SUBJECTS: Cost of living; fuel excise; Labor’s policy agenda; AFR Business Summit speech; Federal election; AUKUS; national security; Labor’s Powering Australia Plan.
 
NEIL MITCHELL, HOST: I want you to have a listen to Anthony Albanese. This is your alternative Prime Minister. If you believe the experts and the bookies, and they're the experts in elections, he's going to be Prime Minister in May. I recorded this interview with him earlier because he's delivering that speech at the moment that I mentioned. And he's, in a sense, giving us a preview of the speech. I asked him about other issues, too. He says his Government would be a Bob Hawke/John Howard style and Paul Keating style consensus. Working with the business community, working with unions, having summits. We also talked about the cost of living, in particular fuel excise. In fact, that was my first question to Anthony Albanese, the alternative Prime Minister.
 
I reckon cost of living is the big issue at this election. Would you consider cutting the fuel tax?
 
ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: The problem here is that the fuel prices had gone up well before any current issues. They are up nearing $2 a litre. And that goes with the other rises in cost of living, including for meat and for vegetables and for rent. The problem here is that wages aren't keeping up with the cost of living. So, what you need is a comprehensive plan which lifts wages, which boosts productivity, and which boosts the economy and makes it easier for people to get by.
 
MITCHELL: Well, that's true. But we got a short-term problem here. I think it's costing the average motorist $775 in fuel excise in a year. Everybody's struggling. One stroke of the pen would help. And the cost is about $5-6 billion a year, that's true. But isn't it an investment in helping people survive, in helping people get back into action after the pandemic?
 
ALBANESE: Well, certainly people need assistance. And people need structural reform in the long-term. The problem here, as I say in my speech today, Neil, is that before the pandemic, we had a doubling of debt, we had stagnant wages that simply weren't keeping up with the cost of living, we had a rise in insecure work, we had productivity going backwards, and we had an economy that wasn't growing fast enough. So, what my speech today is about is the need for reform, the need to recognise that we have a unity of purpose and a common interest in lifting profits, lifting wages, driving the economy through, in order to benefit people. I want an economy that works for people, not the other way around. The problem at the moment is so many people who hear these headline figures that Josh Frydenberg will come out with, it doesn't relate to their own experience. We know that real wages fell by more than one per cent in the last year. And that's something that, in our lifetimes, simply hasn't happened. Living standards have consistently risen over a period of time. They're not rising at the moment. We do need to take pressure off.
 
MITCHELL: You talk in your speech about emulating Hawke/Howard/Keating. Well, you've just done it brilliantly by deflecting, totally. I mean, would you rule out reducing the petrol excise to help people get through? Would you rule that out? Is it not on the table?
 
ALBANESE: No. Well, I don't rule anything out, Neil. But I'm not in government. And you're talking about an immediate change is what you're calling for.
 
MITCHELL: Well, by May, you can introduce it. You could it in the first day in office. Bang. Petrol tax out.
 
ALBANESE: That is something that we're not in a position to do from Opposition. We'll wait and see what measures are there in the Budget on March 29. I'll get my response a couple of days later. But what I'm talking about today is the need to actually have a plan and a strategy to grow the economy going forward. The biggest transformation, when you talk about fuel prices, the biggest transformation that's happening in the global economy right now is the transformation to clean energy. Why is it happening? It's happening because it's the cheapest form of new energy. And what we have today are reports that a new coal-fired power station in Collinsville, if it's not publicly subsidised, after the taxpayer paid for the feasibility study, then they'll be angry. Whatever happened to market signals?
 
MITCHELL: But people, I keep getting back to the point, cost of living, and you agree, I think cost of living is a crucial issue. I've been told, I was told yesterday, that if you got a $200 grocery bill, within a couple of months, it's going to be $240. People need short-term immediate relief. Clean energy is a future thing. Now, I know it needs action now. But it is an answer for the future. What do people do in the meantime? How do they pay the bloody bills?
 
ALBANESE: Well, it's really tough out there. There's no question about that. And one of the things that we need to do is to lift wages. The problem that people are under at the moment is that, simply, wages aren't keeping up with their cost of living. And that's placing enormous pressure on them. And at the same time, we're seeing a rise in insecure work. We hear these headline figures from the Government about four per cent unemployed. And your listeners must be scratching their head, many of them. Because some of them won't be counted as unemployed if they're working a few hours a week. Many of them will be working multiple jobs, including in the gig economy, driving an Uber for one or two days a week, just trying to get by, working multiple jobs. We know in the aged care sector, for example, one of the problems that was occurring is that people were working on multiple sites in casual employment and just not getting enough wages.
 
MITCHELL: I agree with you. I agree that wages is part of it. You're talking about sort of a deal, a compact. How can you increase wages and at the same time not screw over business, particularly small business who are staggering out of this pandemic? Barely able, they've lost a lot of money, they can barely afford to eat. How do you help them? You're not going to sell more coffee, when in fact, we're lucky to sell any coffee at the moment. How do you say to them, 'We need more wages, and we need you, as a small business, to thrive'?
 
ALBANESE: Well, you help them by helping the economy. I will tell you what helps the local small business is people in employment with major employers, lifting productivity, getting more wages, which leads to more coffee being bought in the local coffee shops. It's not something that's a radical proposition here. What we know from experience is that if you have productivity bargaining which is working effectively, it leads to more money circulating around the economy, it leads to more jobs, it leads to more success for small business, as well as larger businesses. We know that because under the Hawke-Keating economic reforms, we had 30 years of continuous economic growth, which lifted living standards at the same time as we had a social wage being lifted as well. And I'll tell you the other thing that can take pressure off, and the example I use in the speech today, is child care. And I note the New South Wales Treasurer, Matt Kean, has backed this in very strongly at the speech at the same conference. You have a circumstance whereby you had the Government put out this ridiculous, absurd costing with assumptions, goodness knows what, but not based upon our policy, based upon ridiculous assumptions that they throw in order to say, 'Oh, we can't afford to do it'. We can't afford not to have child care reform, to increase women's workforce participation, to enable them to work of fourth or fifth day.
 
MITCHELL: That's really the cost of government, isn't it?
 
ALBANESE: No. Well, there will be additional costs. And we costed it at $6.2 billion over the forward estimates.
 
MITCHELL: Gee, that's enough to cut the petrol excise for a year.
 
ALBANESE: But what it will do, Neil, is to give money back to the economy. Because we know that for every dollar that's spent, there'll be a $2 return. And that's what the New South Wales Liberal Treasurer is saying in his speech today as well. And yet, it's just dismissed by this Federal Government. We need to look at ways in which we have reform that grow the economy. That's the key.
 
MITCHELL: When there's an agreement, both sides move, what does the union movement give back? Do we get pay rises? Do we get a guarantee of no industrial action? What does the union movement give back?
 
ALBANESE: Well, that's part of what enterprise bargaining is. It's an agreement to improve workplace productivity in order to benefit employers and employees.
 
MITCHELL: I'm old enough to have reported this. Are we looking at Wages Prices Accord?
 
ALBANESE: What we're looking at is greater cooperation. And I'll tell you what. You had it in the lead-up to just over a year ago now, you had a roundtable established for business and unions. And they came up within the context of the pandemic. Think about what unions gave up during that period. They put aside a range of conditions that have been hard fought and won for in order to keep people employed and keep businesses going. And that spirit led to the establishment of a roundtable. And Christian Porter, credit where credit's due, presided over that. I think he had confidence of both business and unions in that process. When business and unions came up with agreements that the Government didn't like, it was vetoed by Scott Morrison's Government. Even though people like Jennifer Westacott and Sally McManus were both saying that we can get more agreement here to go forward with more.
 
MITCHELL: What is your first act to get together an agreement, to get both sides together and, for heaven's sake, head in the same direction? What's your first act as Prime Minister?
 
ALBANESE: We'll have a job summit within three months. I've announced that. That will bring employers, unions and civil society together to look at it. Just as after World War Two, we had a compact that looked at full employment. We had a compact as well that looked at national reconstruction. We have put together a plan with a job summit, with the National Reconstruction Fund looking at new industries. I've been consistently, for a long period of time, saying that employers and employees have common interests. We need to work together, just as we did during the pandemic. The cooperation there was, quite frankly, magnificent. But we need to take that same spirit into an era of prosperity, not just when there's a crisis.
 
MITCHELL: Couldn't agree more. You talk about in your speech the style of Hawke, of John Howard, of Paul Keating. Now, every time Paul Keating was in trouble, he wanted to change the flag. So, hopefully you don't get into those sort of diversions. What about Hawke and Howard do you like that you would like to repeat?
 
ALBANESE: The thing I really like about Bob Hawke, in particular, I worked for the Hawke Government, is that it was a genuine Cabinet Government. And it was a Government that looked towards consensus rather than looked towards division. The problem with the current Government is they are always looking for a fight, they are never looking for a solution. Even where you have agreement, even over issues like some of the national security issues, we endorsed AUKUS, nuclear-powered submarines, within 24 hours. The Government has consistently since then looked for areas of disagreement. 'Oh, they don't really support it'. We can't have been more clear and more decisive than what we were. And it would not have gone ahead had we not done that.
 
MITCHELL: Bob Hawke did get the name the nickname 'Old Jellyback'. You're not going to repeat that, are you?
 
ALBANESE: Not at all. I think that is not a fair characterisation of Bob Hawke's Government. He was a strong leader. But he maximised the input of his Cabinet ministers, and indeed, of people outside as well, in the business community and in the union movement. And one of the things that I've done as the Labor Leader is to have proper Shadow Cabinet processes. Even on AUKUS, the example I just gave, we had a full Caucus meeting to endorse that policy. When we dealt with our climate change policy, there were no drops to the papers. It was a full Shadow Cabinet and full Caucus processes as well.
 
MITCHELL: Thank you for talking to us. Do we have an agreement that at least the petrol excise will be on the table after the election?
 
ALBANESE: Well, we think that everything in terms of making a difference to people's pressures on their living standards will be given proper consideration. But they'll be given proper consideration given the fiscal position as well. What we won't be doing is just making on the run comments that make a big difference to revenue and to expenditure.
 
MITCHELL: So, that's a yes?
 
ALBANESE: Well, that is what it is. Proper consideration based upon the position of the Budget. And that's part of the Hawke process is that you don't just make, as the Leader, calls which have a significant impact going through. Issues are thought through. They're properly costed. The detail is out there. Just as we did on our climate policy with our RepuTex costing. The full costs are all out there. 640,000 new jobs. It will drive down energy prices for electricity in the national energy market by $275 for every household by 2025. Fully modelled. Fully costed. Fully transparent.
 
MITCHELL: We've got it on the table, that's a good thing. Thank you very much for speaking to us. I know you're very busy. Thanks for your time.
 
ALBANESE: Thanks, Neil.
 
MITCHELL: The Opposition Leader, Anthony Albanese.
 
ENDS