SUBJECT: Budget in Reply 2021.

SABRA LANE, HOST: The Federal Labor Leader, Anthony Albanese, joins me now in the Parliament House studio. Good morning. 

ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: Good morning, Sabra.

LANE: Your reply sounded like a campaign launch almost. You are wearing sharper suits and you're looking pretty healthy. How ready are you for an early election?

ALBANESE: We're absolutely ready. I've said on the day that I became Leader that I want to play it like a four-quarter match, that we'd have the review, then we'd have vision statements, then we'd have our platform process in the lead-up to our national conference and the siren for the fourth quarter and the bounce would occur on Budget Day this year. And so I'm ready. We intend to kick with the wind in the fourth quarter.

LANE: Now, your housing policies, specifically on the 10,000 affordable dwellings for frontline workers like nurses and paramedics and teachers, who decides who's lucky and who's not? Because I'd imagine that lots of people will put up their hand for those.

ALBANESE: Well, there are formulas that work this out, and it works effectively already. We have superannuation funds that have gone off by themselves, including in Scott Morrison's own electorate, and built affordable housing units for emergency service workers, for our police, for our nurses. One of the crises that we have in my electorate, for example, is people who work at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital or who work at the local Marrickville Fire Station can't afford to live in the area. So provision of affordable housing, an investment that produces, of course, an asset through community housing providers, has been shown to be effective.

LANE: Some paramedics in Sydney earn $110,000 a year. Do they deserve an affordable house under this package? 

ALBANESE: Well, some of those are struggling depending upon where they need to live, depending upon how many kids they have got, all of those circumstances. I think that it's important that we recognise that these people served us during the pandemic. And what we're talking about here, Sabra, is something that produces, as well, an asset. So it's an investment that produces an asset, as well as looking after people, as well as, of course, the commitment we have for 20,000 new social housing units, 4000 of whom would be for people fleeing domestic and family violence. It's a tragedy, Sabra, that tonight, like every night, women, including women with children, will be turned away from shelters because there's no room and be faced with the choice of either sleeping in their car or going back to a dangerous circumstance.

LANE: What about affordable housing for the rest of the country? In your own hometown, the market there is booming, fuelled by low interest rates. In Sydney, the median house price has gone up $100,000 in three months, it’s now $1.12 million.

ALBANESE: It is a real issue, Sabra, which is why we think that housing needs to be addressed. And the idea, for example, that it’s great if single parents can get into private homeownership, but the truth is that for many of them that's just not an option. And the Government shows, I think, how out of touch it is by not recognising the pressure that's there in the housing market. And one way you deal with that is by increasing supply. So our plan is about looking after people but also looking after the economy by building jobs including in construction.

LANE: What about a modified policy on negative gearing and capital gains tax, a modified policy on what you took to the last election?

ALBANESE: Well, we'll announce all of our revenue and expenditure policy, it'll all be fully costed. before the election. We wanted to see what the state of the economy was before we examined those issues. But I'll tell you this, Sabra, we won't take lectures from a Government that has created a trillion dollars of debt. They've spent $100 billion on Tuesday night, they spent $100 billion the year before, just six months ago, the last Budget, and they have no great legacy. All of that expenditure is about dealing with political problems that they themselves have created, not about having a vision for the nation's future and then setting about creating it.

LANE: Let's talk about aged care. You say that those who are working in aged care are deserving of more money. The Health Services Union last night put out a press release saying that they welcome your declaration of support for their campaign to lift wages by 25 per cent before the Fair Work Commission. Is that what you did last night?

ALBANESE: What I did last night was say that we would support a case before the Fair Work Commission for them to examine.

LANE: Twenty-five per cent?

ALBANESE: It's not up to us to put forward that examination, for them to examine the historic gender pay inequity, which is there. Just like when we were in Government about social and community services. In that case, the increase was substantial. And one of the things that has meant, Sabra, is that people who are community service workers out there have been able to stay in their job. They haven't had to face a choice of doing something that they liked doing, something they're committed to helping their fellow Australians but simply can't afford to because they can't pay their rent if they stay in those jobs.

LANE: How tempting is it, given that the Government has slipped its fiscal straitjacket, how tempting is it for you to pledge fiscal restraint given that voters usually don't associate Labor with that. Will you try? 

ALBANESE: Well, I've said, Sabra, that the nature of my upbringing means I'm cautious when it comes to knowing the value of a dollar. This is a Government that just splashed money around for its own purposes. 

LANE: Sure, but what about you? 

ALBANESE: Well, you can look at the commitments that we've made. They've all been very considered. They've been modest. The commitments we made were very modest in terms of the impact on the Budget bottom line on Thursday. We made serious commitments about universal affordability of childcare provision. We have been cautious about that. But that doesn't mean that you can't be ambitious. It just means you've got to be smart about the policies you put forward. This Government have established 21 slush funds with $4 billion in them and $9 billion on Tuesday night of decisions taken but they won't tell you what they are.

LANE: Mr Albanese, thanks for joining the program this morning. 

ALBANESE: Thanks very much, Sabra.

ENDS