SUBJECTS: Federal Budget 2021; India travel ban; quarantine; international travel; vaccine rollout; chaos within the Coalition. 

BEN FORDHAM, HOST: It's a really big week because we got the Federal Budget tomorrow. You can probably call it the Jerry Maguire Budget, it's all about 'show me the money'. Josh Frydenberg will certainly be doing that. Big spending on aged care, infrastructure and child care. There's something for retirees, first homebuyers and single mums too. All will be revealed tomorrow night at 7:30pm. The Treasurer will then back up at the National Press Club on Wednesday to spell out his economic plan in more detail. Then on Thursday night, the Labor Leader, Anthony Albanese, will deliver his Budget Reply speech. Parliament is back after six weeks off, so it's going to be a big one. And also, those repatriation flights from India are set to resume this weekend. Anthony Albanese, the Federal Opposition Leader, joins us live on the line. Albo, good morning to you. 

ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: Good morning, Ben. Good to be with you. 

FORDHAM: Do you get a bit nervous considering the Federal Government is about to detail all of their big spending measures in the Budget tomorrow?

ALBANESE: Not at all. I've been here for a while now as an MP and seen budgets come and go. This Budget has been characterised by Government announcements trying to fix up its own problems, the crisis in aged care, the fact that last year they said there was no issue with child care when we announced our cheaper child care policy. When it comes to jobs, there's some infrastructure announcements today. But we know that this Government has a big gap between announcement and delivery. And most of it’s off on the never-never and they've underspent by $7 billion since they've been in office on what they've said they would do and what they've actually done. 

FORDHAM: Josh Frydenberg says there will be no international travel until at least 2022. Scott Morrison says he doesn't see an appetite to reopen the international border. Have you got a view on when Australia should reopen itself to the rest of the world? 

ALBANESE: Well, the Government has to get its act together and do its day job. And if it has two day jobs, it is getting the vaccinations right and getting quarantine right. We do need to open up our economy. Unless we do, we'll continue to suffer economically. Sectors like the international education sector and the tourism sector are really continuing to do it very, very tough. And yesterday, the headlines in all the papers that people would have seen was 'doors slam shut'. This morning, its 'doors are about to open'. So it's very confusing. And for the business community trying to get a handle on future investments and where these issues are going, the Government needs to keep a single message for 24 hours. 

FORDHAM: The latest numbers out of India are again concerning. The daily death toll has gone past, 4000 for the first time over the weekend, 4187 fatalities on Saturday, 400,000 new infections for the third day in a row. And now, those repatriation flights are set to resume this weekend. Do you support that?

ALBANESE: I think we should have had our Australians home by Christmas, which is what the Prime Minister promised. We've had delay after delay. We haven't had quarantine centres that the Government says work, and they do. Places like Howards Springs has been less than half full for most of the time during this pandemic. The only thing that has stopped people getting home is the Government's complacency and the complacency that is there as well about the vaccination rollout. 

FORDHAM: But not everyone's been overseas last year hoping to come home by Christmas. There have been plenty of people who have gone to India this year for either work or family reasons and have been stuck over there. And you support the pausing of travel between India and Australia?

ALBANESE: I support the pausing of commercial travel, of course, as we've done in a range of countries. But there are people who have been stranded, including minors, more than 170 minors, most of whom have been there for a considerable period of time. 

FORDHAM: Now, just on those international borders, on dates, I'm guessing it's a mug's game to go weighing into that one to try and work out if it is going to be 2022, is it going to be 2023, is there any point in speculating on that? 

ALBANESE: Well, you've got to have the preconditions there, which is keeping Australians safe is the first priority. And that means getting quarantine right, getting vaccination right. We should be, as well, producing our own mRNA vaccines. We should have started that process last year. And one of the things that concerns me about this Budget is there's lots of Band-Aids coming out to fix the Government's political problems in the lead-up to an election. But there's no reform. There's no structural reform. And a whole range of weaknesses in our economy have been identified during the pandemic. We didn't have enough personal protective equipment. We didn't have enough ventilators. We need a plan to actually build more here, to have advanced manufacturing here. And we've outlined that through our National Reconstruction Fund. The Government, with all the announcements and all the money being thrown around, with a trillion dollars of debt, don't have a reform agenda. 

FORDHAM: We're talking to Anthony Albanese ahead of the Federal Budget tomorrow night. Just on another matter, campaigning is certainly underway in the Upper Hunter because there's a by-election there for the New South Wales Parliament. Malcolm Turnbull was out over the weekend campaigning, not on behalf of the Coalition candidate, but on behalf of an Independent candidate, Kirsty O'Connell. Would you consider tapping him on the shoulder, Albo, and getting him to campaign on behalf of the Labor Party next time around?

ALBANESE: No. We'll be running our own campaign. But it just shows what a rabble the Coalition are. They really don't like each other. We'll go back to Parliament tomorrow. We'll have Andrew Laming sitting as an LNP member on the backbench. We'll have Christian Porter back as a Cabinet Minister sitting on the frontbench. We'll have George Christensen pulling the pin up the back and perhaps pulling the pin and throwing a grenade. We'll wait and see what he does. It is a rabble and Australia deserve better than three more years of chaos, division, rorts, scandals. I think this Coalition need some time out of office to get their act together. 

FORDHAM: When you talk about that infighting in the Liberal Party, have you got a short memory or something?

ALBANESE: No, it destroyed our Labor Government under Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, who I think were both very fine prime ministers and remain friends of mine. But that's what happens. And that's what's happening in the Coalition. And it happens day after day. And that's just the latest example where you've got a bloke who was the Liberal Prime Minister not too long ago not bring himself to campaign for the Liberal Party, but against it. 

FORDHAM: It's going to be a big week. Thank you very much for joining us this Monday.

ALBANESE: Thanks very much, Ben.

ENDS