SUBJECTS: 2022 Federal Budget Reply; Federal election; Labor’s policy agenda.
 
ANGELA COX, HOST: Anthony Albanese joins me from Parliament House. Thank you for joining The Latest. What is your plan for aged care?
 
ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: Good evening. Well, our plan is to put the care back into aged care by having a nurse back into every nursing home, 24/7. By having increased hours for aged care workers to provide service and support for residents by having an increase in the pay of aged care workers. Better food for aged care residents. And better regulation to make sure that every additional dollar that goes into the system goes to better care.
 
COX: That sounds great, but how are you going to pay for it? Will you subsidise the cost, or will it be up to providers?
 
ALBANESE: Well, it will be an additional cost to Government of $2.5 billion over four years. But it's something that we need to do. We have an interim Royal Commission report in aged care that was titled with one word - Neglect. We know, for example, on food, that it found that over 50 per cent of aged care residents weren't getting the nutrition that they need. Common sense tells you that you need to have a nurse at every nursing home. If you don't, you'll end up having additional costs as well. Because rather than people getting the care they need, when they need it, day or night, aged care residents might have to end up in an emergency department for something that could have been solved far easier if a nurse was present in the aged care home.
 
COX: Your Budget Reply tonight certainly sounded like a sales pitch to get you into the top job. But critics have said a lot of aspirational sentences with not a lot of detail about how you actually plan to do anything. Is that a fair assessment?
 
ALBANESE: We have all the detail out there. We have got a five-point plan on aged care this evening. But we've been rolling out detailed policies. Our Powering Australia plan to deal with climate change, for example, will see emissions reduced by 43 per cent by 2030, $52 billion of private sector investment, 604,000 new jobs created, five out of every six of them in regional Australia. We've said exactly how that will be achieved in a fully costed policy, done independent by RepuTex, Australia's leading energy economists. And on a range of areas, be it child care, fully costed, once again, out there. Providing support for every family. Families are really doing it tough out there. And the difference between us and the Government is that they had, on Tuesday night, a range of one-off payments that won't make a difference in the long-term once their gone. Our policy on child care will provide that permanent support going forward. Our policy on energy will result in electricity prices falling by $275 by 2025. That's the sort of permanent relief that people need.
 
COX: Certainly, child care subsidies will be welcomed. Many Australians are wondering when their pay package is going to go up. How do you lift wages?
 
ALBANESE: You lift wages by making secure work and objective of the Fair Work Commission, by dealing properly with the issue of casualisation of the workforce, by having a law that provides for same job, same pay, by recognising that you need to properly regulate the gig economy, which currently, a whole lot of people aren't even getting paid the minimum wage. You make wage theft a crime. You address these issues one by one. We have a comprehensive plan out there, including providing support with a submission from Government saying that aged care workers deserve a wage increase.
 
COX: What is Labor's plan to help people out without exacerbating inflation?
 
ALBANESE: By working with business and with unions to boost productivity, and therefore, not place pressure on inflation. For example, our child care policy will result in higher productivity, higher workforce participation, particularly of women. At the moment, it makes no sense to have a disincentive in the system for, usually it is the mum, a disincentive to not work a fourth or a fifth day. That means they can't contribute to the business. That means they can't compete for promotions on the same basis as someone who's working full-time. That means they retire, as well, with less. It puts pressure on the family budgets. Child care reform isn't about welfare. It's about growing the economy, growing productivity. And everyone who has looked at this, any serious economic body, acknowledges that every dollar invested in child care produces two dollars or more benefits for the national economy. That's the sort of plan that we're looking for. Everything that we have done isn't one-off payments or one-off handouts. They are structural reforms to grow the economy, to learn the lessons that have been there with the pandemic, which have exposed some of the vulnerabilities in our economy.
 
COX: You said you wanted to make housing more affordable. A lot of people renting homes are struggling because of soaring rents in regional and metro areas. Morrison says the priority is getting people in the property market. What is your plan?
 
ALBANESE: Scott Morrison thinks that people who are having difficulties with high rent should just go and buy a house. Talk about out of touch. Our policy includes our Housing Australia Future Fund. That will build 30,000 additional social and affordable housing units. If you increase the supply of social housing and you increase supply of affordable housing for essential workers, what you do is put downward pressure on prices there. You need to engage in a whole suite of measures. We need to help people, where we can, into homeownership. But we need to also acknowledge that, for many people, homeownership is out of reach. And the problem is that for the younger generation, it increasingly is appearing to be out of reach for them.
 
COX: You have said the Government's Budget is all about winning the elections. What about you?
 
ALBANESE: What we're putting in place are the right policies. If you have the right focus on the long-term, then we'll let the policies look after itself. Our focus has been on that long-term policy development. The Government has a policy for the election, six weeks. And then the cash payments stop. What we have is a plan for years ahead to make sure that we grow the economy so that we can actually enhance people's standard of living. That's what we're about. Creating opportunity, new industries, new jobs, better living standards.
 
COX: Just quickly, on a scale of one to ten, how confident are you that you can win the election?
 
ALBANESE: Well, I'll be doing my best. That's all you can do. And I will leave it up to the Australian people. I do know this. That this Government have been in office now for almost a decade. They are shooting for a second decade in office. Is this really the best you can get? Australia is the greatest country on Earth. I just think that a better Government can produce a better future. And that will be my aim going forward. Stronger Medicare, more secure work, cheaper child care, giving people in aged care the dignity they deserve.
 
COX: Thanks so much, Anthony Albanese.
 
ALBANESE: Thanks very much.
 
ENDS