SUBJECTS: Scott Morrison calling Western Australians and Queenslanders ‘cave people’; Doherty modelling; COVID outbreaks around Australia; lockdowns; vaccine rollout; need for national quarantine facilities; Scott Morrison acting too little, too late; passing of Charlie Watts & Rolling Stones.

DEAN CLAIRS, HOST: We thought it was an appropriate time to catch up with the Federal Opposition Leader and Labor Leader, Anthony Albanese. Good morning, Anthony. Welcome to 96FM. How are you doing? 

ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: G'day. Thanks for having me on the program again.

LISA SHAW, HOST: Nice to catch up with you. Look, I think really the reason for our chat is we don't know quite how to feel about what the PM said yesterday. He made some comments about reopening Australia at 70 per cent vaccinated and suggested that WA, that we are basically cave people or The Croods because Premier McGowan wants a zero COVID strategy. Premier McGowan wrote on his Facebook page that it was an odd thing for the Prime Minister to say. What are your thoughts on the PMs comments and his Croods analogy?

ALBANESE: It's a pretty off way to lead the whole country, isn't it? To call Western Australians, and Queenslanders by the way, ‘cave people’. No one wants lockdowns. No one wants restrictions. But Mark McGowan, I think, has been doing a fantastic job of keeping Western Australian safe. And it'll be a pretty interesting meeting on Friday, won't it? With the Prime Minister chairing a meeting having said that. Really, it's an insult to Western Australians who have been doing a great job of obeying rules and keeping each other safe. There are sacrifices being made, of course, by everybody impacted, including the economy. I miss going over to WA there and talking in your studio.

SHAW: I am not really offended by him calling us ‘cave people’ or ‘cave men’ or anything. But what upsets me a little bit is that our Prime Minister uses kiddies’ animated stories for his analogy to get his point across. I'd like to live in this belief that can't we be a little bit more highbrow when we're discussing something at this level?

ALBANESE: Well, it would be a good idea. But the Prime Minister is looking for distractions, looking to have an argument so that we won't talk about the fact of our vaccine rollout, which has been a debacle, so we won't talk about the fact that we don't have purpose-built quarantine yet, that some of the figures of people who were supposed to be in the priority category, such as aged care workers, remain unvaccinated largely, in terms of fully vaccinated, that people in disability care, the people who are National Disability Insurance Scheme participants, 25 per cent are vaccinated. One in four. They were supposed to be done by Easter. They were the priority, as well as people in aged care, aged care workers. So this is a distraction, I think, by the Prime Minister. A conscious decision. He didn't just say it once. He said it multiple times. He said it on TV yesterday morning and then said it in his Party room as well and it was briefed out very consciously. So it's up to him to work out why this is a sensible thing to do. But then again, this is the bloke who joined with Clive Palmer at a massive cost to the taxpayers to try to take Western Australia to court to overturn the decisions that the court found. Of course, Western Australia was perfectly within its right to do so. 

CLAIRS: If you just switched on this morning, the Federal Opposition Leader, Anthony Albanese, is with us. Anthony, what about the way out? What is the way out for Australia and what does that mean for us here in the West?

ALBANESE: Well, we need to get more people fully vaccinated. That's the key. But we also need purpose-built quarantine. The Prime Minister, of course, promised Australians that they would be home by Christmas. He didn't say which Christmas, to be fair, when he said that this time last year. And the truth is we still don't have purpose-built facilities. We still have more than 30,000 Australians stranded overseas. We have vaccination rates, they've just reached 50 per cent of people over the age of 16 with their first dose. And we know that people are doing it tough. Parents are worried about their kids. People are worried about their jobs and the economy. There's a consequence behind these restrictions. And I'm speaking here from Canberra where it has been in lockdown now for a couple of weeks. And of course, my hometown of Sydney has been locked down for a very long period of time now, about to enter the third month. I myself haven't been able to go home since the beginning of June. 

CLAIRS: That's a long time. 

ALBANESE: It's a difficult period that we're living through. And it is a difficult period because we didn't get enough supply the vaccines and we didn't fix hotel quarantine.

SHAW: Right. Well, on another note, we know you're a very big music fan. Sad news today about Charlie Watts.

ALBANESE: It is.

SHAW: I mean, I knew the time had to come. I couldn't believe it when that came in this morning and I heard the news. I was like, 'No, I can't believe one of them is gone'.

CLAIRS: We knew he pulled out of the tour, but we were in shock a bit this morning.

ALBANESE: Well, it's incredible that Charlie and Keith and Mick are still going given their lifestyle. Charlie was a bit cleaner than Keith Richards. 

SHAW: Keith just amazes us all. 

ALBANESE: It is remarkable. But what a great drummer and a great musician. I had the privilege of seeing the Rolling Stones live. And it was just awesome live and just great rock and rollers. And he, of course, was the driving force behind the band for so many years, so many decades.

SHAW: Without him there just having that calmness that sort of exuded from him, I don't know what might have happen sometimes.

ALBANESE: Mick has had all the energy out there. When people speak about front people for bands, I think there's, you know, Michael Hutchinson and Peter Garrett stand out as Australian front people. And Mick Jagger is, I think, quite amazing. And there was Charlie back there. Exactly the opposite. But a great musician. And a great band. We'll wait and see. It seems that they just keep going. Unlike some others, they don't announce it is the last tour.

CLAIRS: They haven't done the Kiss thing.

SHAW: Anthony, lovely to chat to you this morning. Thank you for joining us.

ALBANESE: Stay safe, everyone.

SHAW: You too.

CLAIRS: Hopefully you have got a very hungry dog sitting waiting for you in Sydney. It has been a long wait. 

ALBANESE: I miss my puppy, I've got to say. You really notice it. The odd thing is that people say, 'Oh, when she sees you, she'll go crazy'. But the thing is, like a lot of dogs, you get the same greeting if you've been out for half an hour or months.

SHAW: Thanks, Anthony. Bye. 

It doesn't hurt to mention that we did try to get the Prime Minister on the show, of course, again today about the comments about us being cave people. And they declined. He declined. Just in case you were wondering.

ENDS