SUBJECTS: NSW Labor; Upper Hunter by-election; vaccine rollout; quarantine; Labor’s policy agenda; secure work; wage theft; need for public health advertising for vaccination rollout; economy; Christian Porter; ABC defamation case.

JOHN LAWS, HOST: Opposition Leader, Anthony Albanese, is facing headaches in his home state following New South Wales’ implosion in the wake of the Upper Hunter by-election. He also has got his own troubles internally with MPs like Meryl Swanson and Joel Fitzgibbon concerned about the direction of the Labor Party. Hopefully, I'm sure we do have Anthony Albanese on the line. Good morning. 

ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: Good morning, John. Good to speak with you again. 

LAWS: Good to speak to you, Anthony Albanese. It always is. Now tell me this. Have you applied any pressure on Michael Daley to withdraw from the race for New South Wales Opposition Leader in order to give Chris Minns a clear run? 

ALBANESE: No, I haven't. That will be worked through, I'm sure, in a reasonable way. The caucus there in New South Wales is meeting tomorrow. And I'm sure that the Party will act in a mature way and people will have discussions and we’ll have an outcome. 

LAWS: You’ve said that the Prime Minister, this rather surprised me that you said it, that the Prime Minister of the country had only two things to deal with this year, the vaccine rollout and Brittany Higgins. Do you really think he only had two things to deal with? Or were you being facetious? I think you might. I hope you were being facetious. 

ALBANESE: No, of course, the Prime Minister has many roles. But he had two fundamental things that he had to get right. And the two things that I've spoken about are actually the rollout of the vaccine and the issue of quarantine and a national quarantine system. And the reason why I say that they're the two big priorities is that if you don't get that right, then you can't get other things right. The economy, as we're seeing with Victoria, closes down, people lose their jobs, people aren't able to engage in their normal way of life. And that's why it's absolutely essential that we do get this right. The Government has had more than a year to plan. And yet, we don't have appropriate quarantine facilities. People are still being housed in hotels in the middle of CBDs that were built for tourists. They're not built for medical quarantine centres. And that's why we've seen in this Victorian outbreak an escape from Adelaide quarantine and it then drifted across nationally. We've seen now 21 separate issues where hotel quarantine has failed. And there have been real consequences for that. And that's why we needed to get quarantine right. And when it comes to the rollout of the vaccine, we were told we'd be at the front of the queue. And we're not even in the top 100 countries as of a few days ago. 

LAWS: So how did that happen? 

ALBANESE: Well, we haven't got it right. Firstly, the Government didn't have enough deals with pharmaceutical companies for pharmaceuticals, vaccines like Moderna. We put all our eggs in the AstraZeneca basket. And when that became a problem, then that became a problem with the rollout. The Government said that four million Australians would be vaccinated by the end of March. And we haven’t even got four million Australians fully vaccinated now and it's June. So it's a failure to plan. There was a certain arrogance and complacency last year with a Government that was saying, ‘We are at the front of the queue and everything was all on track, we're ahead of the world’. And the truth is that on the vaccine rollout, we certainly are nowhere near the front of the queue. As I said, there's more than a hundred countries ahead of us.

LAWS: I don't know about this vaccine thing. I suppose it is a major issue. On the vaccine rollout, you're quite correct. But we are leading the world in economic recovery after the problems that we've had. So there are good things happening. I don't think we ought to talk the place down all the time. 

ALBANESE: No, that that's right. And Australians have been magnificent in their response, including our Victorian friends at the moment showing they're prepared to make sacrifices to look after each other. And there have been a range of very positive initiatives. There’s talk today of a potential breakthrough in terms of a patch that would be able to provide, essentially, a vaccine through that sort of system that could be really helpful as well, with Australian researchers who always punch above their weight, in this case researchers in Queensland. So there are many, many positive things. But the fact that we haven't been successful in the rollout of the vaccine, you yourself would know, John, listening to the ads there on 2SM and throughout the network, that there are far more ads for various companies that are far more effective than the advertising campaign promoting the reason why people getting vaccinated is so important, not just for themselves, but for their families, their neighbours and their communities.

LAWS: It's a very, very important thing. But I think a lot of Australians aren't understanding the importance that should be placed on it. Labor's primary vote slumped to 21 per cent in Upper Hunter. Are you now paying the price for being too close to the Greens? Because I think you might be.

ALBANESE: No. We got 17 a few elections ago in Upper Hunter. We've never won the seat in 93 years, John. You would well recall the Wran years. 

LAWS: Sure do.

ALBANESE: And ’81 when we won seats like Manly, we won the Premier's seat of Willoughby, we won Wakehurst on the Northern Beaches, we held seats by Burrinjuck with the Sheahans, senior and junior ministers in Labor Governments over decades. We have never won, in spite of winning just about everything, we have never won Upper Hunter. So the idea that somehow that was a big deal is quite extraordinary really. 

LAWS: To me, it sounds like it was a waste of money.

ALBANESE: Well, it's quite extraordinary that there was this idea that this somehow was Labor heartland. It never has been Labor heartland. It hasn't been held by the Labor Party, as I said, for almost a century. Even when Labor was winning seats on the North Shore, the Northern Beaches, the Eastern Suburbs and everywhere else in the bush, we still never held that seat. 

LAWS: Okay, but why did it slump to 21 per cent in the Upper Hunter?

ALBANESE: We were on 17 a few elections ago.

LAWS: Is that right, were you?

ALBANESE: Absolutely we were. 

LAWS: But obviously, you weren't expecting to win this time. 

ALBANESE: Well, I'm not a state MP, John. 

LAWS: Come on now, Anthony. Don't brush it aside.

ALBANESE: My job is to win seats federally. But let me tell you this. If we don't win Bradfield in the next federal election, I won't be shocked either. Because we haven't held that for 90 years either. Simple as that. 

LAWS: Is it? Well, I am not too sure about that. But do you think that you're getting too close to the Greens?

ALBANESE: No, I think we always put forward a Labor agenda, not a Liberal agenda, or a National agenda, or a Green agenda. We stand on our own two feet. And myself, in the electorate of Grayndler, I campaign very strongly against the Greens political party who don't have an agenda for jobs, don't have an agenda for the economy, don't care whether things add up or not in terms of the commitments that they make, and who really strive to get 10 per cent of the vote in order to achieve some positions in the Parliament. Labor is a party of government. And as a party of government, we put forward responsible economic policies, we prioritise jobs, and good jobs, secure jobs. One of the things that I'm concerned about in the mining industry is the growth that is there in labour hire, the undermining of working conditions that is occurring, where increasingly people aren't being employed on a permanent basis, they're casual. You can have people working side by side and a pay differential of $40,000 or $50,000 depending upon whether they're permanent workers or whether they are working for labour hire companies. And one of the things that I've said we'll introduce as part of our Secure Work policy is same job, same pay. So if people are working side by side doing the same job, they should receive the same pay. 

LAWS: Well, of course they should.

ALBANESE: And they should have the same conditions. Well, it might be a surprise to you, John, that the Federal Government is currently backing a case in the High Court to undermine that very principle. Standing up for big mining companies rather than for mine workers. And that case is currently taxpayers' money being used, hundreds of thousands of dollars, to support the overturning of decisions that have been made in the Federal Court that say that we shouldn't allow for the manipulation that has occurred whereby people are classified as casuals, or people being used by labour hire companies, they're not being paid properly.

LAWS: That'll never be turned over by this Government?

ALBANESE: Well, this Government have presided over a massive increase in insecure work, whether it be gig workers, the sort of people who work for the range of companies delivering people or delivering food, without allowing them for any minimum wage rates. They said they were going to do something about wage theft that we know is a scourge. We've had examples of one employer actually paying people electronically and then, at the time that the money is transferred, insisting they go to an ATM machine and give some of the money back to the employer in order to guarantee some shifts. We will outlaw and make it illegal and make it a crime, the issue of wage theft. But we'll also deal with gig workers. And we know that it is possible to do so. Menulog have come to an agreement with the Transport Workers' Union to classify people who are working in that industry, delivering food to homes, it is very convenient, but classifying them as employees. Now that's happening in spite of the Federal Government. When we've raised these issues, the Federal Government say that it's complicated to guarantee people being paid a minimum wage. Well, the minimum wage in this country is just $19.84 an hour. There's nothing complicated about a Government saying that we'll enforce that and no one should be paid below it. But at the moment, there are many thousands of people who aren't guaranteed that. And in Australia, we are a better country than that. And the sort of exploitation that we've seen, whether it be gig workers or some of the farm workers who have been paid up to just a few dollars an hour.

LAWS: But isn't that up to the individual? If the farmer bloke says, 'Well, listen, I can put you on, but I can only pay you 10 bucks an hour or 15 bucks an hour or whatever it might be?' And you say, 'Okay'. Isn't it up to the individual? We still have freedom of choice.

ALBANESE: Well, what we should have in this country is minimum wage rates.

LAWS: Yes. But I'm not saying that. We should, but we don't. So the point is that people, it's up to the individual whether they accept that amount of money or not.

ALBANESE: Well, the problem there is that for many of these workers who are exploited, they are people who are on visas from overseas, they feel that they don't have options. And therefore, that sort of level of exploitation, I think, is a major issue.

LAWS: Okay. It may well be a major issue. But it's a fact.

ALBANESE: It is a fact. But it shouldn't be, John. People should be paid minimum wages. 

LAWS: Look, I understand that. But that's all very well. There are a lot of things that happen that shouldn't happen. People shouldn't get raped or murdered either. But it does happen. 

ALBANESE: And there are penalties for doing so, John.

LAWS: Why aren't there penalties for this sort of bad behaviour?

ALBANESE: That's exactly my point. There should be. And when we have exploitation, some of the exploitation we know about wage theft has occurred in the construction industry, with people who aren't aware of their entitlements. And massive underpayments we’ve seen. Sometimes it can happen by accident, not as a conscious decision. And no one's suggesting that should be treated in the same way as people very consciously making a decision to break, essentially, what should be minimum wages and conditions out there. And there needs to be enforcement. Now, the Government had, in its legislation earlier this year, provision for wage theft to be treated as a crime in that legislation. They chose to withdraw it from their own bill. They amended their own bill in an act of spite that was quite extraordinary.

LAWS: Well, it was quite extraordinary. Look, you've been pretty critical of the Government's vaccine rollout, too. But there's no handbook. I mean, this hasn't happened in a century. So how could you have done better?

ALBANESE: Well, you look at other countries, John, and they have done better.

LAWS: Well, you're not answering the question. How could you have done better?

ALBANESE: We would have done better by doing more deals, for a start. We would have had deals such as Moderna done last year. We've said that there needs to be a four-point plan. And the best time to do that would have been last year. They've had more than a year to prepare for this. This isn't something that has happened immediately. And the four-point plan should have been better rollout of the vaccine, national quarantine centres, a public information campaign on vaccine and the production of mRNA vaccines here, manufacturing here. Now, if that four-point plan had have been implemented, we would have been in a much stronger position. We would have avoided the lockdown that we're having in Victoria right now. It could have been avoided if people weren't in hotel quarantine, if there were appropriate facilities. And we know that it works. The facility at Howard Springs outside of Darwin has not had a single case of infection being spread from that facility, even though it has housed many more people than any individual hotel anywhere around the country. And that's why we know that that's an appropriate system. And we know as well, that in terms of a public information campaign, Australia has done it in the past. We were the best in the world at public information about AIDS, for example. 

LAWS: Yes, we were.

ALBANESE: Where is the campaign to promote the need to vaccinate? And we've been talking about this, public health experts have been talking about this for a long period of time. We're now in June and we still don't have an effective public information campaign.

LAWS: In light of yesterday's GDP figures for the March quarter, should the Reserve Bank be considering a rise in interest rates?

ALBANESE: The Reserve Bank have said that they've foreshadowed that for a period of time, I think they've said at least a couple of years, that interest rates are expected to stay where they are. What that does is provide some certainty. And I think that's a good thing. One of the things that business needs and our economy needs is certainty in order to drive that investment. So I think the Reserve Bank is getting it right in foreshadowing ahead rather than, of course, we have the monthly meetings where they give consideration to these matters, but I think providing that certainty is serving the country well.

LAWS: Okay, just quickly to the Christian Porter thing. Now that he's ended his court action against the ABC, should that really be the end of the matter?

ALBANESE: Well, there still hasn't been any explanation or any proper investigation. That's the problem here. And the fact that Christian Porter began this action, and essentially has capitulated, has withdrawn the action, and now there's a dispute, of course, over whether the ABC's defence in that case will be made public. The fact is that he remains a Cabinet Minister. And that remains an issue over whether he's a fit and proper person. So the proposal, as happened in the High Court, whereby you have an independent, arm's length investigation away from politics to look at that matter is, I believe, appropriate.

LAWS: Why was Bill Shorten allowed to continue on after he was accused of an historic rape, but Mr Porter can't? I mean, is that a bit of selective understanding from the Labor cheer squad? What is it?

ALBANESE: Not at all. Bill Shorten, there was a proper investigation by the police over a period of time. They interviewed Mr Shorten. They interviewed the person who was making allegations. They had a proper investigation and found that there was no case. 

LAWS: But he didn't have to stand down during that inquiry.

ALBANESE: The issue here is that there hasn't been an inquiry into the allegations that have been made about Mr Porter. 

LAWS: Will there be an inquiry?

ALBANESE: I don't know. That's obviously not a matter for me. That is a matter for the Government to consider. And it's been very, very clear that Mr Porter, who has a very serious job as the Minister for Industry and Science, that he hasn’t been doing, that task has not been the focus of his activity. That, I think, is obvious to all. And that's why the Government needs to consider this position.

LAWS: How can an inquiry come to any sort of conclusion when the complaint’s in writing from a dead person?

ALBANESE: Well, you have, in terms of the High Court of Australia, had an inquiry into Justice Heydon. If the High Court of Australia can do an inquiry and come with findings, then I think it is appropriate that when a Cabinet Minister has been the subject of serious allegations, and I obviously make no comment as to the accuracy of what's been said, I'm not obviously privy to those issues and I therefore think that whilst this remains an issue, and the fact that you're asking me about it, John, I didn't raise this issue, the fact that you're asking me about this issue indicates that there needs to be some resolution. 

LAWS: Well, I'm glad I asked you. 

ALBANESE: No, I'm not critical of you for asking. I'm just saying that the fact is that the very asking of the question is an indication that questions remain. And that is my sole point, that while questions remain, while there's been no examination, and bear in mind that the former Attorney-General, he was the first law officer of the land, said that this case that he was taking against the ABC, he was taking in order to clear his name and clear the air about these issues. It was a suggestion, obviously, that he had been defamed, and he, of course, was entitled to take action if that was his view. But he's now withdrawn from that case. And so I think people will draw their own conclusion there. But obviously, questions remain. Because what Mr Porter himself said would provide a resolution to these issues has not been concluded.

LAWS: That's true. That is true. Well, Anthony Albanese, as usual, it's been nice to talk to you. And you again have been generous with your time, for which I thank you. And I hope we get to talk again soon.

ALBANESE: Terrific, John. Always great to talk with you. 

LAWS: Thank you very much, Anthony. Bye.

ENDS