SUBJECTS: National plan to reopen during the COVID pandemic; COVID outbreaks around Australia; lockdowns; vaccine rollout; need for national quarantine facilities; Doherty modelling; hospitals not being able to cope with COVID cases; next Federal election; Newspoll. 

MARCUS PAUL, HOST: Good morning to you, Albo.

ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: Good morning, Marcus.

PAUL: Nice to chat to you, mate. How have you been keeping? Well?

ALBANESE: I'm not too bad. I'm in lockdown, of course, in Canberra. And it's pretty cold here this morning and very foggy. And we've had a wet weekend. So, good for the flowers in time for spring.

PAUL: Very true, mate. Now, how far away are we, do you think, from the easing of the current restrictions Australia-wide?

ALBANESE: Well, everything that we've been saying for 18 months has been about reducing the potential for lockdown and keeping people safe. The need to vaccinate the population, the need to have purpose-built quarantine, the need to avoid the mistakes that have been there, like the outbreak, of course, in Sydney that has spread around the country where we didn't lock down soon enough, with encouragement from Scott Morrison. But to go back a bit, this came from a single driver of a foreign aircrew taking someone to hotel quarantine. Now, that was identified as a gaping hole in keeping people safe by Jane Halton almost a year ago now.

PAUL: That is right, the Halton Report.

ALBANESE: And nothing happened. Tragically, yesterday, another death from the Summer Hill nursing home in my electorate. Again, an aged care worker working multiple facilities unvaccinated. We knew from what occurred in Victoria that aged care workers working in multiple sites ran the risk of picking up an infection and then spreading it. And it was still happening more than a year later since we learnt that lesson. This Government just haven't done that their fundamental jobs. And now today, very worried about the stress that's on the New South Wales hospital system. 

PAUL: Of course.

ALBANESE: With over 120 people in ICU, with 1200, a record number of cases yesterday, and of course, six more deaths. This is a real problem. And of course, we know that the impact of lockdowns also has such a huge impact on people's jobs, on our economy, on being able to do basic things like go and visit an elderly relative in a nursing home, that is impossible. On having to home-school. Many parents are really struggling because they've got to work full-time, they're essential workers and they've got kids at home that they're worried about. And of course, the impact on children themselves. Children benefit from going to school. That whole social interaction that they get that they're missing out on. My son is a university student and he hasn't been onto the campus since 2019.

PAUL: Are we on the right track, Albo, when it comes to 70 to 80 per cent? The Doherty Institute, that's the modelling the Federal Government is going by, New South Wales Government keep quoting it. Once we reach 70 to 80 per cent, are you in agreement that we should open up again and just try as best we can, perhaps, to learn to live with this COVID situation, make sure we look after the most vulnerable and ensure that, perhaps, people can get back to work and back to university?

ALBANESE: Look, I am in agreement with setting targets and doing it on the basis of health advice. And the Doherty Institute have very comprehensive advice. But they also, in that advice, speak about the need to have contact tracing, testing, to have all those things in place. It's not just rip the band-aid off and whatever happens, happens. It is the mechanisms that need to be put in place that they envisage, as well. And I think that we do need to have a plan to open up. And the national plan has been agreed by all states and territories. That's one that I agree with. But the focus needs to be to get things right now. Because unless you do that, then you won't be moving towards that opening up.

PAUL: We know next year that we're going to require booster shots. Has the Government not learnt from the mistakes of the past? Are we leaving the purchase of booster vaccination shots too late as well?

ALBANESE: Well, boosters, of course, are being rolled out from next month in the United States. They're being rolled out in the United Kingdom. They are happening now. 

PAUL: And in Israel.

ALBANESE: And Israel, of course, did secure enough vaccines. They had a leader who was prepared to get on the phone and to ensure that happened. And the problem in Australia, it comes from a range of errors, but right at the top, the failure to secure vaccine supply early enough and the sort of rhetoric where we said we were at the front of the queue and we certainly weren't. This Government just prioritises its rhetoric and its bluster. And the consequences of that are being felt by all those in Greater New South Wales and Canberra and Victoria and New Zealand now in lockdown.

PAUL: Look what's happening right now, Anthony, on the Gold Coast. I'm getting pictures and reports that truck drivers are blockading the M1 Motorway. They say they are standing up for their 'rights'. But we have a truck blockade of the M1 Motorway that's happening, as you and I speak, on the Gold Coast, southbound heading toward the New South Wales border. And it's happening basically near Smith Street, as you may well know, one of the major intersections heading towards Southport and other areas of the Gold Coast. People are starting to get a little bit edgy about all of these lockdowns.

ALBANESE: Well, they are. And it's understandable because it has such an impact on people's lives. People unable to connect with loved ones, people unable to go about their everyday life, people worried about their children or their grandkids, people missing that social interaction. More Australians are single dwellers than ever before. And that, being apart from other human interaction, has an impact. And the fact that it has gone on in New South Wales now for so many weeks has had a real impact. And of course, in Victoria, they've had over 200 days of lockdown since last year, including 2020. They're doing it really tough. So it is absolutely understandable, people's frustration out there. But we need to put the measures in place. The lockdowns won't end by just saying, 'We hope at all happens, we hope we get it right'. The lockdowns will end by getting people vaccinated, by fixing quarantine systems, by making sure that we do better in terms of contact tracing. In New South Wales, one of my own staff got contacted in New South Wales because they've been to one of the exposure sites 12 days earlier. Twelve days it took. So for 12 days they've been wandering around. They were negative. They've been to a local shopping centre in the Inner West where someone who's been there was a positive case. But that just shows that the system at the moment isn't working. They're struggling to keep up. And might I just say this, Marcus, to our nurses, to the contract tracers, the people in the Health Department in New South Wales, a huge shout-out - you have been heroic, you're working ridiculous hours under incredible pressure and my absolute hats off to you. A big thank you from the community.

PAUL: Well, absolutely. And look, just on a personal note in relation to this, as you know, we had a family loss in the last couple of weeks. But to the wonderful staff at Queensland Health, and the reason I bring this up, because you would know, Anthony, and I'm sure you've heard from constituents in Marrickville in your government area that, unfortunately, COVID has meant that we can't mourn, or we can't attend funerals, or we can't associate as we do with families in the normal way. So the way things are operating now in between jurisdictions, where it's obviously very difficult with lockdowns, means that, well, things are being done online. Now, to Queensland Health, particularly those at Robina Hospital on the Gold Coast who were in the care of my father in his final hours, they went above and beyond. I mean, they had mobile phones, FaceTime set up, they ensured that a nurse, because nobody else could get in there because of the COVID situation, they ensured that a nurse was with him at all times and that we were able to speak with him and see him. So it's very difficult, very difficult at the moment, during these COVID times. And I know that I'm one of many, probably tens of thousands of people who've been affected this way.

ALBANESE: Absolutely, Marcus. And my sincere condolences to you on air, we've done it privately. But to go through a loss at this time is so difficult for people. And it's just one of the real human impacts that this pandemic is having. And we've got to remember every day when the figures come out - yesterday, six deaths, 1200 positive cases - behind every one of those figures is a real person. There's a mum or a dad or a daughter or brother or friends. It is having a real impact on real people. And we've got to remember that. I think sometimes the statistics hide the real impact that it's having.

PAUL: Well said. All right. Before I let you go, I know you don't place too much credence in opinion polls, but today is a good one for you and your mob. Absolutely, it is. Maybe Mr Morrison might call the election now. December sounds like a good idea, considering 54 per cent of Australians are in support of Labor compared to 46 for the Federal Government, two-party preferred in the Newspoll today, Anthony.

ALBANESE: Well, of course, the figures that I'm focused on is getting vaccination rates higher and getting those positive case numbers lower. They are the numbers I'm focused on. Labor has only won government from opposition three times since the Second World War. Kevin Rudd used to say that it was like climbing Mount Everest. And indeed, it is. We know that polls come and go. So I'm just focused on what's needed at election time. I've said at the beginning that I'm focused on that. But more importantly, focused on what happens after the election if we're successful, making sure that we have a program of secure work, of increasing jobs.

PAUL: You must be buoyed a little by these numbers because it's not just this poll, there are others also suggesting that people are upset with the Government, Anthony?

ALBANESE: Politicians, of course, look at polls. And it would not be honest to say that we didn't. But it is important that we're focused on what the needs of the Australian people are. And that's what I've been focused on, not the next week or the next fortnight, but on the future of this country. We are a great country. But we can be even greater if we have a plan for an economy that works for people rather than the other way around, if we have a plan of good social policy, of creating opportunity for future jobs and for prosperity and if we have a plan for sustainability by addressing issues like climate change. That's my focus. That'll be my focus come the election. And we're ready whenever it's called.

ENDS