SUBJECTS: Weather in Sydney; the next federal election; criticism of Labor during the global financial crisis; debt; companies refusing to pay back JobKeeper; help for Australians stranded in India; India flight ban; Commonwealth responsibility for quarantine; alternatives to hotel quarantine; meeting with Brittany Higgins; treatment of women in the workplace; Federal Budget; National Recovery and Resilience Agency re-announcement.
 
MARCUS PAUL, HOST: I'm very happy to say, for the very first time because of COVID restrictions and everything that we've been through in the past 12, 13, 14 months, Anthony Albanese, we've spoken many times, of course, on the telephone, but for the first time in the studio. Albo, good morning to you. 

ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: Good to be here, Marcus. 

PAUL: It's really nice to see you.

ALBANESE: It is great to be in the studio.

PAUL: A little bit of traffic this morning, but not as much fog and smog as we've seen in Sydney.

ALBANESE: That's right. No, it's a bit cloudy. I flew out early Monday morning up to Brisbane and then on to Mackay and it was dark and fog and smoke and it was shocking. Today it is just rain and wet. Good for the gardens.

PAUL: Well, absolutely. And don't we need that. Look, it's a very, very busy time for you, obviously. We are on an election footing. I suppose the first thing I wanted to ask is, when are you expecting Scott Morrison to call an election, Anthony?

ALBANESE: I'm ready any time from October. But my prediction is first Saturday in March next year. I think that if Scott Morrison calls an early election, we only have three-year terms, people will ask a big question of why. The only reason why he'd go this year is because he thinks it's going to get worse next year. And this is a Government in search of an agenda. They've been there for eight long years. They'll be asking for 12 years in office. That’s longer than John Howard got. So it's a big ask for them to get another term without having any positive vision for the future. 

PAUL: And that's what I suppose sets Labor apart from the LNP. Many would say that we're just going to get more of the same old, same old. I refer back to constant criticism under Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard of Labor, even at the time of saving our country from the global financial crisis. I remember times when the Labor government at the time was criticised for record debt and deficit, but we're nowhere –

ALBANESE: It looks pretty miniscule now, Marcus.

PAUL: We’re close to a trillion. 

ALBANESE: They said it was massive debt and unsustainable. And now it had doubled, of course, before the pandemic under this Government. It's now doubled again effectively, almost up to a trillion dollars of debt. And without anything really to show for it. When you look at when we were in government during the global financial crisis, we had a fibre to the premise National Broadband Network, we had more money invested in public transport than all previous governments combined, we had the duplication of the Pacific Highway funding, the Bruce Highway. We built things. We built, of course, structures in every school in the country that have made a difference, that kids this morning will be sheltering out of the rain in some of those halls at their assemblies before school. And that makes a big difference. This government has no legacy. There's no doubt that we had to invest. That's what you do at a time when the economy's in a downturn. And of course, we've had, under this government, the first recession in three decades. There's no doubt that they had to invest. But people will look around with a trillion dollars of debt and say, ‘Where did it all go?’. Well, one place it went, of course, was to companies that were actually increasing their profits.

PAUL: Well, I speak quite regularly to your colleague Andrew Leigh about that. We call him our #JobKeeperWarrior because he, through some of the really good work that Andrew has done, has clawed back tens of millions of dollars, which is good because, you know, it shouldn't be a time for being business to prosper when everybody else, including, you know, so many sectors, the retail, hospitality sectors, the aviation sector, and plenty of others have seen mum and dads, single parents, frontline workers here in New South Wales haven't received a pay rise. But we seem to, under the Morison Government, see being business making more money than ever. How is that possible during a pandemic, Anthony?

ALBANESE: Well it’s just extraordinary that the Government designed the scheme whereby if you got literally tens of millions of dollars that you didn't need, your profits are actually going up not down, you can just keep it, no problem, nothing to see here. 

PAUL: The Treasurer has refused point blank on a number of occasions to force these big businesses, the Solomon Lew, or, some of them have, which is good, but that's due to the work from Andrew Leigh and others, but some of them have paid it back when others just refused to, Premier Investments and others. I think it's high time that all the money is repaid, considering JobKeeper wasn't supposed to be for executive bonuses and for big business profits. Sure, it was available to them, which is wonderful if it got through a certain period until business picked up again. Well then, you know. I thought it was supposed to be for businesses that lost 30 per cent of their income.

ALBANESE: That's exactly right. And wage subsidies were our idea, of course. When we proposed it, Scott Morrison said it was a dangerous idea. But the idea that it's gone to that end. And compare that, Marcus, with what happens under Robodebt and if you're someone who's got an extra $100. 

PAUL: We’ll chase you to the ends of the earth.

ALBANESE: You get chased down, you get threatened with jail terms. They literally, the minister at the time, said literally, ‘We will hunt you down’. Well, we know where some of the money's gone for JobKeeper where it shouldn't have gone. And there’s no need to hunt them down. They're the ones with full page advertising spreads every day in every newspaper that are doing quite well.

PAUL: Well, let's talk about a couple of issues. India. Some have called the move by the Morrison Government, Anthony, as unAustralian, a breach of human rights. Why is it that we can't get, at least at a bare minimum, some 600 of the most vulnerable Australians home from India without the risk of giving them ridiculous fines or, worse, throwing them in jail? This is Australia.

ALBANESE: Well, we've had a position whereby the Government has said you can be an Australian citizen, but we'll lock you out, and if you try and come back, we'll lock you up. The Australian passport has to mean something. And what it means is that you have rights. And part of that fundamental right as an Australian is to come to Australia. And what we have from this Government is a lockout at the moment. But the threat, the heavy-handed threat, to give people five years jail, put out in the middle of the night on the same day, the same day, they had met with leaders of the Indian community here in Australia. Didn't mention any of that. Put it out in the middle of the night. And then yesterday morning, Scott Morrison says, well, there's zero, almost zero chance that it'll ever be applied. Well, why do you announce the law? Why do you threaten a law? And why then do you have –

PAUL: Because you puff your chest out and want to be – 

ALBANESE: Well, why then do you direct almost that law to not be enforced? It is, is just the latest example of how this Government is all about political management. They should do their day job. Scott Morrison said that Australians would be home by Christmas. We're now in May and we have 35,000 Australians stranded overseas. And we have a range of possibilities. Of course, we brought we brought home people from Wuhan at the outbreak of the pandemic on charter flights at the height of the pandemic.

PAUL: Yes. Quarantine, Anthony. Have we really got this wrong? I mean, can you settle, once and for all, quarantine, is it a Federal Government responsibility?

ALBANESE: Well, it's in our rulebook. It's called the Australian constitution. 

PAUL: Thank you.

ALBANESE: It’s right there in black and white.

PAUL: So why has the Federal Government pretty much put all the burden for quarantine in not fit-for-purpose situations like hotel rooms? Why has all the burden been pushed to the states?

ALBANESE: Well, Scott Morrison, after the bushfire disaster of more than a year ago now, Scott Morrison, when the pandemic came along, made a clear and conscious decision that he was going to set up something called the National Cabinet whereby responsibilities would be handed to the states, where he would take credit for anything that was positive that they did in press conferences after those meetings, but anything that went wrong was not his responsibility. It's always someone else. And clearly, the idea that states are in charge of who comes to Australia is absurd. The Commonwealth runs quarantine under the Constitution. They run immigration, they run customs and they have responsibilities to bring people home. 

PAUL: We're spending millions of dollars to detain a family of four from Sri Lanka on Christmas Island. Millions upon millions of dollars of dollars.

ALBANESE: Tens of millions, it’s up to.

PAUL: Yeah, right. And surely, we can have this facility used for quarantine.

ALBANESE: Well there’s a range of facilities. Look, you have Exmouth in WA, the WA Premier has suggested Rottnest Island could be used as well.

PAUL: Anywhere away from populations.

ALBANESE: We have facilities that have been suggested in the hinterland of Gladstone, in Toowoomba, Avalon airport in Victoria. There are a range of possibilities. It's also the case that if you're going to use hotels, which are built for tourists, they're not built for medical quarantine, but if you're going to use them, you have to look at the issue of ventilation. This is an issue that was raised to the Government by Jane Halton in a report a year ago, where she also raised and explicitly named places like Exmouth, the expansion of Howard Springs, that was left at far less than its capacity for a long period of time. We could have had people through there, that's an excellent facility whereby people have access to their own outside without infecting anyone else. They’re stand-alone facilities. You have a system there whereby food’s delivered for the entire day, the three meals, two cold and one hot, are delivered at once, they're delivered in a way that's contactless. So it's been a real success. The Government didn't bother to expand it. You had the issue of the RAAF fleet that could be used. It’s good enough for ministers to fly to Europe and fly around seeking jobs. But it hasn't been used to places like India, for example, in the reason it would be particularly appropriate there.

PAUL: Well that’s a good point. If we could fly Mathias Cormann around Europe on a job-seeking mission, surely we can repatriate Australian citizens, Anthony. They are citizens of Australia.

ALBANESE: Absolutely.

PAUL: I’ll take a quick break. Anthony Albanese, the Federal Leader of the Opposition is our guest in the studio this morning. When we come back, I just want to talk to you briefly. You met with Brittany Higgins last week. I just want to talk to you about that issue. The general issue. And also today, all the goodies are out, of course, ahead of the Budget on Tuesday. All the leaks have been leaked, as they do, and all the good news is making front page stories everywhere. But there is a $600 million resilience agency which will aid disaster recovery. In my mind, I thought we already set aside billions of dollars for this sort of thing and I'm worried that it's going to be another big bloated bureaucracy and we still have people in tents after bushfires. Anthony, we'll talk about that after we take a quick break. Marcus Paul in the Morning.

[ADVERTISING BREAK]

PAUL: Alright, welcome back. It's now seven and a half minutes away from eight o'clock. Anthony Albanese, Leader of Federal Labor, Opposition Leader and alternate prime minister joining us in the studio. Albo, you met last week with Brittany Higgins. Of course, we don't need to rehash the reasons why. You found her to be a formidable and highly intelligence and just a wonderful ambassador?

ALBANESE: She's an outstanding human being who has shown incredible courage. And it's not so much on behalf of herself, but on behalf of other women in particular. What it’s taken for her to speak out. And it gives me great hope in this country to see people like Brittany and Grace Tame, our Australian of the Year, who just show incredible courage. We do need to make sure that every woman is safe at work. 

PAUL: No matter where they work.

ALBANESE: No matter where they work. And that that's what Brittany is about. Some pretty clear principles going forward. And she's had an incredibly tough time. Yeah. But she's resilient. And she's strong. And she's inspirational, I think.

PAUL: Was your conversation as robust as what perhaps the Prime Minister's was? I mean, she's been highly critical of the perhaps the handling of her issue, without going into detail. But I just find it extraordinary that it's taken something like this to be the circuit breaker in what's been going on.

ALBANESE: Well, it is an extraordinary series of events. The idea that the Prime Minister had no knowledge of any of this, in spite of his office and other ministers and people in Parliament House having knowledge, is just, to my mind, not believable. But Brittany, it was an opportunity for me to listen, firstly, to her. The first thing that we've got to do is listen to people and have respect for them. And it was a very good conversation. I was very pleased to meet with her. I was with Tanya Plibersek, who’s our spokesperson for the status of women. We of course have put forward a range of issues, very independent of Brittany's circumstances, but issues like domestic and family violence leave, issues about respect at work. We campaigned strongly to get a response from this Government to the Respect@Work report of the Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Kate Jenkins, that was tabled more than a year ago.

PAUL: Alright, finally, all the goodies are out of the bag in relation to, all good news gets leaked, of course, ahead of the Budget on Tuesday. I look forward to the Budget in Reply speech. But the $600 million resilience agency to aid disaster recovery. I mentioned on the programme earlier this morning, don’t we already have billions of dollars set aside for something like this?

ALBANESE: Well, this is an amalgamation of two existing agencies with a dollar attached. But there's $4 billion was established in the Emergency Response Fund. 

PAUL: What’s that been used for?

ALBANESE: Not a dollar of it has been spent. There was $200 million per year was taken from the Education Investment Fund, so took money from other funds, build it in, called it the Emergency Response Fund, $200 million, $150 million for recovery, $50 million annual spend on resilience. So for things like preparation for bushfires, for floods, money that should be spent each and every year. Not a dollar of it's been touched. This Government preside over circumstances whereby there are still people living in tents and caravans and temporary accommodation in south east New South Wales and in other areas that were affected. So it’s just a shocker. And it’s run by Shane Stone.

PAUL: Oh okay. Wouldn’t be a job for a mate, would it?

ALBANESE: A former president of the Liberal Party.

PAUL: Oh, another job for a mate. Well look, there’s plenty more to discuss and you and I will chat again after the Budget, no doubt. Thank you for dropping by. I know you've got to move on to another appointment there. Just before we go, Albo. We know that you're a bit of an Aussie at heart. I want to play a song. What’s an act that you like, enjoy, music-wise?

ALBANESE: Oh, Cold Chisel, Midnight Oil, INXS.

PAUL: Cold Chisel?

ALBANESE: I’m showing my age here.

PAUL: No, I’m with you on that. And good Australian music, too. How about we do a Chisel tune for you this morning as you leave us and walk out the door? And we’ll catch up with you again soon.

ALBANESE: Terrific, thanks Marcus.

ENDS