SUBJECTS: Scott Morrison won’t change; Covid pandemic; JobKeeper; Medicare changes; out-of-pocket costs; JobSeeker; tax cuts; Government’s $1 trillion debt; a pay rise of $1 per hour for Australia’s lowest paid people; teaching; housing; future of coal; Powering Australia plan; Kristina Keneally; polling; Tony Abbott. 
 
LEIGH SALES, HOST: Anthony Albanese is the leader of the Labor Party and the potential next Prime Minister. Thank you very much for joining us this evening.

ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: Thanks very much, Leigh.

SALES: We know that the Coalition has a problem because a lot of people don't like Scott Morrison. Scott Morrison has been acknowledging that himself. But isn't the risk for you that you've not done enough during the past three years to persuade voters away from better the devil you know?

ALBANESE: We'll find out tomorrow night. But I'll make this point - even Scott Morrison has given up on better the devil you know, and has distanced himself from Scott Morrison when he has said that he will change if he's elected. Well, the way that you get change is to change the Government tomorrow.

SALES: The Morrison Government was hit with one of the worst and most complex economic and health crises in history, and compared to the rest of the world, the outcome in Australia in both of the areas is exceptionally good. Low death rate and almost instant almost economic recovery. Many voters might wonder, what’s the case for change here?

ALBANESE: Well, the Australian people have been magnificent. They responded by looking after each other, whether they were people in the care sector or just people going out and getting vaccinated. But what we know is that the impact was worse from the pandemic because Scott Morrison said it wasn't a race for getting the vaccines to Australia. And then he did the same thing when it came to rapid antigen tests. When it came to issues like economic support, Scott Morrison described wage subsidies as a dangerous idea.  

SALES: And then put them in. 

ALBANESE: Under pressure from Labor, business and the union movement. Eventually they put it in and when they did put it in, they designed a scheme that gave $20 billion to companies who were actually increasing their profits, even though they knew that was happening. They didn't adjust in the same way that New Zealand, for example, did.

SALES: OK, so it wasn't flawless, but surely it's hard to dispute that the outcomes for Australia are among the best in the world, and Scott Morrison was the bloke in charge of that.

ALBANESE: Australians were in charge of that, Leigh. Our health system, because of Medicare, is one of the best in the world, if not the best. Australians responded magnificently to the challenges. That's what Australians do. The strength of our Australian society was shown. But also, at the same time, the vulnerabilities of our economy, the fact that we're at the end of global supply chains meant that we didn't have enough PPE, we didn't have enough ventilators, we struggled to get access to vaccines. One of the things we need to do after the pandemic is identify how we can overcome those issues, how we stand on our own two feet. How we develop sovereignty capability. We make more things here. Labor has a plan to do that. The problem for this Government is that they don't have a plan for the future. And during the pandemic, we were responsible, we were constructive, we didn't play politics. We actually went into the Parliament and said - we have some disagreements with this legislation, but in advance, if our amendments aren't carried, we won't allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good. So we were responsible during that period. One of the things that meant, of course, was that as an Opposition, we didn't get the profile that would normally occur during that period of the pandemic. We put the national interest first. I make no apologies for that.

SALES: Character and trust have become issues in this campaign. In the 2016 election, Labor ran on a claim that the Federal Government would privatise Medicare if re-elected. So, if that was the truth, where is it? Where is the privatised Medicare?

ALBANESE: Well, what we had last year was some 900 changes to the Medicare schedule, including for things like hip surgery and those changes not brought forward in a way that was transparent.

SALES: Medicare is not being privatised, though, that's what Labor said. You want us to trust you now - that's what you said in 2016, and it never happened?

ALBANESE: What people out there know is that right now, it's harder to see a GP. Harder to see a doctor. That's one of the reasons why we have our urgent care clinics proposals. And I stand by our policies about strengthening Medicare. We know that the incoming Health Minister, if this Government is re-elected yesterday, tomorrow, has said in the past that the Medicare system is unsustainable. They're her quotes, not ours.

SALES: Well on this kind of issue, we tell Australians that they have universal healthcare, you go to a GP, you go to a specialist. Almost every time you're paying a huge gap that isn't covered by Medicare. If you have private health cover, that rarely ever covers it either. And if you don't have private health cover, you're in pain for months, if not years, on waiting lists because of problems there. Why are we not hearing Labor offer us a plan this election to address all of that?

ALBANESE: Leigh, we've offered 50 urgent care clinics…

SALES: That goes nowhere to what I just raised. 

ALBANESE: It absolutely goes there. Because they'll be bulk billed. The only thing you'll need, Leigh, in an urgent care clinic is your Medicare card.

SALES: But what if I don't need urgent care, but I need a knee replacement because my knee is sore.

ALBANESE: You won't need a credit card.

SALES: Yeah, but I'm talking about things that aren't urgent care. People who are struggling with a bad knee or a bad hip or denial issues, like that. They can't get help from an urgent care clinic?

ALBANESE: Leigh, Labor will always be better on Medicare and healthcare, and the policy that we've put out as well of $250 million per year, every year, for three years, that's been endorsed by the Australian Medical Association, worked out with how we can make sure that we can get better delivery, of primary healthcare and other health services. That's something that we've worked constructively on. It's something that we would take into Government.

SALES: How does your plan to leave the JobSeeker rate at its current unliveable level in your Party's first Budget square with your support of the stage three income tax cuts for high-income earners which will cost the economy about $20 billion?

ALBANESE: Leigh, what I've said on two issues, separate issues. On the first issue of looking after people on JobSeeker or pensioners for that matter, what I've said is that every single Budget, Labor would consider doing what we can to assist people who clearly are doing it tough. I don't question that. I don't question that we would like to do more. But we will inherit, if we're successful tomorrow, $1 trillion of debt. And one of the things that I have said very clearly during this election campaign is that we are promising to do exactly what we intend to do and what we know we can do, because we don't want a circumstance whereby as some governments have done in the past, including this current Government, that came to office, remember, with no cuts to health, no cuts to education, no cuts to the ABC. And we saw cuts in that 2014 Budget. What we're doing is being responsible, and I believe, always. I know what it's like, Leigh, to live in a circumstance where I grew up in a household where there was just me and mum on an invalid pension. And I know how difficult it is.

SALES: Of course, and that's why I ask you why your priority would be going ahead with and supporting stage three income tax cuts that deliver money into the hand of richest people in the country, while people who are on JobSeeker don't get anything. Even people like John Howard, the Business Council, have all called for a lift in the JobKeeper rate. What even is contemporary Labor if you don't have that as a priority ahead of tax cuts for the rich?

ALBANESE: They've been legislated, Leigh. I'll tell you what happened - we lost the last election. We lost the last election and those cuts, the tax cuts, have been legislated. What I have said is we're not going to re-litigate all of the issues that have occurred at previous elections and we're going to ensure that there's certainty going forward about what the tax system looks like. So that's why we made that decision. But that was a decision that was made, of course, in the Parliament, in the Senate. We tried to amend the legislation. We weren't successful. So that's just a historical fact that that occurred. But what I've also said, when it comes to people who do need more support, there's a clear case for it. I'm not arguing that that is not the case. But Labor governments should look at it each and every Budget.

SALES: Talk to any person who runs a business at the moment, small or large, and they'll tell you that they're having a big problem finding people to fill jobs. Some sectors tougher than others, say with public services, if you start the urgent care clinics, you've got to get nurses and doctors to staff all of those. How will Labor, short-term, fix this problem? Because it's a big problem right now.

ALBANESE: Well, we will have 465,000 fee-free TAFE places in areas of skills shortage. We'll also have an additional 20,000 university places. We understand that we need to train Australians for those jobs.

SALES: But sorry to interrupt you, but the gaps are there right now. So there's urgent need right now and the policies don't fix it right now? 

ALBANESE: Well, you can't just change ten years of damage in one day. What you need to do is train people for those jobs. You need also to look at the migration system. I've said that very up-front in areas like nurses, historically Australia is a great migration country. One of the things that we need to do, though, is to be less reliant upon temporary labour, and one of the things that we can task Jobs Australia, a body we will set up that will include private representatives and business representatives as well as different levels of Government, is to identify what are the skills that we'll need this year, next year, five years, ten years time? How do we train Australians for those jobs? How does the migration system fit in with that, and make sure that we get a better match-up of the labour market with the skills that Australia needs.

SALES: During the campaign, you made the unemployment figure mistake. You said this week that Australia's borders were closed when they're not. You supported a 5.1% wage increase and then wound it back to say that it would only be for minimum wage earners.

ALBANESE: That's not right.

SALES: You did.

ALBANESE: That's not right.

SALES: You said it the first time and then you clarified.

ALBANESE: That's not right. That's not right. Some of the nonsense that has gone on.

SALES: It is…

ALBANESE: I'll tell you what happened. We were asked a question. We were asked a question about if the Fair Work Commission came out with a 5.1% increase, would you welcome it? And I said absolutely.

SALES: Absolutely. You didn’t, you specified a couple of days later.

ALBANESE: No, that's not right. That's not right, Leigh. And during this campaign, with respect, some of the nonsense that's gone on from some of journalists, thinking that the campaign was about them and gotcha moments is one of the things that puts people off politics. The whole debate that day was about the case that is before the Fair Work Commission on the minimum wage increase. That's what the case is about. That’s what it’s about, Leigh.

SALES: I take your point about some of the questioning that people ask. But let me ask you about the unemployment figure one. People make mistakes, so I'm not criticising you about that. But it really did set your campaign off to a shaky start. What actually happened there? Did you not know it? What actually happened?

ALBANESE: I fessed up to just having a memory lapse at that particular time in that context. I'm not about making excuses. I owned it. And moved on. But some of the other things, including ones that you've raised. I actually gave a straight answer to a straight question about 5.1% and minimum wage, would I welcome it. And I stand by that, Leigh. It's a dollar an hour increase. And I don't believe, and I said throughout the entire campaign I've said two big themes. We don't think that people should fall behind, and we don't think that people should be held back. And people on minimum wages can't afford a real cut in their wages. We saw real wages fall this week by 2.7 %.

SALES: On education, you announced a $10,000 payment to attract more high performers to teachers as a profession. If you talk to teacher, they won't talk about high performers being attracted to the profession, but retaining teachers because of the workload and the stress. And again, I point out that this is an urgent problem right now. What can Labor do about that?

ALBANESE: Well, one of the things that we can do is to take some pressure off the education system. We think that, we make no apologies for the policy about attracting more high-performance teachers into the profession. We need to value teaching. It's an honourable profession. And we need to lift its status. We have a range of other policies that we've announced, including funding for schools to bounce back from COVID. We know that students and teachers have done it really tough. And providing a additional support for every school for mental health support or for excursions in order to, according to the priorities of those schools, will make a difference as well.

SALES: On housing, young people and people with families - they know that they need to plan for their retirement, but they also know that it is really difficult to pay for everything that you have to pay for in that middle part of your life. Why shouldn't Australians have a choice of what to do with their super savings as the Morrison Government is offering?

ALBANESE: Because we don't think that you should get an asset by getting rid of another asset. And what we have here is a policy that is consistent with the Government that has undermined superannuation every opportunity that it has had. We already know that women retire with less income than men. This Government have continued to undermine superannuation at every step. And we don't believe this is a policy that didn't last, really, until the Monday morning, when Minister Hume went on TV and said this would push up house prices and therefore, wouldn't provide any substantial benefit.

SALES: What year, approximately, do you reckon that Australia will be out of coal production?

ALBANESE: That will be determined by decisions in board rooms here in Australia and around the world.

SALES: So, what do you mean by that? Do you mean that the private sector will choose whether or not there's a market for coal? And what is the role for Government? 

ALBANESE: That is what happens.

SALES: Of course, but then what is the role for Government in that?

ALBANESE: The role for Government is our Powering Australia Plan that provides a mechanism of support for renewables. Under our plan, renewables will be 82% of the national energy market by 2030. That plan will see the creation of 604,000 additional jobs. Five out of every six in regional Australia. It will deliver some $52 billion of private sector investment.

SALES: But you haven’t, sorry….

ALBANESE: That’s what our plan is.

SALES: You haven’t done any modelling to check, what would the timeline therefore be for a full transition out of coal into renewables?

ALBANESE: Well, RepuTex have done, Australia's leading energy economics firm, RepuTex, and what they found are those figures coming through. There hasn't been a new coal fired power station built under this Government. And one can expect that there's no signs of that continuing in the, changing in the future, because the market is speaking. The cheapest form of new energy in Australia is renewables. There's great prospect in areas like green hydrogen and other emerging industries as well. That is what is happening, and it's being driven by the market. And during the last election campaign, the Federal Government in another example of waste committed millions of dollars to the proponents of a new coal-fired power station in Colinsville that hasn't happened and won't happen, because it doesn't stack up in terms of the energy market.

SALES: I wanted to ask you about the seat of Fowler in Western Sydney. What would you say to a voter there who might think - Labor's parachuted in Kristina Keneally, who doesn't live in our seat and I don't want a rich white woman from somewhere else to come in. "I'll take the local who knows my concerns, who speaks Vietnamease and who gets our community."

ALBANESE: What I'd say is that Kristina Keneally is a senior member of the Labor Party. She served as Premier of New South Wales. She's passionate about making a difference in politics, including to the community of Fowler in south-west Sydney. She will have a seat around the Cabinet table and will make an enormous difference to that electorate. Kristina is someone with great capacity, intelligence and able to advocate for that community. She'll be an outstanding, strong representative, and I'm sure that they'll be very proud of what she's able to deliver as part of a Labor government.

SALES: If you look at the opinion polls, after a 6-week campaign, about a third of voters don't want to vote for either major party. Without reference to the Coalition, what does that say to you about Labor?

ALBANESE: Well, Labor’s primary vote is up.

SALES: Yeah, but I still mentioned a third of voters don’t want either major party.

ALBANESE: People, we've seen over a period of time, a drift away from the tradition whereby people were born into a Labor family or a conservative family. Society has changed. And we have far more various views and a growth of minor parties. But every opinion poll shows that Labor, in terms of our primary vote, is attracting more support than we did at the last election or the one before that, or the one before that.

SALES: If you look at the 2013 election, the last time that there was a change of Government, voters were over Rudd and Gillard as many seem to be with Scott Morrison. But Tony Abbott went to that election with a short, sharp policy agenda - whatever you may think of it - but I guarantee that you would still be able to rattle off today, axe the tax, stop the boats and debt and deficit and all the rest of it. Isn't the difference now that you have a similar vibe where voters don't love the incumbent, but unlike 2013, they couldn't crisply rattle it off?

ALBANESE: Tony Abbott went to the election with slogans and then did the opposite. He brought in a 2014 Budget that axed funding to the ABC and axed health funding and education funding and axed a whole range of other services and tried to introduce a Medicare co-payment and didn't do what he said he would do. What I will deliver is what I am saying we'll deliver. Cheaper childcare. Cheaper energy bills. A future made in Australia. End the climate wars. A National Anti-Corruption Commission and move forward with the constitutional recognition of First Nations people with a Voice to Parliament.

SALES: Mr Albanese, you promised to do two interviews with the fro gram during the campaign and you honoured that commitment. Thank you very much.

ALBANESE: Thank you very much.

ENDS