SUBJECTS: Lockdowns; Morrison missing in action; vaccine and quarantine failure; Queensland mine visit; Matt Canavan accountant from the Gold Coast.

MARCUS PAUL, HOST: Welcome back to the program Wednesday, July 21. As I mentioned some 13 and a half million Australians are currently in lockdown South Australia for seven days announced yesterday Victoria, an extension of seven days after 13 new cases we know what's happening in Sydney and also at the Central West of the state. Where does it end? 

Look, I know he doesn't need me to support him. But I have already done a piece on it this morning. But I'm going to repeat it, because he's actually called in, the Federal Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese.

There's been a bit of a hit job done on Albo this morning. That angered me by James Morrow. I mean, I don't know what these people expect. Anthony Albanese is the leader of the Federal Labor Party in opposition. He has a right to travel the country. That's what we expect of our leaders. You don't expect them to hide in curries in Kirribilli House in luxury. Albo's done a trip up and down the East Coast, if you like, over the last month. His itinerary... I mean, the argument is, the criticism is that he hasn't locked himself home in Sydney. And the ridiculous comment about being a hometown zero is just childish "B.S" as far as I'm concerned, that's what it breeds. And Albo locks himself out of Sydney. A hometown zero? Okay, so what are we expecting? Are we expecting our leaders to be at home locked down like us? Certainly not at a federal level. You know, it makes perfect sense that if you aren't being paid as a leader of a political party, you get out there and you press the flesh. Heaven forbid you might even visited a bloody coal mine for goodness sake. Not that you have to make a song and dance about it like others. Anyway, he's been everywhere. All the way from Gladstone, Queensland to Devonport in Tasmania, and in between. He certainly hasn't purposely, I'm sure, locked himself out of Sydney. Anyway, Anthony Albanese is called through. Albo Good morning.

ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: Good morning. I'm very well. 

PAUL: Where are you?

ALBANESE: The Phone is playing up at the moment. Marcus? 

PAUL: Yeah. Can you hear me? Okay. All right. Oh, I'm sorry about that. Is that a little better now? 

ALBANESE: Now, it sounds good. 

PAUL: The question where are you? Because apparently you've locked yourself out of your hometown and you're not supporting your fellow Marrickville residents by being locked out. it's a ridiculous criticism. 

ALBANESE: Well, I'm driving between Launceston and Hobart. I'm in a small town on the Midland Highway at the moment. And I'm about to fly back directly to Canberra. And so that I don't enter Victoria, of course, the option I had, of course, is to be locked down in Sydney. But I would have to have, if I'd done that, I would be locked down in my flat in Canberra for 14 days, unable to leave. And that I think people would question why that would be because obviously, it would stop me doing my job. We represent people around the country, including into my electorate. I've done zoom calls in to my electorate, we advertised on on Facebook, so anyone could participate. And I've been keeping in touch. My office, of course, is closed physically in Marrickville to people coming, but they're still providing services to people out of that office and providing advice. People are really concerned with the mixed messages that have been coming through from the Government and changes in support. There were four different changes last week. So people have needed that advice, and me and my office are certainly doing that. We're also ringing every one in the electorate aged above a certain age, above 60 to ask if there is any support. We're going through that myself and my team and continuing to do our best, but people are going through a really tough time. And the truth is that if this Government had fixed the rollout of the vaccine, and put in place national quarantine facilities, we wouldn't have these lockdowns. 

PAUL: Well, 13 and a half million Australians could actually get on with their lives and perhaps go to work and earn an income. I spoke to the Labor Leader in New South Wales this morning, Chris Minns is leading the charge, this increased pressure now at a federal level to reintroduce Jobkeeper Anthony, because we've got governments now right across the country, not allowing people to go to work. Six hundred dollar payments here from one state government and federal assistance. But while it's welcome, I'm being told that it's nowhere near scratching the surface. Anthony, I mean, nearly 400,000 construction workers in Sydney will not return to work, at least until the first of August, there needs to be more help from a federal level. Surely? 

ALBANESE: There does. This is a direct result of the Federal Government failure on the vaccine and quarantine and that's why the Federal Government has a responsibility here. It has a responsibility to provide more support than what we're seeing at the moment. We had Scott Morrison say, when Parliament last sat, that Gladys Berejiklian should be congratulated, but not doing any lockdowns and we know that as as a consequence, this virus in Greater Sydney has really spread further than it should have.

PAUL: Well it's in Regional New South Wales now Anthony. And that's an issue and there are grave concerns that some of our hospitals, as understaffed as they are, in places like Leeton, Griffith, these smaller communities, there are grave concerns by local MPs that they just don't have the staff to deal with an outbreak. We've already got one lockdown in the Central West, including Orange, Blaney, Cabonne Shire councils. I mean, we can only hope and pray it doesn't spread even further into regional areas. 

ALBANESE: While we just hope this is the case and we ask for everyone to follow the rules which have been put in place - they are to keep the community safe. And for people when they do you have the opportunity to get vaccinated. That's the key here. Of course, the issue has been supply. And I know that many people are so frustrated that they're they still unable to book an appointment to get a vaccine. I noticed in one of the papers this morning, over in the West, someone getting a Pfizer vaccine, a young person is a page one story. It shouldn't be the case eight a month into the pandemic. It should be the case that it's just normal. That's what we're seeing in the rest of the world. We are laughed, Marcus, in the developed world for the rollout of this vaccine.

PAUL: Well, that's right, only 11.3 per cent of our population today is fully vaccinated 17.4 per cent, have received only one dose. 10.3 per cent of the total doses delivered. There's a big rollout gap of some 4.9 million. And of course weekly new cases are on the rise due to the very dangerous Delta variant.

ALBANESE: That's right. And yeah, until we get more of the population vaccinated until we get national quarantine right, we will continue to have these outbreaks and will continue to have lockdowns. We've had 26 separate outbreaks from hotel quarantine. And we still don't have a hole being dug, a brick being put on top of another brick to build purpose built facilities. I'm not sure what it takes for the Morrison Government to get the message. I was as part of my visit to Queensland two weeks ago, I went to Toowoomba to the Wellcamp site. The Wagner's, next to the airport there, the Wagner family have put in place a proposition supported by the Palaszczuk Government. That was put to the Federal Government last October. It could have been up and running right now all year. It could have been operating with 1000 beds. Now think about that in terms of getting Australians home safely and not having the spread through ventilation systems that we've seen through hotel quarantine. But the Prime Minister just continues to go missing. 

PAUL: Where is he? It's been another 48 hours and nothing no commentary since the announcement of an extended lockdown in Victoria, nothing from the Prime Minister. Will he speak today to us? Well the Prime Minister, like other MPs, a number of our MP's have quarantining in Canberra, ahead of the parliament. But he is able, unlike members of my staff and other MPs who, who are confined to either their hotel or if they live at home, their residence, he has been given approval to go up to Parliament House. So there's nothing to stop him from, doing that. Well, he should be there, he should be there every day. And I wouldn't, I'd imagine that he'd be one of the most protected people in the country when it comes to this virus. And he damn well should be there each and every day behind his desk, he should be addressing the Australian people, reassuring the 13 and a half million Australians currently in lockdown many of those wondering about how they're going to feed their kids or pay their bills over the next couple of weeks, particularly in Sydney. You know, and also in Victoria, in particular, to the most expensive joints, the places and the joints to live. Where's the assurance? Where's the empathy? Where's the understanding from the leader of our country? While the vast majority of this population are under lockdown?

ALBANESE: Indeed, Marcus, people are doing it tough and, and that's here in Northern Tasmania, as well as not just the people in lockdown. People are impacted by this. So the tourism sector and people here inTasmania, having their economy, their jobs impacted. You can't lock down half the country without impacting the whole country. And that's what that's what we're seeing with this outbreak. But which remember back has came from someone transporting a foreign aircrew, to hotel quarantine, without being vaccinated, without wearing a mask. A complete failure of policy, which has led to these quite severe consequences with more than half the population locked down and billions of dollars being lost to the economy. 

PAUL: Yep. All right. One more thing before I let you go and I thank you for your time and for calling through Matt Canavan, Nationals MP. I don't know whether it will be on your Christmas card list. For some reason Matt has tried to leverage off your increasing popularity of late by having a good old crack at you on social media. He's talking about some sort of hidden video, or some... look I know that when you go and visit places you don't like to literally make a song and dance about it like others. But what's the story here? What's the issue with this so called "secretive” mine visit Anthony?

ALBANESE: It's pretty funny really. You know, I did two media alerts. One on a Sunday, one on the Monday, I did radio interviews. I did a press conference in Moranbah and nothing secret about it. A photo was in the Weekend Australian on Saturday, that was provided by my office to the Weekend Australian. Nothing secret about it at all. And what happened was that one of the numpties in the Government tried to say, ‘Oh, well, he's been in Moranbah, but he hasn't been to a coal mine’ and we're like, ‘yeah, we have’. Nothing, nothing secret about it. If it's a secret, then it's pretty odd one. I'll talk to workers, wherever they are, and I'll say this about Matt Canavan. He gets around, he smears coal on his face, so that he pretends he's a worker with the rest of his gear all being clean, the bloke is an accountant from the Gold Coast, not from mining communities. He got this photo the other day with all these tools behind him while he did a video, and none of the tools have been touched. They were in pristine condition. This is all about image from Mr. Canavan. And I don't take him seriously. 

PAUL: He's the only miner on the Gold Coast. I know that. All right. What you need to do in future whenever you do business you need to get Twiggy Forrest decides you both throw on a South Sydney jersey and just do a little dance or something and then put it on Facebook and that's the way to do it.

ALBANESE: Okay, Marcus good to be with you. 

PAUL: Thank you. Anthony Albanese Federal Opposition Leader.

ENDS