SUBJECTS: Visit to WA; WA election result; the next federal election; Christine Holgate; jobs for Liberal mates; COVID-19 vaccination rollout; when overseas travel will resume; asylum seekers on Nauru; rugby league; Biloela Tamil family.

OLIVER PETERSON, HOST: Welcome back. Tuesday afternoon. Joining me live in the studio is the Australian Labor Leader, Anthony Albanese. Albo, great to see you.
 
ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: Great to be here, Oly.
 
PETERSON: What brings you back to Perth?
 
ALBANESE: Well, I was in Karratha until this morning. We went up there yesterday and went to look at Woodside’s work there, the big gas plant, and Pluto. Went and looked at the Indigenous art that’s there at the Burrup Peninsula and spoke to First Nations people about some of the asks that they have to boost tourism in the region. Got together with some locals last night in Karratha and on Sunday night we had a bit of a –
 
PETERSON: A party?
 
ALBANESE: A bit of a party for Mark McGowan. And I met a whole lot of the new state MPs.
 
PETERSON: That beerhall looked packed.
 
ALBANESE: I think 500 RSVPed but a lot more than that turned up, is what happened. That’s what happens when you put on a function.
 
PETERSON: Free beer. Did he give you a few tips? Because he’s the most popular premier in the country. He’s decimated the Liberals to just two seats.
 
ALBANESE: He sure is. It’s a very difficult mountain to climb to match Mark McGowan at the next election, I’ve got to say. But he’s been a mate of mine for a very long time, through our mutual affection many years ago for Kim Beazley, and so I always catch up with Mark when I’m here and I talk to him regularly on the phone. And it was good to have a catch-up. He was certainly humbled by the result. I think people expected him to win but you always think that it will go back towards a more even result when people actually go in the ballot box. And it just didn’t.
 
PETERSON: So what do you read into that for Australian Labor’s chances, and your chances of becoming the next Prime Minister, here in the west? Because already Stirling’s going to go, it’s going to be abolished. So that’s Vince Connelly, one down for the Liberal Party. And if we look at the last Newspoll result as well you’re in the box seat to pick up at least three seats in the west. That gives you the keys to the lodge.
 
ALBANESE: Well, the first thing I’d say is it shows people are prepared to vote Labor here. We need to make sure that our offer to them for jobs and support for the West Australian economy, for fairness in areas like child care and education and industrial relations, making work more secure is a good one. And that we’re prepared to argue our case. And if we do that, we can be successful. The second thing I think is that West Australia has been taken for granted by the federal Liberal Party. I think you’ve seen a real exodus of talent. Whatever you think of Julie Bishop and Mathias Cormann and Michael Keenan, I had respect for their capacity to govern. I mean, Julie Bishop was fundamentally a very good Foreign Minister for the country. And Mathias Cormann, as you know, we were prepared to offer him support for the position of Secretary General of the OECD. They’ve all gone. And you have a Prime Minister who’s flying in today, I understand, but hasn’t been here for well over 500 days, since the middle of 2019. Now, as you know Oly, I’ve been in this studio more times than Scott Morrison’s been to Western Australia over the last decade. And I think that engagement with people here, talking to them about their issues, listening to them. And today, again, I’ve met with a whole range of people. I was with Anne Aly, talking about our National Reconstruction Fund in the northern suburbs, talking about growing manufacturing and value adding here. And we were well-received this morning.
 
PETERSON: And that's going to be part of building that profile of your other Labor candidates and those incumbents. Matt Keogh, Patrick Gorman, you mentioned Anne Aly, Madeleine King. Obviously, you mentioned, the WA Liberals have had a very high profile or a high presence within Scott Morrison's Cabinet, before that, Malcolm Turnbull. So that's a big challenge for the Australian Labor Party.
 
ALBANESE: Absolutely. And one of the things about our House of Reps members is that they're all relatively new to the Parliament. They've all been elected in the last couple of terms. But now they've got that experience, we've got the quality. What we need to do now is to match that with the quantity. And I'm confident we can do so. And I would expect that Christian Porter won't run at the next election. I hear rumours about Steve Irons going, about Ken Wyatt either going voluntarily or otherwise. So I think that the turnover has been substantial from the Liberal Party. And I think the Government is more and more looking like a tired government that's been in office for too long that don't have an agenda for the future and don't have a plan. And I’ve seen it before. I've seen it before with governments of different persuasions whereby, after a while, they've just reached the end of their life. And this Government, I think, is looking very much like that.
 
PETERSON: A couple of big issues on the agenda today. Christine Holgate. Was she bullied, was she humiliated out of her job as CEO of Australia Post by the Prime Minister?
 
ALBANESE: Well, she certainly said that she was, and she said it very clearly today. It was quite damning evidence. And the evidence about Tony Nutt, of course, a former federal secretary of the Liberal Party, giving her messages on behalf of the Prime Minister, I think showed everything that's wrong with the stacking of the Australia Post board with Liberal appointees and loyalists.
 
PETERSON: But wasn't this under Labor questioning? Wasn’t it Kimberley Kitching under Labor questioning that brought the watches to light?
 
ALBANESE: It’s entirely appropriate that the Opposition hold the Government instrumentalities to account for taxpayers’ funds.
 
PETERSON: But should she have lost her job? Should she have stepped down?
 
ALBANESE: Well, that was a decision that Scott Morrison made and he made it –
 
PETERSON: But you said, on the 30th of October last year, Christine Holgate has done the wrong thing, I support her paying a price for that.
 
ALBANESE: And she did pay a price. But she paid a massive price for that. To be humiliated in the Parliament by the Prime Minister before the details were known. And the details that she tabled today included the fact that the Australia Post chairman signed a card with the Cartier watches, which clearly indicated support from the board for Ms Holgate’s actions. She's the CEO. And today also she reported that there was a secret plan to sack 5000 Australia Post employees and to cut back services. Now, that's of real concern because Australians rely upon Australia Post. And the politicisation of boards, we had last week Sophie Mirabella appointed to the Fair Work Commission, we've had all these government bodies just stacked with –
 
PETERSON: But people do that when they’re in power. The Labor Party’s in power, you appoint Labor mates. Liberal Party appoints Liberal mates. I mean, Kim Beazley’s the Governor, you just mentioned him before. He's a good mate of yours and Mark McGowan. And he's a republican.
 
ALBANESE: And he's supported by everyone here in the West as a good appointment.
 
PETERSON: He is. He’s a good bloke. But he’s a Labor mate.
 
ALBANESE: He, of course, is a former Labor leader. But what we haven't had is what this Government have done. If you look at the Australia Post board, I don’t want to run through them all, Tony Nutt is obviously one, but there's political appointment after political appointment by this Government. I'm not opposed to political appointments at all times. I supported Mathias Cormann in his position. That's something more than the Liberal Party ever did for Kevin Rudd when he ran for UN secretary general. If someone is up to the job, and they're the right person, then they should be appointed. What's happened though is that the Government seemed to decide, with the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, there's been dozens and dozens of political appointments. If you're a former councillor you get a spot on the AAT at taxpayers’ expense. And Christine Holgate, I think today the most powerful thing that she did was to point out the hypocrisy of Scott Morrison in demanding she go during Question Time and at the same time he's hanging on to Andrew Laming.
 
PETERSON: But you also said she should pay the price.
 
ALBANESE: Correct. Correct. Whether that was a rebuke or a statement.
 
PETERSON: So, if you were the Prime Minister, would you ban all government businesses, so Australia Post, NBN for example, no wage targets, bonuses or presents like –
 
ALBANESE: Well it’s a matter of whether it’s appropriate or not. I don't believe that Cartier watches are appropriate.
 
PETERSON: Would G-SHOCK be appropriate?
 
ALBANESE: I beg your pardon?
 
PETERSON: A G-SHOCK, like a CASIO watch, be appropriate, if it was just a couple of hundred bucks?
 
ALBANESE: Well, maybe a case of beer, Oly.
 
PETERSON: A signed Rabbitohs football jersey.
 
ALBANESE: Well, that’s priceless mate. That’s priceless. But I’d rather have that than a Cartier watch, frankly. It’d be like you getting a St George signed jumper. But it’s a matter of common sense and the pub test, basically. Are you prepared to justify it? A Cartier watch, in my view, was the wrong thing to do. Did it deserve the response from the Prime Minister when this Prime Minister has hung on to ministers? I mean, Christian Porter will be back there, sitting in the Cabinet. We have, Senator Reynolds will be back there sitting in the Cabinet, who called Brittany Higgins a “lying cow”. We have all sorts of ministers, Angus Taylor. We have the Robodebt scandal that’s costs taxpayers $1.2 billion.
 
PETERSON: Are you worried, though, about your house? You know, there's been a lot, obviously, and you’ve just identified, a lot of the issues within the Government at the moment. Are you hunky dory that everybody sitting on your team at the moment, there'll be nothing coming out about any of them between now and the election?
 
ALBANESE: Look, I'm sure the Government will try and spray things around from time to time as they do. But the fact is that this Government is increasingly unravelling before our eyes.
 
PETERSON: 9221 1882. Anthony Albanese is my guest, the Australian Labor leader. The deal on the coronavirus vaccination rollout at the moment. What would you do differently if you were in charge?
 
ALBANESE: I would have had five or six deals last year, like we said should happen. And the fact that the Government hasn't done that, have left us vulnerable. They essentially put all their eggs in the AstraZeneca basket and the chickens have come home to roost. Now we have a state whereby the Government has given up on a timetable for the rollout. Now, that will have real consequences for business that requires certainty.
 
PETERSON: So, with the deals though, it's the AstraZeneca and it is obviously the Pfizer vaccination that Australia is most heavily invested in. Which other companies should we have invested in?
 
ALBANESE: Well they haven’t got anything else.
 
PETERSON: But Novavax is hopefully coming.
 
ALBANESE: Well, Novavax is coming but very much in the in the later part of the year, around about September.
 
PETERSON: Should he have picked up the phone and asked China or Russia as well, for their versions?
 
ALBANESE: No, there are other versions that are around, Johnson & Johnson is one but there are others as well that are being rolled out.
 
PETERSON: But wouldn’t the Therapeutic Goods Administration do this work?
 
ALBANESE: No. They don’t do the deals. It’s not their job to do the deals.
 
PETERSON: So it's all on the Government.
 
ALBANESE: It was the Government’s job to do the deals. And the Government set clear comments. They said we're the first in the queue. And we're not.
 
PETERSON: There's also emergency situations. Obviously in places like Great Britain, the US. We haven't had to administer these under emergency requirements. We live a normal, wonderful life in Australia overall.
 
ALBANESE: I tell you what, Oly, there's been a whole lot of lockdowns, there’s 45,000 Australians who are stranded and can't get back from overseas, there’s been lockdowns, as you know it's been difficult for me to achieve my KPI of 10 trips to the West last year.
 
PETERSON: Well you should talk to Mr McGowan about that.
 
ALBANESE: No, Mark McGowan’s done absolutely the right thing. Because you have to get the health response right so that you can open up the economy. And that's the point here. And the Government said very clearly and unequivocally, four million people would be vaccinated by the end of March. The only jab that Scott Morrison got right since he became Prime Minister is the one he gave to Malcolm Turnbull in order to become Prime Minister, to remove him.
 
PETERSON: Mick's got a question for you. Go ahead, mate.
 
ALBANESE: Gday, Mick.
 
CALLER: Hi, Anthony, or Albo. What I’m ringing, mate, is I’m an aged pensioner and I’ve had the AstraZeneca, the first lot. Because hopefully I might be able to travel to see my partner, who I haven’t seen for 18 months or more. I was hoping to go there November December but then I’ve heard that now they’re talking up to three years.
 
ALBANESE: Yeah, it's a problem with not rolling out the vaccine. And that's one of the points that I was just making to our friend Oly, which is that, this idea that there's no urgency here, there's a price to pay, not just the health but for the economy. If we can't have people vaccinated, it will be difficult for people to travel. Whereabouts do you want to travel to?
 
CALLER: The Philippines, mate.
 
ALBANESE: Right. Well, look, I mean, I hope that you can get to go. But we need to get the vaccine rolled out.
 
PETERSON: We’ve got a good step, though, going to New Zealand at least next week.
 
ALBANESE: Yeah, and that's a good thing. But -
 
PETERSON: Other countries like Hong Kong, for example, thinking about a country like Australia. If an Australian went to Hong Kong, you’d only have to do potentially two or five days, maybe even seven days in quarantine. Do we need to look a little more medium term? Because, as Mick said, and there are suggestions, it could be two or three years of we're still in this state of flexibility.
 
ALBANESE: Well, Singapore's another option that we need to look at a bit. It's a good thing that Australia is open at the moment in terms of borders. I’ll be travelling to, not just Western Australia this week, but I'll be in Queensland, Victoria and Tasmania in a week, as you do. And it's a good thing that Australia's opening up. But we're vulnerable whilst people aren't vaccinated to further lockdown. That's the truth.
 
PETERSON: 9221 1882. The Australian Labor Leader, Anthony Albanese, has got a couple more minutes to hang around and he's happy to take your calls.
 
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PETERSON: Talkback democracy with Anthony Albanese. Phil, go ahead.
 
CALLER: Hi. I would like to say, on this morning’s Liam Bartlett program (inaudible) he brought to light to Nauru island, 115 detainees, boat people, still left there and a huge amount, up to nearly a billion dollars a year, Australia's putting towards these (inaudible), limited contract tender, that’s why they walked in, nobody else wanted it. (Inaudible). $10,000 per day, per person, is what it's costing the Australian taxpayers. Why can't we just get these 115 people, who already passed the no return test, so they can't go back home or they'll be killed or what. If they’re criminals, fair enough. But how about 115 be distributed between the states of Australia? So we might end up with 25 in WA, 25 in South Australia. Let the bloody people in, because there’s kids involved. It can't go on, just paying a contractor based in Queensland these billions of dollars.
 
PETERSON: Would you shut it down, Albo?

ALBANESE: It’s nuts is what it is. Well it wouldn't be there because we would have taken up Jacinda Ardern’s offer to settle 50 people in, or more I think the offer was, in New Zealand. It would have been solved years ago. These people have been there since at least 2014. There's been no one sent to Nauru since then. At $10,000 per person, per day. I'm not sure what the best hotel is in in Perth, here’s a chance for you to do a free ad for one of them.
 
PETERSON: There’s plenty of good hotels. There’s the COMO Treasury, the Crown Towers as well.
 
ALBANESE: I reckon if they have a $10,000 a day room, then I wouldn’t mind having a look at it. We could go there and party Oly and watch a Souths - St George game on a big screen.
 
PETERSON: Well, the way the Dragons are going, the Rabbitohs are in trouble. The Rabbitohs are in all sorts of trouble.
 
ALBANESE: It is just crazy. And this is taxpayers’ money. Just as, I've got to say, that poor Sri Lankan family from Biloela, those two girls who were born here, who the local community, I’ve travelled to Biloela, they want Priya and Nades back in their community with their two little daughters, who were born here. And they now have had multiple Christmases effectively in detention. They're just little girls. They're no threat to our national sovereignty. And the Government needs to apply a bit of common sense here.
 
PETERSON: Bob, hello.
 
CALLER: Yeah, hello.
 
ALBANESE: Hi, Bob.
 
CALLER: Hello, Oly. I just want to wish Anthony well for his trip to Western Australia.
 
ALBANESE: Thanks very much, Bob.
 
CALLER: And I wish him well in the next federal election. I don’t know what it’s going to take to change the government. But I think there's a lot of people are saying we need to do it. And as soon as.
 
ALBANESE: Well, thanks very much, Bob. I really appreciate the positive message. I'll certainly be doing my best. And doing my best as well to make sure that we have policies in place to make sure we're a good government and one that can make you proud.
 
PETERSON: Jenny. Lucky last Good afternoon.
 
CALLER: Hi, how are you going?
 
ALBANESE: Hi, Jenny.
 
CALLER: Hi, Anthony. It was great to meet you the other night. I just wanted to ask –
 
ALBANESE: You were at the mess hall, were you?
 
CALLER: Yes I was, yes.
 
ALBANESE: It was a terrific night.
 
CALLER: It was, yes. I want to ask a question about the vaccine rollout. Look, I’m one year off 50. I've had blood clots in the past. And I just want to know what your opinion is about if we would be able to, you know, ask for a vaccine that would be safe for us. So, for me, I would preferably want the Pfizer vaccine because of the fact that I think that if the Government got the Pfizer in and Scott Morrison got the Pfizer, then he must have had faith in that. And I feel that, because of my medical history, that I should be able to choose which one I have.
 
ALBANESE: Thanks, Jenny. Look, I certainly think a politician shouldn't give medical advice.
 
PETERSON: You’ve had one. Haven't you had it?
 
ALBANESE: Yeah, I had the Pfizer. So I've had both jabs.
 
PETERSON: Would you get the AstraZeneca jab?
 
ALBANESE:  Well, I wouldn't be, I've had the Pfizer jab. If a doctor told me that it was appropriate, yes, I would.
 
PETERSON: But I'm under 50. I'd take the AstraZeneca jab tomorrow.
 
ALBANESE: I'd always take medical advice. I think that we need to get the country vaccinated. And we need to take the advice which is there. And certainly in terms of, you know, I'm glad that I did it. I did it in order to, the Government approached us. They said it would be good to boost confidence in in the system in order for us to do it. And that's why I went ahead. I’ve got to say, I was a bit uncomfortable about doing it early when there are a lot of vulnerable people who haven't had the jab. But that's why I did it. But I'd say to Jenny, make sure you just talk to your doctor. And the truth is that all medical procedures have some element of risk. But overwhelmingly, people getting vaccinated is in their interests and in the public interest.
 
PETERSON: Appreciate you coming into the studios this afternoon and we’ll see you back in Perth probably next month or so?
 
ALBANESE: I’ll see you here next month.
 
ENDS