SUBJECT: Federal Budget 2021.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO, HOST: Leader of the Opposition, Anthony Albanese, has joined us. It's been many years since I've spoken to Albo, back when was the Infrastructure Minister last time I had him on air. We'll get his headphones on and have a chat to him. Sorry about this, impromptu. Anthony Albanese, good morning.

ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: How are you going?

CENATIEMPO: Very, very well. We used to have some knockdown drag-outs on air in previous times. But now that your Opposition Leader, I suppose I've got to go easy on you. 

ALBANESE: No, you've got to give me a bit more respect.

CENATIEMPO: Very Labor Budget from Josh Frydenberg last night. 

ALBANESE: Well, except that there's no long-term vision here. What they've done is adopt a strategy of trying to neutralise some of the issues that Labor has been raising that they said weren't a problem, the aged care crisis, the crisis when it comes to child care affordability. But there's no long-term vision. We would have dealt with the issue of low wages. And what we'll be left with at the end of this is a trillion dollars of debt, but nothing really to show for it. Even on infrastructure, they announced $10 billion multiple times in papers splashed across the country, but there's in fact a cut of $3.3 billion in the Budget papers over the next four years. 

CENATIEMPO: The debt is obviously a scary number when we say a trillion dollars, but given that interest rates are as low as they are, and that there is obviously a path back to surplus, is it such a big deal?

ALBANESE: Where is the path back to surplus? 

CENATIEMPO: Well, the deficits are going to get gradually smaller.

ALBANESE: But the debts are going to continue to rise. It rises up until 2025 when it hits 41 per cent. When they came to Government, remember their rhetoric about debt. It was 15 per cent of GDP. So they will have almost tripled the debt as a percentage of the economy. And they, of course, had already doubled the debt before the pandemic.

CENATIEMPO: Tanya Plibersek called this a MorrisonKeeper Budget. Does that mean you guys have already thrown in the towel? 

ALBANESE: We'll be campaigning every single day. And I think that people will look at these issues and say that their heart's not in it. Look at child care. They said last year, when we announced Cheaper Child Care, 'there was nothing to see here, no need'. They also said that it wouldn't boost workforce participation or boost the economy, there was no return. This time around, they are delivering around about, I think the figures are around about $2 billion. It'll help one quarter of the people who will be helped by our plan last year. But they say in their release that it will boost the economy by $1.5 billion each and every year. So they've acknowledged the logic, but they haven't gone to the next step of helping all those families out there who are in need. The only families who'll get a leg up here are families with two children in child care at the one time. And of course, that's not a majority of families. They will continue to be stuck with higher child care costs and struggling to get by. Real wages are shown to not increase under this Budget. And they are really struggling. 

CENATIEMPO: We've got to go to the news. Can you stick around? 

ALBANESE: I've got another appointment, but glad to be with you. 

CENATIEMPO: Thank you, Anthony Albanese, Opposition Leader.

ENDS