s all civilian lives – Israeli lives, Palestinian lives. And I think we are presently seeing, you know, a deterioration of conditions in Gaza, and that’s very, very distressing.

CONNELL: So Israel balancing that, there’s obviously – it’s not easy to take out Hamas’s military capability. But balancing what they’re trying to do with the rights of those civilians not to be harmed, and even things like anaesthetic being provided to hospitals for kids who are getting operations, is that balance being achieved at the moment?

MCALLISTER: Our role is really to facilitate the circumstances where civilian lives can best be protected. It’s why, you know, you’re seeing comments from the Foreign Minister about our support for the efforts that are being made to establish a humanitarian corridor into Gaza. It’s also why Australia’s decided to provide $10 million –$3 million to the Red Cross, $7 million to the UN – to further support their work in supporting civilians in Gaza. It is a very challenging and complex situation for everyone to navigate.

CONNELL: Okay, so hard to find a balance basically. Jane, what’s your view on Israel and meeting that balance? Its obligation to civilians against obviously what it wants to do to avoid this happening again?

HUME: I think they've made that obligation pretty clear too. You know, we’ve seen that they have put out warnings if they are going to, you know, make air strikes within Gaza to allow civilians time to get away from the site that is being targeted. Now, that’s certainly not something that Hamas has offered Israel in return. Let’s face it, I mean, this attack by Hamas militants was unprovoked, it was unjust, it’s entirely unacceptable and totally unforgivable. It was specifically targeted at civilians. Very different from the way Israel has gone about retaliating and defending itself. And it has the right to defend itself. And we would always stand in solidarity with Israel in its right to defend itself.

CONNELL: I mean, the initial attacks, the barbarity, and the terror –

HUME: Extraordinary.

CONNELL: - it was ISIS-like, I think is the best recent comparison. But Israel is the might in this fight if you like. Are they taking enough care, and is it too blunt an instrument, for example, turning off electricity into half of Gaza’s population?

HUME: I think that they’ve been very clear that they are not targeting civilians, but they must be able to defend themselves.

CONNELL: But if you turn off water and electricity, that is targeting civilians, isn’t it? Or it’s not sparing them at least?

HUME: Well, it’s not sparing them. It can’t, because Hamas uses civilians as human shields, which is entirely unacceptable in itself. We would want to make sure that that – particularly that border at Rafah is opened so that humanitarian aid can get through. We know that the government is doing everything it can, and we would support the government in doing that, to encourage that through diplomatic means, using our allies, using our contacts effectively. There is a limit to what we can do over here other than make sure that our support for Israel is unequivocal.

CONNELL: Are Labor MPs and Cabinet Ministers free to just make statements on this when it’s a pretty important time globally? Should this be something where there’s a coherent message from the Labor Government?

MCALLISTER: I think you’ve seen a very strong sense of collective support for the position actually across the Parliament. So, Parliamentarians work together to bring together a resolution which steps through the principled way that Australia will respond to this conflict. And it does include, of course, support for Israel. It also includes an emphasis on the protection of innocent civilian lives. And I think that what you’re seeing – of course Parliamentarians depending on the electorate they come from, the communities they have most contact with bring different perspectives to that. But I was really pleased to see a resolution brought through both chambers in recent days.

HUME: You can’t have different perspectives if you’re a Cabinet Minister. Ed’s a Cabinet Minister. That was loose language this morning, and I think he should have rethought that. I would imagine he would be admonished by leadership for it, because it’s not consistent with your government’s position.

MCALLISTER: Look, everyone is bringing a different community perspective to this. But I think there is a very clear understanding that the terrorist attack - unacceptable. But there is a need for us to work together in the protection of civilian lives.

CONNELL: But does Jane have a point – perspective is fine but whatever you can say, there’s a bit of a different level and standard when you’re in Cabinet?

MCALLISTER: I think the point I would go to actually is the obligation on all of the Parliament to conduct themselves in this debate in a responsible way.

CONNELL: Okay.

MCALLISTER: You’ve seen comments from the Director-General of Security about the importance of language and the importance of avoiding inflammatory language. I think that’s been the focus of Labor contributions to the debate so far.

CONNELL: All right. Well, we’ll let’s go on to our second topic – Victoria’s electric vehicle charge or tax has been unplugged in the High Court. Two Melbourne EV owners successfully argued the state government does not have the powers to impose the charge, the court ruling it invalid. This was State Treasurer Tim Pallas following the ruling.

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CONNELL: Well, there you go. Not having a power, that maybe the need for a referendum, or perhaps you’re a bit gun shy on that, Jenny. What do you think here?

HUME: Too soon, Tom.

CONNELL: Perhaps it was. Because there’s a bit of a mishmash electric vehicles for the states to go down their own paths. Is it time for a federal approach here, a more cohesive one?

MCALLISTER: Well, a couple of things. I am not a constitutional lawyer, and these matters were before the High Court and involved questions of constitutional interpretation. I think our view is that we’ll take some time to consider the implications of the decision for the approach overall.  In relation to EVs, our main challenge at the moment is supporting the introduction of this new technology into Australia so that we have more choices.

CONNELL: Is it equitable too, though, because you support it and there’s been sort of subsidies before, but generally they’re the most expensive cars on the road, so it becomes this sort of – you know, everyone’s tax helps pay for wealthier Australians? It’s a bit of a tricky one to juggle, right? And then you’ve got the road user element as well, which they don’t pay because they don’t buy petrol.

MCALLISTER: I think at the moment, to keep this in perspective, because of the posture adopted by the last government, EVs are a quite small proportion of the overall fleet. So we’ve got some time to consider the way that road charging and revenue – the revenue implications of the change. I think the big thing is getting the infrastructure ready for this transition. You know, there are some estimates that suggest less than 1 per cent of new vehicle sales will be vehicles other than EVs by 2045. So we’ve got time to prepare for that, but we’re going to need a different infrastructure approach.

CONNELL: It’s a big country, isn’t it?

MCALLISTER: It is.

CONNELL: So our challenges might be bigger than others. Jane, what do you think about this? What’s your sort of view on this transition? Is it something governments should be encouraging?

HUME: Well, I think this has been a wake-up call, hasn’t it? Because the inequities, as you say, particularly of the road user charge now and fuel excise is now meaning that because the take-up of EVs – yes, it is a small proportion, but it is the fastest growing proportion of the vehicle market – because that’s happening in a way that is essentially disadvantaging people that are, you know, poorer, that are geographically remote, that are often vulnerable, they’re subsidising the road building and maintenance for people that are driving EVs which are subsidised and not paying those charges. And that is an unsustainable future. I mean, what we want to see is --

CONNELL: Do we want to encourage it, too, as a nation?

HUME: Well, we do want to encourage it, but we want to encourage not just EVs but all new technologies in vehicles. You know, it doesn’t matter whether it’s hybrid or it might be biofuels, whatever it might be, so having a sort of technologically agnostic approach to that. But also making sure that whatever plan we go forward with, it’s equitable, it’s fair, means that, you know, your car is still affordable, that it’s not retrospective so, you know, the decision that you made on one hand doesn’t disproportionately affect you later on after you’ve made the decision. This is a really important policy direction that we’re waiting for the government to come up with a plan and we’ll consider it.

CONNELL: Right out of time. We’ll talk about that down the track I’m sure again. Jenny, Jane, thank you. We’ll talk to you next week.

MCALLISTER: Thank you.