SUBJECTS: Federal election; trust in politicians; Labor’s policy agenda; Morrison Government’s lack of agenda; leaked text messages.
 
HOST: The Federal election is on this year. And the campaign has started. Sunday night, we had ScoMo on 60 Minutes. Then last night, Opposition Leader, Anthony Albanese, hit back on Four Corners. And he joins us right now. Albo, did you watch yourself on Four Corners last night?
 
ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: Good morning. I missed the beginning of it, to tell you the truth. But I saw the last half. It was like a big focus group on national TV.
 
HOST: And now, some of them said you have been to vanilla. How do you counter being told you are too vanilla? And a lot of people like vanilla, so is that what you take out of that or not?
 
ALBANESE: I do. Vanilla is in fact the most popular flavour of ice cream. So, I'll take it as a win.
 
HOST: Good to describe yourself as an ice cream, Anthony Albanese. A popular ice cream.
 
ALBANESE: I get called worse.
 
HOST: I get it.
 
HOST: Speaking of being called worse, Albo, what have you made in the lead-up to whenever the election is going to be, is it more toxic and nastier than before? Or is it just in more places?
 
ALBANESE: No, I think it is. I hate to be terribly political about it. But I think it's a bit of a sign of desperation from the Government at the moment, the way that they are trying to play the man, it's got to the absurd level of them bringing up some alleged speech I gave in 1991, more than 30 years ago. It's a bit pathetic, really.
 
HOST: Labor are attacking the man on the Liberal side of politics as well, wouldn't you say? It's kind of going both ways.
 
ALBANESE: No, I kind of think that their own side of attacking the man. Barnaby Joyce is texting people that he thinks that the Prime Minister is a hypocrite and a liar. That is a character assessment that he says he developed over a long period of time. So, I think that we're just sitting back on some of that with a bit of popcorn and just watching them attack each other.
 
HOST: Have you put a directive out as Leader of the Party to get everyone to delete every message from the past? Obviously, that stuff just goes around to a degree, Albo, you know that.
 
ALBANESE: I hope my Deputy, Richard Marles, isn't worried about any of his text messages about my character. And I'm pretty confident that I would be very happy to have everything he's ever said about me out in the public.
 
HOST: So, Anthony, you reckon you've never sent a text, even if you just venting or if someone's just annoyed you, have you never sent a text that you'd be like, 'Oh, actually, yeah, that probably wasn't really how I felt'?
 
ALBANESE: Certainly not politically. And certainly not a text message about someone who was the leader of the party.
 
HOST: What about when Kevin Rudd was leader? C'mon, Albo.
 
ALBANESE: Kevin is mine's a friend of mine.
 
HOST: Latham? What about Latham?
 
ALBANESE: Latham, I just said things to him directly about what I thought about him. There was nothing hidden about that.
 
HOST: I don't know if it's a sign of modern life, but since John Howard lost his seat while he was sitting Prime Minister, every single Prime Minister has been absolutely dismantled. You went from him to Kevin Rudd, who got sacked by his Party. We had Tony Abbott sacked by his Party. Malcolm Turnbull sacked by his Party. Julia Gillard was sacked by her Party. Now, Morrison looks like he might be sacked by his Party. Do you really want to be Prime Minister?
 
ALBANESE: I do. Because the country needs a change. It needs to change. We need, actually, a Government that's focused on the country's interests, not focused on fighting each other. And that's what we've got at the moment. We reached a point. We lost in 2013 because we were in-fighting. We had Kevin Rudd replaced by Julia Gillard. And then Julia Gillard replaced by Kevin Rudd. We were too focused on ourselves and not on the job at hand. And this Government, I mean, last week was just diabolical for the Government. We sat until five o'clock in the morning so they could vote against each other.
 
HOST: That was a weird day. I watch Sky News. Apparently, they're killing it.
 
HOST: This is not a Sky News thing. We saw Jenny Morrison on 60 Minutes. And she's been called his secret weapon. Do you have a secret weapon?
 
ALBANESE: My secret weapon is the Labor Party. We actually like each other.
 
HOST: That is ridiculous.
 
HOST: The Member for Canterbury, Anthony Albanese, Opposition Leader. We will speak to you again soon.
 
ENDS