SUBJECTS: Visit to Queensland; Brisbane Olympics bid; vaccine rollout; need for national quarantine; Scott Morrison failing Australians during a pandemic; retail and essential workers needing to get vaccinated; vaccine hesitancy; confusion around messaging during a health pandemic; visit to Moranbah; same job, same pay; job security; casualisation of the workforce; Labor being pro-worker.

NEIL BREEN, HOST: Anthony Albanese has been travelling around the country for the last two weeks. Well, as much of the country as he can because of lockdowns in certain places. He spent a fair bit of time in Queensland, getting ready for an election perhaps. He's in Brisbane today. He joins me now. Opposition Leader, you're just sailing into Brisbane because we got the games last night.

ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: What a fantastic outcome for Brisbane. It will inspire a generation of young people. It will create jobs and economic activity here. And it will cement Brisbane as a global city. It's a fantastic outcome. I was so pleased.

BREEN: It was incredible for the City of Brisbane. Look, it'll be a slow burn, the bidding process was different. And we've got 11 years to wait. Look, so you're in Canberra, but you've been going to places like Tasmania and Queensland. You can't really move around too much at the moment?

ALBANESE: No, I can't. There are restrictions. If I actually go to Sydney, go home, then not only would I be locked down in Sydney, then when I went to Canberra, I would have had to been there for two weeks prior to Parliament sitting. So a range of my colleagues in Canberra now in isolation for two weeks in preparation. But to do my job, I have not been home for more than a month now. But it has been a great opportunity. Last night, I was in Parliament House at a function for the Rail, Tram and Bus Union's 160th anniversary. It was a chance to thank all those people in public transport who kept the show running during what's been a very difficult 18 months for the country.

BREEN: Yes, well, it has been a difficult time. And obviously, you've been saying that you'd be free to roam the country or you've been saying that this rollout has been bungled by the Prime Minister. And he certainly is under a lot of pressure about it. But at the end of the day, the Federal Government bought a vaccine that vaccinated the whole of the UK. That's AstraZeneca. The advice from ATAGI wish-washed around the place. He couldn't do anything about that. You had a Chief Health Officer in Queensland reporting to a state Labor Government who basically killed off AstraZeneca in this state with her stance against it. It's not all the Prime Minister's fault, is it?

ALBANESE: Look, in the UK, they did what everyone else did, what the US did, what Canada did. 

BREEN: Which was what?

ALBANESE: They had five or six deals. They didn't put all their eggs in the AstraZeneca basket. So when restrictions came on in the UK, they just shifted to those who were younger got Moderna or Pfizer. We didn't do enough deals with enough pharmaceutical companies to get enough vaccines quickly enough. That's the truth of the matter. And the Prime Minister indeed justified that by saying it wasn't a race. Well, it was a race. And no one's saying this was easy. But the experts were saying, we were saying, myself, Chris Bowen, our health spokesperson a year ago, you need to do five or six deals, you need to hedge your bets, basically, because these vaccines were new. 

BREEN: And Pfizer seemed to be a more risky option because it was made by new mRNA technology. Australia was also fairly free of the virus because of Government's policies and they were in emergency in Europe. So we were in a different circumstance. Can you at least see that?

ALBANESE: Look, we got a meeting with Pfizer last July. And we didn't do a deal with them. We sent along some junior burger. It was till November before we did a deal. And then it was for only a small amount of the vaccine. Other countries knew that the circumstances were that you could not afford to take those risks. We were saying this a year ago. This isn't in hindsight. And the Prime Minister had a view. He was saying we were at the front of the queue for vaccines. And the truth is we're now last in the developed world. We need to get this right. But the first step to getting things right is admitting to what's gone wrong previously. And the Prime Minister insists we were at the front of the queue, we were told that aged care workers and people with disabilities and aged care residents would all be in category 1A, they would all be done in Easter. But still a majority of aged care workers still haven't had their first jab.

BREEN: You came to Queensland a couple of weeks ago and didn't really tell us about it. You went to Moranbah to where the mines were. And it just proved to us, Anthony Albanese, that for the Labor Party, coal and mining is a very difficult issue for you that you have to solve before the next election because you can't appease the workers in seats like that and the inner-city lefties, the Green-type leaning vote if you're going to take seats back in Queensland. Because in Queensland, you're way behind.

ALBANESE: Well, Neil, you're just not right, mate, with respect. I know there's been reports on that. But we did a media alert for the Sunday. I stood up at the Workers' Club at Moranbah and we had to Michele O'Neil, the ACTU President. I then did a press conference on Monday at Moranbah. One of the local papers certainly was there. I did an interview on the only radio station in Moranbah. There were photographs in The Australian, in The Daily Telegraph. This is just a nonsense argument put out by the LNP here in Queensland. I'm always happy to speak to workers. Today in Rocky, I will be speaking to a conference of the Miners' Union with Robbo, our candidate. You can't do more than put out a media alert. The fact that the media these days, unfortunately, don't have the resources to send cameras and send people like they used to is not something that is my fault, frankly. But you can't do more than do a media alert to each day and everywhere where I was. And I'll continue to do so. Today, I'll be very proud to talk to miners about same job, same pay and about casualisation in the industry, about contracting out, all the things that this Government are presiding over, but are undermining the working conditions of miners in places like Moranbah and throughout Queensland, any indeed throughout the country.

BREEN: If it's an issue that you're not running away from, how are you going to approach it leading to a Federal election? How are you going to attract the working-class folk of miners and the people associated with that industry and inner-city, left-leaning voters who think we should be totally green?

ALBANESE: Look, we should be talking about working conditions and respecting workers wherever they work. I'm on my way now to Strathpine with Ali France. I'll be talking to retail workers at one of the big companies, one of the big two. I won't give them a free ad. We will be with the union about the need to vaccinate people on the frontline in retail. Because that's a big issue out there as well. And later today, I'll be talking to blue-collar workers, to the miners, with Robbo in Rocky. And then I'll be in Callide Power Station later on in Biloela, talking to the workers there about the issues that they've suffered from, of course, they had the incident there. And I'm happy to talk to workers everywhere, whether it's railway workers last night, retail workers today, coal miners this afternoon. And talk to them about working conditions. Job security is a huge issue out there. And what we're seeing is that miners are currently working side by side, the pay differentials might be $40,000 depending upon whether they're permanent employees or whether they're working from labour hire companies, which is undermining their working conditions that have been hard fought for. You'll never hear the LNP talk about that. They are pro big mining companies that by and large are owned by overseas interests. They're not pro worker.

BREEN: Exactly. Mate, I can understand what you're saying. And I hope that we get some selfies from you or something on your social media up there today in Rockhampton. I'm only kidding, Anthony Albanese. Hey, thanks for joining us today. 

ALBANESE: No worries, Neil. Always good to chat with you, mate. Well done to Brisbane.

BREEN: Brisbane, the Olympic city. You're welcome here any time.

ENDS