SUBJECTS: COVID recovery; Omicron variant; booster shots; Federal election; Federal seats in WA.

LARRY GRAHAM, HOST: Welcome to Mornings, Mr Albanese. And compliments of the season to you and yours.

ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: Good morning, Larry. Merry Christmas to you and to all of your listeners. 

GRAHAM: Yes. I thought you were supposed to be on leave. Very kind of you to come back to be interviewed by me, Anthony. Why did that happen?

ALBANESE: I had three days off, which is the only three days off I had this year without doing any work. So, I did have a few days in Queensland that was very nice, around the Bundaberg region. But it's been a crazy year, I've got to say. And has been one whereby I have had a few days off planned that have all gone to custard, as have a lot of our plans this year, of course, because of COVID and restrictions and the impact that it's had on our way of life. So, I always planned to be back yesterday afternoon. So, I'm back in Sydney, which, of course, has had pretty horrific figures with 5,700 COVID infections in the 24 hours. So, pretty bleak at the moment here in Sydney. 

GRAHAM: Look, I'm a scarred old political animal. So, can I be a little bit presumptuous at the start? I've got some questions for you later. Can I be a little bit presumptuous at the start and tell you what I'm looking for from the Labor Party of which I used to be a member, both politically and I was a state Member of Parliament for 16 years odd years until we parted company. But look, I can tell you the first thing that I want from the election and from the Labor Party, and we've had callers on this already, and that is that we're asking you please don't be bloody minded and harshly politicise the pandemic. And I understand what governments do. But we know from watching the world, what happens when the politics of this pandemic is tribalized. And we're asking you, please not to do it.

ALBANESE: No, I think you're precisely right. Because what we've done, if you have a look at Australia, I indeed got some criticism from time to time for the fact that we back every single one of the Government's responses, even though we regarded some of them, such as the super changes, as being far from ideal. We said we wouldn't allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good. We cooperated with the sitting of Parliament in ways that wouldn't have been possible without our cooperation of the Labor Party. We said that we would point out some of the issues that we saw with legislation, but we would vote for all of it. And we also put forward ideas such as wage subsidies that became JobKeeper that were initially dismissed by Scott Morrison as a dangerous idea. We put forward the idea, consistently, that we needed to be quick when it came to the rollout of the vaccine, that we needed purpose-built quarantine. So, we've been constructive the whole way through this pandemic. And we also have backed decisions by every state government, whether Labor or Liberal, who made decisions to keep people safe. And the Federal Government, of course, backed Clive Palmer's legal case against the WA Government and its border closures. And we haven't done that. We haven't called people cave people, which is what the Prime Minister referred to Western Australians as. So, we've been constructive the whole way through. And I think that we can be very proud that the Labor Party has put the national interest before our short-term political interest.

GRAHAM: And I congratulate you on that. And what I'm putting to you, and I accept that, I don't argue with that, congratulate you on that. But I put it to you that as elections approach, there is a little bit of a temptation on people in elected office to harshen their rhetoric and drive public divide in their own interests, and that's what we're pleading with you not to do and to keep your rhetoric positive.

ALBANESE: I understand that. That's been one of my concerns about the Morrison Government, is the way that they've attempted to put state against state, in particular their criticism of Mark McGowan's Government, but also, Annastacia Palaszczuk's Government, for example, the idea that needing to get a COVID test to travel interstate from Sydney, where I'm speaking from at the moment, the same requirements are there for South Australia and Tasmania as are there for Queensland. And yet, you never hear anyone in the Federal Government talk about South Australia or Tasmania. And one of the things that I've said is that we shouldn't be critical of state governments based upon who happens to be the premier and the nature of those governments. And I haven't been critical of either the South Australian or the Tasmanian Government, as I haven't been critical of Western Australia or Victoria, New South Wales, or Queensland. I think it has been very important. And one of my concerns at the moment is that some of the Federal Government's response is a very political response. We've got ATAGI, the health experts, for example, warning that in areas where you have a large number of COVID infections, such as New South Wales at the moment, they've said that we should be having the QR codes, we should be having masks. And the Federal Government has been very concerned, the rhetoric about not letting government into your life and various phrases. But of course, people don't want any restrictions to be in place for one day more than necessary. People want their old way of life back. But the truth is that if we don't respond to the health concerns, it will have a greater impact down the track. That's been one of the lessons during this pandemic.

GRAHAM: I'm talking to Anthony Albanese, the Leader of the Opposition in our Federal Parliament. Mr Albanese, you're proposing bringing forward the booster to four months, are you not?

ALBANESE: No, I've said that I would anticipate that ATAGI will make that recommendation in line with the other countries and what they're doing around the world. We know that the booster shot is necessary. I know for Mark McGowan's Government, they have made the decision about boosters being a requirement for those people who are essential workers in areas like aged care, that they will regard that as necessary for people to be fully protected. And you can see that is happening down the track. Now, the Government needs to prepare for that. And my concern is that, at the moment, you have a far greater demand for boosters than a capacity to actually roll out the booster shots. And that's why we're seeing a delay, and people not being able to get access to their boosters that are so important.

GRAHAM: Could what you're doing, and I understand what you're saying that you haven't proposed it, you're just saying that it's likely to happen via ATAGI, but what you're saying, could that be interpreted as putting pressure on ATAGI to make that decision? Shouldn't they be free to make that privately based on medical advice?

ALBANESE: They are. But they're considering it at the moment. They've already brought it forward from six months to five months. That has already happened.

GRAHAM: I'm saying you have rhetorically changed that from they are considering it to now you're saying it's likely that they will make that decision.

ALBANESE: Because it is. Because the decisions that they've made, if you look at what they've said, and you look at what's happening with international best practice, just as boosters are becoming more and more a component of full protection around the world from Omicron, we know the boosters are very important. We know that particularly for the Omicron strain, it is different from the strains that were there previously, Delta etc. And the reason why the boosters are necessary as a result of that health advice, now we know that one of the things we've been able to benefit from in Australia is the fact that because we're an island continent, located where we are in the world, we've seen events roll out in Europe and other parts of the globe in advance of when they've occurred here. So, we can anticipate what's going to happen. Just like we could anticipate the fact that this was a disease that would have such an impact on the world. And that's why we need to get mechanisms in place to ensure that we have capacity there so that if the decision is made, we're not in a position whereby a decision is made with no impact, because we don't have the capacity to roll out the vaccine.

GRAHAM: Can we move now to Western Australia and elections and seats?

ALBANESE: Absolutely.

GRAHAM: When will we see you in WA, incidentally?

ALBANESE: Well, I'll be there on the day that WA opens, on the 5th of February, I'll be on the first flight. I was on the first flight to get into Queensland, to get into Brisbane. And I was on the first flight to get into Tasmania, into Launceston. And I will be on the first flight on a Saturday morning. I miss visiting Perth. I have been a regular visitor there. I had a deal with Oly, your mate, in the 6PR afternoon slot, that I would visit WA 10 times every year while I was Opposition Leader, as I had done as a Shadow Minister and as a Minister for many years. But that, of course, hasn't been possible. So, I look forward to being there on the 5th of February.

GRAHAM: Let's very quickly have a look at the seats. The first one that comes into play is Dr Anne Aly's seat of Cowan on 0.9 per cent. Is she at risk? She's a popular and hardworking MP, but is she at risk?

ALBANESE: No. I'm very confident that Anne will get an increase in her support. She's a fantastic local member. She's a great contributor. She's an expert in areas including national security. She's also someone who is very passionate about her local community. I've had the opportunity to visit there a number of times with Anne to meet with local small business and medium-sized businesses there in her electorate, but also welfare organisations dealing with people in need. She is a great advocate. And I'm very confident that Anne will see an increase in her majority at the next election.

GRAHAM: Okay. Well, you're about five per cent in front in the polls at the moment, which means the next seat I want to look at is Swan, where Steve Irons is retiring. He's got about a 3.2 per cent margin, and I think it's Kristy McSweeney's come in as the candidate for the Liberal Party. If you've got a five per cent margin, you're already ticking off Swan, aren't you?

ALBANESE: Look, we've got a fantastic candidate there, Zaneta Mascarenhas. And she has worked across dozens of sites in regional WA in particular as an engineer. She has lived in East Vic Park there for the past eight years with her family. And she's someone who I think is outstanding. I met her just after the election, on my first visit as Labor Leader, and sought her out to be a candidate. I was introduced to her by Pat Gorman, of course, the member for Perth. And she said she was interested in running. And I certainly encouraged her to do so. She would make an outstanding contribution if she was elected. It's good to find people in traditional male domains, such as engineering, who happen to be women. And she also would bring that experience of not just living in Perth and in the area, but her contact across regional WA would make her a real asset.

GRAHAM: Okay, so after that extensive campaigning, I'll put that down as a tick off, you've got that one ticked off. Which brings us to Pearce. We don't need to go into the Christian Porter dramas.

ALBANESE: No.

GRAHAM: But you need 5.2 per cent. Are you going to get that?

ALBANESE: He's gone. Well, we've got a local champion there, Tracey Roberts.

GRAHAM: The Libs would tell me, if I had Scott Morrison on here, he would be telling me that they've got one as well. They both Shire Councillors in Wanneroo.

ALBANESE: Well, the difference is that Tracey's been the Mayor there for a long period of time. She's been on the council since 2003. She's been President of the WA Local Government Association, Vice President of the national body. She's an outstanding candidate. And I'm so pleased for Tracey, who's been involved in the Growth Areas Alliance as well. 

GRAHAM: But you still don't have, in the polling, you still don't have the margin that's necessary to win Pearce, regardless.

ALBANESE: I'm very confident. 

GRAHAM: Okay. So, you're confident to win Pearce.

ALBANESE: I'm very confident about Tracey Roberts winning Pearce. I think she is someone who, as soon as she nominated, it is not surprising that the sitting Member isn't running there, because she is such a champion. She's a great advocate. She's really widely respected. And she will bring in that support for advocacy for outer suburbs. I was Local Government Minister, of course, and met her with that hat on. And also, with my Regional Development Minister hat on. She knows that I'm a champion of local government playing an important role and a link with the national Government. And all politics is local. And she's a champion.

GRAHAM: If you win Pearce, with the swing of that size, and you get that across Australia, you get 16 seats, and that makes you Prime Minister.

ALBANESE: Well, we have, I think, the right candidates in the right seats. And Swan and Pearce, also Tania Lawrence in Hasluck is an outstanding candidate as well. Keep your eye on that as well.

GRAHAM: Let me be an uncharitable radio host and stop political ads there from you, Mr Albanese. Look, thank you very much for being with us. I appreciate it and I'm sure our listeners do. And I'll just play you a little clip by The Birds as we go out.

ALBANESE: Thank you, mate.

ENDS