SUBJECTS: Remembrance Day; Federal election campaign; climate change; Government’s lower emissions technology fund; A Future Made in Australia; Labor’s policy agenda; lack of trust in the Morrison Government.
 
MARCUS PAUL, HOST: Albo is on the phone. Good morning to you, mate.
 
ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: Good morning, Marcus.
 
PAUL: Nice to talk to you. Before we get into the nitty gritty of the politics, I just had the Veterans' Affairs Minister on the program on this very solemn day, Remembrance Day. What does it mean for you?
 
ALBANESE: Look, it is a critical day. And today I will be with the men and women of the Balmain-Rozelle RSL at 11am at Loyalty Square in Balmain. This is a monument in the main part of Darling Street, Balmain, in my electorate, that was built while the war was still going. Just think about that. While the war was still going, people in the community were collecting money and building a memorial to honour the fallen from their local community. And of course, we know that in suburbs and in towns right around the country, that was the case. The enormous loss that occurred in World War I was quite extraordinary in terms of the numbers. And we today, of course, honour those amongst us who fought in Afghanistan, who fought in Iraq, who continue to serve their nation. And we just give our respect to them and, of course, for their families. I fought very hard, as you know, Marcus, for a royal commission into veteran suicide. And we know that for many of our veterans, today will be a difficult day.
 
PAUL: Absolutely. All right, let's get into it. I want to start doing our conversation with something a little different. It's a letter to the editor in the paper today. And it goes to the point of what we are going to discuss. And I'll read it verbatim. It comes from a bloke called Bruce in Moranbah. Bruce writes, ‘Very interesting article penned by Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese, 'Building our own future'’ - your opinion piece yesterday - 'After reading this very positive article, I have two questions for Mr Albanese. How can we manufacture anything in Australia without baseload power? Am I correct in assuming he is saying that Australia will continue to use coal and gas and will eventually introduce nuclear power into the nation's energy mix to achieve Labor's aims? Other forms of energy are unproven, not costed and are decades away from being introduced. Then we also have the other question not covered in your article. Can we trust the unions to deliver manufactured products on time and at the agreed price?' Now that's typical of what a couple of people have been sending letters in today to the newspapers about, Albo. And I thought I'd ask you that.
 
ALBANESE: Look, I'd make two points there. The first is we can have low energy prices if we embrace the opportunity that is there from the cheapest form of new energy, and we know that that's renewables. One of the first visits I had, for example, was to Gladstone, to the aluminium refinery there. Rio Tinto, who run that operation, are looking at solar power to power their manufacturing. Just a couple of weeks ago, I was out in Fairfield with Chris Bowen and Ed Husic, looking at a factory that has reduced its power bills by $250,000 a year, which makes glass and aluminium products by embracing solar energy on the rooftop of that factory, that employs hundreds of people in Chris Bowen's electorate in Western Sydney. Here in my own electorate in Marrickville, I have a company that makes the Melbourne Cup, that makes the trophies for the Australian Open, that is a major producer of products involving gold and silver. And gold is our third largest mineral, something that is not known by everyone, I suspect. But it is using renewables and using cleaner forms of production to lower its prices. So, we can do that. We can get things and make them here today. And the idea that you make things cheaper overseas, the fact that the light rail line in Sydney is shut down for 18 months, another disaster because state governments have bought trains and trams and buses and ferries overseas. And they're not fit-for-purpose when they break down. That 18 months, the line is going to be shut down in Sydney, a light rail line that was constructed not that long ago, because it's not fit-for-purpose. We can do it here in Australia.
 
PAUL: Well, look at Queensland. I don't want to say it put the New South Wales Government to shame, but we know in 2032 new infrastructure will be built for the Olympic Games in Queensland and the Palaszczuk Government up there says, 'Yes, we're going to mobilise our manufacturing industry and we're going to make trains and other crucial infrastructure in major regional hubs like Maryborough'. Now, if they can do it in Queensland, surely to goodness, we can manufacture, build fit-for-purpose, infrastructure for crucial aspects like our transport system here in New South Wales as well.
 
ALBANESE: Of course we can. And there at Maryborough, that town has been brought to life. They're bringing in not just because of the rail manufacturing at Downer EDI, but other manufacturing, such as a battery manufacturing place is going to be launched later this year that will employ 250 people. What we see, and what we're seeing too often in Australia, is we export our natural resources, value gets added, then we import them back. Here's a simple idea. Let's make more things here. Let's be more resilient here. I want a Future Made in Australia. We can do it.
 
PAUL: Well, surely, we can add value here. It makes sense.
 
ALBANESE: Of course it does. And the only thing that's stopping us is ideology. This idea that we can't do things here. Gladys Berejiklian said, 'Oh, we can't make trams here'. Well, in Newcastle, they used to. And I make this point. The Tangara trains that were built with Australian workers in Newcastle are still running on our tracks. They were built decades ago. Still running today. The trains or trams that have been on the tracks for a few years only on the inner west line currently have cracks in them and won't be able to operate and the whole line is shut down for 18 months.
 
PAUL: And we effectively got them on the cheap from Spain. I just want to move on.
 
ALBANESE: It ends up costing you more. That's the point.
 
PAUL: That's right. I just want to move on from trains and trams to electric vehicles. Here's the Prime Minister.
 
JOURNALIST, 2021: How can you honestly spruik electric vehicles when you campaigned against them in the last election?
 
SCOTT MORRISON, 2021: But I didn't.
 
SCOTT MORRISON, 2019: Bill Shorten wants to end the weekend when it comes to his policy on electric vehicles.
 
SCOTT MORRISON, 2021: No, I didn't ridicule that technology. That's good technology.
 
SCOTT MORRISON, 2019: And I'll tell you what, it's not going to tow your trailer. It's not going to tow your boat.
 
SCOTT MORRISON, 2021: The customer's always right and the customer wants to buy electric vehicles.
 
PAUL: Okay. You better be careful, Anthony, what you release up until the next election date, because they might pinch more of Labor's policies.
 
ALBANESE: Well, it's just extraordinary, isn't it? This is a Prime Minister who spent years ridiculing electric vehicles, saying it would end the weekend, saying it would increase prices. Today, he's been on television this morning making these mad claims, saying that the electric vehicles policy that we took to the last election somehow had something to do with fuel prices. It's just extraordinary. He's prepared to say anything at all and hope that people don't hold him to account for what he said yesterday but they believe what he says today, even though it directly contradicts previous statements. This is a Prime Minister who himself says you can't give any credence to what I say. That's what he's saying when he dismisses it and says that he hasn't said things in the past. Well, if you can't believe what the Prime Minister says yesterday, why should you give him any credibility for what he's saying today?
 
PAUL: All right. What on earth does this mean? 'Can-do capitalism'. Is it another three-word slogan? I don't understand how you can say so much but actually deliver so little. 'Can-do capitalism'. I nearly fell out of my chair.
 
ALBANESE: Well, it's always about the announcement, never the delivery. And it's always about the spin, never about the substance. And here he has stolen a slogan from Campbell Newman. And Campbell Newman's Government didn't last too long, got thrown out of office. They had a record majority and then they had a record defeat in one term because it led to slash and burn, is what it led to. And this is a Government where Scott Morrison, you can just see what will happen if somehow they get a second decade in office and win the next election. He'll say, 'We've got this record debt' - that they've created of a trillion dollars - 'and we now need Government to get out of people's lives, so here come the cuts’. Cuts to education. Cuts to health. Cuts to services. Cuts to the NDIS. Cuts right across the board'.
 
PAUL: Sorry, Anthony. Is that why he is angling, and he said it, you're right, on a number of occasions in the last few days saying, 'Government needs to get out of the way. We need less government in our lives'. Is that what you think he's angling for?
 
ALBANESE: What else does it mean? It won't mean less subsidies for their mates. It won't mean less pork barrelling. Because at the same time as he is saying, 'less government' he is announcing various pork barrelling measures, which seems to be their specialty. And just the day before, he was announcing saying, 'We need another half a billion dollars of funding for a program'. A day later, he is saying we need less government. Well, which is it? Does he want Labor to support the half billion dollars of additional funding, or does he want less government? This is just extraordinary. He says leave it to capitalism. This is a guy who is advocating spending $600 million dollars on a gas-fired plant in Kurri Kurri that the private sector say that is crowding out private sector investment that was ready to go.
 
PAUL: Alright, Albo, I'll need to leave it there. We’ve got the news coming up. Good to chat. Hopefully, you can drop off studio here in the coming weeks and we can get stuck into more of the nitty gritty as we get closer to an election announcement. Anthony Albanese, thank you for your time.
 
ALBANESE: All the best, Marcus.
 
ENDS