SUBJECT/S: Visit to Western Australia, the Federal Election, Aged Care, Pensions, Kimberly Kitching, negative gearing
 
JO MCMANUS, HOST: And it's great to have you here. You know the number, 133 882, call me with anything that takes your fancy this afternoon. Well, Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese is back in town and back in the 6PRs Studio. Mr. Albanese, welcome to WA and thanks for coming in.

ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE LABOR PARTY: Good to be here and always good to be in the studio.

HOST: Now listen, you know you’re back in Western Australia, we saw Josh Frydenberg yesterday, we've been seeing the Prime Minister, you were here only a matter of days, it feels like a go. How important is WA to this election?

ALBANESE: Well, WA is important not just for the election, it's important for the country. WA has kept the country going with its economic strength over the last couple of years. And I think that the coming election, there are obviously some key seats here in WA. This morning I was with Tania Lawrence and, Mark McGowan at the Midland Hospital, talking about the need to fix the system at the moment whereby for new bubs, so they can get proper testing for world's best practice of 80 different genetic conditions to be identified, rather than just the current 25. And so it wasa good day today meeting nurses and staff at the hospital but also it also Mums and babies as well,

HOST: Ah, doing the politician kissing the baby!

ALBANESE: Oh, young Leo was 11 hours old. And Kelly, his Mum was a very proud new Mum. And I've gotta say they both looked remarkable given that he was born not that long before.
HOST: Just look, what we're hearing from our listeners about your, you know, being the Opposition Leader is that they don't really know much about you or your policies. And I'm going to dig down into some of that in a moment. But you did a bit of a shopping centre walk today as well. How did the WA public react to you

ALBANESE: It was really positive at the shopping centre. And it was a really positive reaction for myself and for Mark. It was a chance to engage with people, no one lined up in advance. So it was one of the things - we didn't get very far I've got to say, because every metre or two, we were taking selfies, which is the big thing that people want these days, but it was really good to talk about a range of issues. And there were people there, of course, not just locals. We met one fellow from Albany, who was up here getting his car serviced. And we met others as well, from right around the region.

HOST: That's good. Now, a big part of your budget reply speech was your huge investment into aged care. And I don't want to ask you how you're going to pay for it. What I want to ask you is how are you going to staff it? Nurses are a problem. I think all of us would be crazy if we didn't think the idea of having a 24 hour nurse in every aged care home was a wonderful idea. But how are you going to staff that when we have a shortage?

ALBANESE: Well, we need to make sure that we attract more people to the sector. But the question is not how can you do it, it’s why wouldn't you do it, you put in every effort. Well you need to train people, we've got 20,000 additional University places, we need also to make sure that we attract people back to the sector, you do that by paying better wages and having better conditions. The Royal Commission found this and recommended this very strongly, that there be a nurse in every nursing home as what we used to call them 24/7. What it will do is well, this is why it's so short sighted, the direction in which aged care has gone in recent years, is that if you don't have that, that expert help on hand, whenever someone needs that, that care day or night, then often people will end up being transferred to emergency departments and it ends up costing more, it makes no sense.

HOST: So earlier today we were talking with Ian Henschke from National Seniors Australia, and he made the suggestion that if we change the way the pension system works so that pensioners could work more and pay tax, a bit like the New Zealand system, pensioners get to work, pay tax, put money back into the economy. Wouldn't that be a great place to get qualified nurses who have retired? Have a listen;

IAN HENSCHKE, NATIONAL SENIORS AUSTRALIA: (audio upsot) What he could do is say this is a COVID measure and simply bring it in for three years and see how it works. When those people work, they will pay income tax, they will then have a tax on the superannuation, they'll spend money – GST, 10 cents, it will actually stimulate the economy.

HOST: What do you think?

ALBANESE: Well, I always listen to Ian because he's a very, very sensible fellow. And he always is looking for practical measures. At the moment pensioners can earn up to $480 a fortnight from memory, I think it is without it having an impact…

HOST: And a work bonus is 300 a fortnight - we've had a tip that the government are going to put that up to 500. I don't know if that's true.

ALBANESE: Oh, who knows? So they made announcements after the budget, though about things that weren't in there?

HOST: But I'm more. I'm more interested in what you’re going to do.

ALBANESE: It’s a practical measure. That is one of the things that is certainly worthy of consideration. I know I have a friend of mine, Lucille McKenna is her name, she wouldn't mind me mentioning her. She was the last ever mayor of Ashville Council before it was amalgamated. She's one of those people who during the pandemic, a nurse retired, who went back to work, helping out because they didn't have enough nurses to basically look after people.

HOST: But if she was a pensioner. She'd be penalised for going back in that trough.

ALBANESE: Because, it's a practical suggestion, which is worthy of proper consideration, I don't sign off on things on the basis of a...

HOST: It's something that you would look at seriously, for all pensioners not just for nurses.

ALBANESE: Well, the task is, the task is here in terms of the aged care crisis. We know there's a crisis, let's get about fixing it. What this government… it astonishes me that you have a Royal Commission that spent two years looking at what the issues are, that comes up with practical recommendations. And all of the ones related to the workforce have just been dismissed by this government. They haven't done anything about it. And we know that we have to fix the wages issue. We have to fix training, we have to fix the minutes that aged care residents get of up to 215 minutes every day. Now, that's the recommendation. Because at the moment, one of the tragedies… I've spoken to people in the aged care sector, the workforce in particular over the recent times in particular. Years ago, I was a Shadow Minister a long time ago. But one of the things that I've found consistent is the devastation that they're feeling. It's a physically demanding work, but it's also emotionally demanding for them. The residents are their friends and they watch many of them depart? And we need to give them more support…

HOST: and they need to have more money. I don't think anybody would argue with that.

ALBANESE: The government is. The government that spent five and a half billion dollars on subs that didn't produce anything is about two and a half…

HOST: I don’t want to talk about the Government, I want to talk about the Opposition. So what I'm going to ask you, I'm going to say to you that whoever wins government, there needs to be a difficult conversation with the country about how are we going to pay down debt, which is forecast to reach a trillion dollars by ’23, ‘24. How are you going to take those hard decisions? How are you going to face up to the fact that we do not want to leave a massive debt to our grandchildren.

ALBANESE: Well you’re right, it is a challenge. And the first start would be to stop the waste and the rorts. This government… even in Tuesday night's budget, there is double digit, billions of dollars allocated. But not, they won't tell you what it's for. The sort of waste that we've seen needs to stop, you also need to make sure that you prioritise investments that will produce a return. That will produce growth and produce revenue, not just expenditure. So an example of that is our childcare policy that will increase workforce participation, increased productivity and increase the economy.

HOST: But the sort of productivity we're talking about to get to where we need to be, isn't it kind of pie in the sky stuff? How do we how do we get there?

ALBANESE: Not at all, we can have an enormous growth if we seize the opportunities that are there. And we've got a plan for that not just for childcare, but our national reconstruction fund that will support new industries, support value adding, our resources sector is really important, particularly here in Western Australia and it should, of course, continue to export those resources. But where possible, how about we value add, why aren't we making for example, batteries or more batteries? Here in Australia, you have I’ve been to, the nickel refinery here down at Kwinana.

HOST: in fact it was announced this week with the rare earths Iluka has rare earths new setup in Eneabba, lithium is going through the roof.

ALBANESE: Yeah, an enormous opportunity.

HOST: But again, you've got to spend money to make money haven't you. And we're already facing a trillion dollar debt.

ALBANESE: Yeah, but you need to, but if that expenditure, that's why you need to be smart about where you spend money. If that expenditure, if by spending $100 today, you get $300 tomorrow, then that's smart expenditure. What isn't smart as this spending money, like five and a half billion dollars, that doesn't produce anything? Yeah, because that's just that's just a negative. And this government have done too much of that. We want to make sure that we prioritise investments that really make a difference.
HOST: Very direct question about coal mining. Now, we know that is a very sensitive issue for the Labor Party in particular, because of the relationship going back a very, very long time, should we not now be setting up a plan where we go, we're going to close down coal mines, we’ve got to have a five or eight or 10 year plan, whatever it might be, but something reasonable to train these people into renewables. And for them to be like any other worker, they're eventually going to lose their jobs because coal fired power stations aren't gonna be there anymore.

ALBANESE: Well, what we're seeing is some coal fired power stations their closure brought forward. In New South Wales. That’s happening, and we need to make sure that those workers are looked after…
HOST: Maybe three years is a bit quick, because that was the announcement from last week.

ALBANESE: It is it is too quick. We need certainty. The problem is that there isn't any investment certainty because we don't have an energy policy in this country. Coal mines will continue to operate, though as long as the demand is there and our policy doesn't impact on that. That will be a matter of international considerations. The rules that are there and demand.

HOST: The Prime Minister, we've seen him accused from within his own ranks for you know, by a lot of people. However, we've also seen the accusation that Kimberly Kitching was bullied and why will you not just say, yes, we'll look into what happened and we'll do a proper inquiry. Why won't you just say yes to that?

ALBANESE: We have looked at it. We have looked at it.

HOST: Independently. You've had an independent lawyer.

ALBANESE: We have looked at it. What is it to look independently in terms of Kimberly Kitching was excluded from the tactics committee.

HOST: She was excluded because she allegedly leaked information to the opposition. And is that, is that what you're saying…

ALBANESE: I'm saying that people are excluded from the tactics committee. I was excluded at one stage, Joel Fitzgibbons been on, off, on, off, people are excluded from our committees all of the time, all of the time and…

HOST: She was a tough cookie.

ALBANESE: Exactly. She was a tough advocate for her views, for her views. And, and, and good on her. Look, it is a tragedy that Kimberly Kitching lost her life at 52 years of age. But that shouldn't be politicised. It should be something where we celebrate Kimberly Kitching’s life, her contribution, her strong values for international democracy and human rights. And that's what I've done. You know, and that is what is appropriate. The issues with the government are very, very different. And we have a very clear, independent process for any issue that any Member of Parliament can come forward on. We have had it since 2018. It was improved in 2021. It was unanimously supported.

HOST: So you're standing by your record on that.

ALBANESE: We have a process that is ongoing and if any improvements can be made. I'm up for that. At any time.

HOST: Now we're running out of time. But I have one final question and a quick answer. And that is, you won't like this question, but we get a lot of calls about this. And I know that at the last election it made you come undone, but are we seriously not looking at doing anything about negative gearing, people having numerous properties and being able to negative gear all of them? Surely it would be reasonable for good economic management for the government of the day, whoever it might be to look at the idea that you can negative gear one property and that's it.

ALBANESE: No, we are not looking at that. We took a proposition to the last election we listen to and respect the verdict that was given. So that's it. I've been very transparent about that. And I understand there are different views but our position is very clear. And I've been upfront about that.

HOST: Anthony Albanese, thank you so much for coming in and joining us on Perth Live this afternoon.
 
ALBANESE: Thanks for having me on.

ENDS