SUBJECTS: Kobi Shepherdson; practical measures to address domestic violence; visit to Uluru; Labor’s commitment to the implementation of the Uluru Statement from the Heart in full; the Treasurer’s pre-Budget speech; the Federal Budget. 
 
ALI CLARKE, HOST: With us now is Federal Opposition Leader, Anthony Albanese. Good morning.
 
ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: Good morning.
 
CLARKE: Obviously, here in South Australia and Adelaide we've all been incredibly raw over the death of the murder of baby Kobi Shepherdson. During that time, you tweeted that sympathy and speeches from politicians aren't enough. And they wouldn't do. So, what is enough? What do you think should happen in situations or to stop horrid situations like this?
 
ALBANESE: Well, there are practical measures that can be done. We need urgency and we need ambition. We need a strategy that deals with justice and police issues. We need to deal with services for women, including the fact that there are cuts that come in on July 1, when COVID funding ends, that will stop paying the Commonwealth’s fair share of workers who work in shelters and facilities that provide support for women escaping domestic violence. We need a comprehensive education strategy to change attitudes. I think the most horrific figure that I heard recently was that the major cause, the number one cause, of death and disability for 15 to 44-year-old women is domestic violence. I find that just extraordinary. We also need some measures that Labor has announced, including we need paid domestic violence leave. We need to include coercive control in the definition of domestic violence so that that goes across all Commonwealth agencies, including the legal system.
 
CLARKE: All of these things, I think, people would be nodding to and saying yes, of course, no problem. But there is a lot of resources and a lot of change that needs to be had to make this possible. Are you just creating a shopping list of wants that you may never ever be able to live up to should you ever be able to get in government?
 
ALBANESE: Not at all. These are very clear commitments. We've had a commitment to paid domestic violence leave, for example, 10 days, we took to the last election. It remains our position. We strongly opposed the abolition of the Family Court as a step backwards, for example, in this Parliament. And we have argued for increased funding for services. That is important, as well. This is a national crisis and it should be dealt with as such. And that's why it requires a very comprehensive strategy. I mean, baby Kobi, I think, broke everyone's heart, seeing that photo on the front page of our newspapers. But unfortunately, it's not an isolated incident. And we saw Hannah Clarke and her three children murdered on the Gold Coast not too long ago. We need a comprehensive plan and it needs to be dealt with as a national cross.
 
DAVID BEVAN, HOST: There will be some kind of coronial inquest into what happened last week, but that could take years. How can our listeners have faith that the judicial system, the criminal justice system, which was handling Mr Shepherdson, how can they have faith in that system?
 
ALBANESE: Well, it's pretty clear that, without pre-empting those legal processes about the specific issue, that our justice system isn't delivering what it should and what I think overwhelmingly Australians would want to see it deliver. We have too many cases whereby women and children who are vulnerable are left exposed. And I think, quite clearly, there are a range of issues that need to be dealt with. But one of them is around justice and policing.
 
BEVAN: Last week, and I think I'm doing the South Australian Attorney-General justice here, I think she said, well, look, there was an agreement between the parties that, despite the history involved, the father should have access on that day. Now, I don't think it's unreasonable for some South Australians, for Australians right across the nation, to say well maybe the courts or the police should have been the adult in the room saying no, I'm sorry, we're not going to allow this this to happen here. But we won't know that until there's a swift inquiry. And then you've got all of those other horrible examples of similar things happening interstate. Look, Anthony Albanese, it's always easy to call for an inquiry, to call for a summit. But do you think there would be some merit in getting people together very quickly and writing out a 10-point plan? Or do we know what to do?
 
ALBANESE: Look, I think there's always merits in having discussions and getting best minds together to search for best practice. And no one has all the answers. That's the truth. These issues can be very, very complex. But the truth is a whole range of issues are known. There should not be cuts coming in from the Commonwealth for support on July 1, for example. That needs to be fixed in the Budget in two weeks’ time, needs to be fixed as a matter of urgency. We did know, frankly, that the abolition of the Family Court was a really dumb idea. There should have been some reform of the Family Court. Was it perfect? No, it wasn’t. It did require some reform. But to just get rid of it, a court specifically designed to deal with the range of issues associated with the breakup of families, was a backwards step. And that was subject, to call it for what it is, that was subject to deal-making in the Senate about legislation that had nothing to do with these specific issues. So, we actually need to prioritise this. It needs to be seen as a national crisis. And perhaps, a summit on these issues would focus attention on it. Certainly, I think that, overwhelmingly, Australians do want better outcomes, and there’d be no decent Australian who could look at the loss of Kobi and think that that didn't require all of us who are in a position to influence public policy to have an obligation to prioritise these issues.
 
BEVAN: Anthony Albanese, you've just spent several days at Uluru. Is there a risk that so much effort is being put into making the goals of the Uluru Statement a reality? That after, even if that was achieved, that's not going to solve everybody's problems. And when people realise it's not going to solve their problems, there's going to be a deep disappointment within the Indigenous community. You see what I'm saying? We're raising expectations.
 
ALBANESE: Well, that's certainly not the feedback that we had when we met with the Central Land Council and met with leader at Mutitjulu and we engaged with them, as our First Nations caucus members, Pat Dodson and Linda Burney and Malarndirri McCarthy, Warren Snowdon and others have been doing for some time. This is seen as a matter of respect. It's now going to be, next month, four years since the Uluru Statement from the Heart. That was a modest and a generous request to walk with First Nations people on the path to reconciliation. And I think having an Indigenous Voice to Parliament that’s recognised in the Constitution would deal with the whole range of issues in the future. It's not the end of the journey. It's the beginning. And First Nations people understand that. But giving them a voice, ensuring that they can have a say on matters which directly affect them and have that input into the Parliament, is, I think, an important one.
 
BEVAN: Okay. And before you leave us, the economy. Can you fault Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s priorities in his next Budget? He's going make it clear today that the goal is getting unemployment down.
 
ALBANESE: Well it’s a big gap from two years ago with the ‘Back in Black’ mugs, isn't it? Where he declared –
 
BEVAN: Well, that’s not his fault. I mean, the virus isn’t his fault.
 
ALBANESE: Sorry, it is his fault that he declared the Budget was in surplus retrospectively. Remember, that occurred and that simply wasn't the case. So, a declaration for political purposes before an election should be called out for what it is.
 
BEVAN: Yeah he might have jumped the gun back then. But if he missed the mark by, what is it, I don’t know how many hundreds of billions of dollars we’re in debt now, that's not his fault. That's because of the pandemic. And you wouldn't have faulted what they've done in terms of spending money. What I'm asking you now is can you fault his priorities in his next Budget, which apparently is about getting unemployment down?
 
ALBANESE: Well, Labor’s priorities will always be about jobs and job creation. What we'll see in the Budget is, though, considerable debt. And we have been critical, not of JobKeeper, which we called for and they called dangerous, what we've been critical of is that payments have been given to the tune of around about $10 billion to companies that have actually increased their profits during the pandemic. And so some of the design of the scheme has been profligate in not worrying about those issues at the same time as they've hunted down people, through processes like Robodebt, who might owe the Commonwealth $100. So I think it is that contradiction which is there. But certainly, Labor will always prioritise job creation. It’s something that we've been calling for and, in the announcements that we've made, we've called for that. The Government does need to put in place those reform measures which grow the economy into the future. One of those is to match our announcement we made last Budget Reply of child care reform, one that increases women's workforce participation, would grow the economy.
 
CLARKE: Well, Federal Labor Leader Anthony Albanese, we have to leave it there. So thank you for your time.
 
ALBANESE: Thank you very much for talking with me.
 
CLARKE: We should point out that we're coming up to nearly two years with the open invitation to the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, to come on this programme. We'll see if we can make the two years mark. I'm happy not to though. But we do regularly make requests of the Prime Minister to come and speak so you can hear from him on ABC Radio Adelaide.
 
BEVAN: So, it's not that we don't try. We would love to have a conversation with Scott Morrison about the things that are affecting South Australians. And, as soon as he's able to, I'm sure that will happen. But the requests are there and they're made regularly.
 
ENDS