SUBJECTS: Visit to Cairns; Sydney lockdown; need to fix vaccine rollout and national quarantine; Queensland tourism. 

PHIL STALEY, HOST: We continue the journey of recovery from COVID-19. Getting vaccinated, trying to return to a pre-2020 life, really. It must be frustrating to hear about new cases emitting from quarantine hotels, where variants are transmittable through the air, the air conditioning and whatnot. And to compound the issue, you get unfortunate examples like the one in Cairns this week, with a young girl charged after she crawled down two floors of quarantine hotel to escape just to see her family. The Federal Government is reluctant to implement purpose-built quarantine facilities like the Howard Springs facility in the Northern Territory. So to talk about that, I'm with the Federal Opposition Leader, Anthony Albanese, who's visiting the region this week. Mr Albanese, good morning. 

ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: Good morning. Thanks for having me on the program. 

STALEY: Mr Albanese, why is it, do you think, the Federal Government has been so reluctant to make purpose-built facilities for quarantine and instead relying on these hotels that don't seem fool-proof?

ALBANESE: It's just stubbornness. There's no rational reason why that's the case. They received a report last year from Jane Halton, the former Secretary of the Department of Health under this Government, which pointed out the problems that were there with ventilation systems in hotels, pointed out the need to have some purpose-built facilities, suggested the use of places like Exmouth in Western Australia. We've had proposals such as the one at Toowoomba that I visited on Monday. That was proposed last October. It could be up and running in 12 weeks. And we've had 26 outbreaks, separate outbreaks, from hotel quarantine. Hotels were built for tourists. They weren't built as quasi-health facilities. And whilst we continue to not get that right, and whilst we are languishing last in the developed world for the rollout of the vaccine, they're the two jobs Scott Morrison has had this year, and he's failed on both of them. 

STALEY: How do you balance it though? Like you refer to the one at Toowoomba, the Wellcamp one, but that was scrapped eventually because of concerns by residents. So surely you recognise it's not easy to just splash one of these things down in any town around Queensland?

ALBANESE: Well, it would be very easy to do the one at Wellcamp. It requires leadership. You had the state premier putting it forward constructively. You had John Wagner, who runs the airport there, putting it forward, prepared to put his own money towards the project. You would have had jobs created there. You will always have, for any project, it will always have some level of opposition. That's just the nature of building something. But the truth is that it's absolutely necessary and it would have been right at the airport. So now at the moment, we have these facilities being used in the CBDs in the middle of our capital cities, in the most crowded and congested areas of Australia. It does not make sense. And we know that Howard Springs has had more people through it than any individual hotel in Australia. Not even a hint of an outbreak. A facility that is well-run because they have separate cabin facilities, basically, you don't have that interaction there. I've spoken to people who've stayed there and been through it. They got two deliveries of meals a day, a delivery in the morning of two meals and then a hot meal with no contact with other humans for 14 days. And it's been very effective.

STALEY: So on that, we know that northern mayors from Cairns, Townsville and Mackay, they've been calling for a dedicated northern quarantine site. Have you heard word on that? Is there at least a proposal in the works?

ALBANESE: Look, I haven't seen a particular site proposed. But it's not surprising because this community, one of the things that I've heard while I've been here with Elida Faith, our candidate, is that the business community is desperate to open up again. This area is so dependent upon international tourists but also dependent upon national tourists. We know that this morning it is likely that the Sydney lockdown will continue for New South Wales so it will be a three-week lockdown. That's a long time. And many people in New South Wales would have planned to come to this beautiful region over this period of time, spend money, create jobs, create economic activity, and they're locked out.

STALEY: Mr Albanese, would you consider home quarantine an option? It's something that's had some success in the UK.

ALBANESE: Look, it has had some success, but it's not a substitute for having effective quarantine which is supervised. The example you gave of the young woman leaving quarantine to see members of her family is an example of the problems that could arise from home quarantine. And we have been successful. In 2020, we were doing very well. Our position as an island continent, located where we are in the world, meant we could close ourselves off and we could keep ourselves safe. The strong action of premiers, including Premier Palaszczuk, kept Queenslanders safe. And what we've done now was to squander that advantage because of complacency firstly, when the Federal Government said we were at the front of the queue when we weren't. When they said that there would be four million Australians vaccinated in March and they weren't. When they said we'd get aged care residents and disability care residents and aged care workers all vaccinated by Easter, and, of course, we know that hasn't happened. That complacency has led to basically then one of incompetence, frankly, when it comes to the rollout of the vaccine. It just has not been effective. And you've had circumstances – this New South Wales outbreak began with a driver of foreign air crew being taken to quarantine, who was unvaccinated and not wearing a mask. For goodness’ sake, 18 months into the pandemic, we need to do a bit better than that. And there is a cost to it.

STALEY: My guest is the Leader of the Opposition, Federal Opposition, Anthony Albanese. And you're in the region today and this week meeting tourism operators. What will you be saying to them? How do you think you might be able to help them?

ALBANESE: The first thing I'll be doing is listening. It's very important that you listen to what people are saying on the ground. And I am sure that the message that I got last night from talking to people in the business community was that they're really hurting and that they want a sense of urgency from this Government. And they were very disappointed. Someone said to me last night, 'Here we are 18 months into a pandemic, and they say we've got a new four-phase strategy, and we're beginning. What's been going on for 18 months?'. And I get that frustration which is there. But I'll be listening to anything practical that I can take back to Canberra. And certainly, Elida Faith, I know, has been working very hard with the community. We also will be doing some things here today because it's NAIDOC week, with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community. And I met one of the mayors last night and had a chat with him about the needs of his community. And it will be a part of my visit to Queensland that is including Toowoomba and Mackay and Gladstone and Brisbane and right up and around Queensland. It's good to listen to people and to get that feedback into our alternative plan that will be taken to the next election. 

STALEY: Well just on that, and there will be one of those elections in the next 12 months, can you guarantee these things you're talking about? Dedicated sites for quarantine, dedicated mass vaccination sites, will they be things that you'll be guaranteeing if you're in power?

ALBANESE: Absolutely. It was a part of my Budget Reply. I said there should have been funding for national quarantine, fit-for-purpose facilities in every state and territory.

STALEY: Finally, Mr Albanese, I don't have any scientific proof here, but you arrived in Cairns and it immediately started raining. So what do you make of that?

ALBANESE: Well, it is very wet out there this morning. But I'm sure there's mixed views for some of the visitors. They were hoping for more sunshine. But I'm sure for people's gardens and for other reasons there's always some positive for some rain as well. It certainly is warmer than Canberra, let me tell you.

STALEY: I'm sure it is. Really appreciate your time this morning and thanks for visiting the region. 

ALBANESE: Thanks for having me on the program. 

STALEY: My pleasure. Anthony Albanese, Leader of the Opposition, there. So he'll be meeting with businesses throughout the week and I presume then reporting back to Canberra.

ENDS