SUBJECTS: COVID advertisements, vaccine roll-out, quarantine, aged care and disability care workers, government grants programs.
 
DAVID SPEERS: Anthony Albanese, welcome to the program. Thanks for joining us.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Good morning.

SPEERS: Can I ask you first about the new ad that has been launched. What do you make of it?

ALBANESE: Well we’ve been saying for some time there needed to be a public information campaign but I am not sure that this cuts it frankly. It’s going to be very difficult for Shaun Micallef to be able to send this ad up. What we need is actually taking the expertise Australia has always done so well. We were the best at the campaign against AIDS. We’ve done drink-driving very well. But after 18 months if this is the best they can do I think they have to go back to the drawing board.

SPEERS: Any suggestions for the ad makers?

ALBANESE: I think my opponent is the advertising guy but this is a government that spent a billion dollars advertising itself telling Australians how good it is. Maybe they should translate some of that advertising into this.

SPEERS: Let’s talk more about the vaccine roll-out and you have been very critical of course of the Government for not having more supply in Australia and in place earlier. What though can be done now to boost supply?

ALBANESE: Well we need to aggressively increase supply. We need to talk to our friends in the United States about Pfizer and Moderna. Canada and Mexico have been able to get additional vaccines. We need to be moving with producing mRNA vaccines right here as well. They key is the supply of the vaccine. That’s at the heart of the problem here. Scott Morrison had two jobs this year - to roll out the vaccine effectively and to set up national quarantine and both of them have been botched, which is why we find ourselves now in this predicament.

SPEERS: This issue of trying to get more supply now, I mean you reference some of the countries that are getting surplus supply from the Biden Administration – Canada and Mexico. There are a bunch of others. The issue is all of them do have far more COVID cases and deaths than we have in Australia. Canada - more than 500 cases a day, an average of 13 deaths a day. Is it feasible for Australia to jump the queue ahead of these countries?

ALBANESE: Well it’s a matter of getting access to more supply sooner and we need to do that. We saw recently South Korea get access to the excess Pfizer vaccines from Israel. Now we are friends with both Israel and the United States.

SPEERS: In South Korea they are getting about 1000 cases a day. Is the issue here that we are a victim of our own success? There’s more COVID cases and deaths nearly everywhere than Australia.

ALBANESE: David, if you fail to plan you are planning to fail and that is what is happening here. We didn’t do enough deals with enough pharmaceutical companies to get enough vaccines soon enough. The Government was too busy out there advertising itself saying we are at the front of the queue. We are last in the developed world for the roll-out of vaccine and we are not in the top 100 of countries.

SPEERS: I understand that point of what should have happened previously. But now, is it possible to get more now?

ALBANESE: Well other countries have been able to do so and we also should be advancing on producing mRNA vaccines here. We have been arguing this David since last year. Had the Government moved we would be producing them potentially right now. We’ve been arguing for some time there needed to be a four-point plan - effective roll-out of the vaccine, national quarantine, an effective public information campaign and manufacture mRNA vaccines here. The Government has been complacent and that complacency has led to incompetence when it comes to dealing with the challenge which is there. We have been constructive and put forward these ideas in good faith. The Government has resisted them at every turn and has been too busy saying how well they have been going: advertising - they have spent a lot of money advertising how well the recovery is but haven’t spent anything on advertising the vaccine roll-out.

SPEERS: The UK has about 65 per cent of its population now fully vaccinated yet they still have about 29 COVID relate deaths. That was just yesterday. What are your thoughts? When we do get further down the track, if we do get to 65 percent of our population vaccinated, do you think we are still going to need lockdowns, or do we follow the path of the UK and open things up and allow a level of COVID and even deaths in the community?

ALBANESE: It is unfortunate the Government only last week has asked the Doherty Institute to analyse what level of vaccinations we will need before they then ask Treasury about the opening up of the economy. Quite clearly what we need to do is to make sure we maximise the vaccination of the public. They key has been supply. People in my electorate are desperate to get vaccinated. They log on to the system, they get given a number and then they get told there’s no appointments available at this time. And the reason has been because there simply haven’t been the vaccines. I was in Gladstone this week whereby you had just eight vials of Pfizer vaccine at a clinic there are Port Curtis. That would be able to vaccinate 1000 people a week if only they had the vaccines.

SPEERS: Undeniably there’s a lot of frustration out there, I guess my question is going to what level of vaccination does the population need to be at to avoid lockdowns, in your view?

ALBANESE: Well I think my view and the view of politicians when it comes to health advice shouldn’t matter David. We should listen the health advice. The health experts say it is in the order of 80 percent and we shouldn’t pre-empt that and politicians shouldn’t be making those decisions in the absence of health advice. I think part of the problem here is that we have multiple sources of information out in the community which are contradictory over AstraZeneca for example and I think it is a good idea to leave the health advice to the health experts. I don’t have “Doctor’’ at front of my name and I will leave it to the doctors to give that advice.

SPEERS: Fair enough, but presumably the advice will say here’s the risk if you have 70 per cent or 80 per cent vaccinated, here is the risk that you have to be willing to accept. Do you think Australia has a different risk appetite to other countries when it comes to COVID and COVID deaths? Do you think at some point Australia should be willing to accept some level of COVID in the community and COVID deaths in the community?

ALBANESE: I don’t think that ever we should say we accept deaths David and it is also my very strong view that we shouldn’t deal with hypotheticals. This is about the science and we should, as in other areas, listen to the science - the medical experts, those with “Doctors’’ in front of their name who have studied this for a long period of time are the people we should be listening to.

SPEERS: But there is nothing hypothetical about what is happening the UK, in the US, all these other countries who are well down the path of vaccinations. Are you saying we should not accept any COVID deaths at any point?

ALBANESE: I’m saying that it is unfortunate that the Government only initiated the Doherty Institute to look at these matters in the last week. We are 18 months into the pandemic, and I have been very careful David, throughout this pandemic to not second-guess, to not pre-empt health advice, but to listen to health advice and to convey that to the public and I think it would be a good idea if all public office holders did the same thing.

SPEERS: Just on the roll-out itself, the Shoppies’ Union wants retail workers to be given priority for vaccinations. Do you agree?

ALBANESE: I probably should declare in interest here David. My son works at Woolies and I am concerned about the amount of contact that people on the front line, essential workers, have. But we haven’t even had people in category 1A vaccinated yet. There are aged care workers I met with this week in Redcliffe who have been unable to get vaccinated. We don’t have disability care workers vaccinated. We don’t have all our aged care residents vaccinated. We were told they would all be vaccinated by Easter. And what we have seen throughout this pandemic is that all of the targets that have been established have been missed and so the Government has stopped giving targets. We were told that everyone would be vaccinated by October. Remember? That was Greg Hunt’s advice last year. And now we are saying maybe they might get one, access to one vaccination by the end of the year. We need to do much better. The Government has given up on targets now. They are saying horizons and we know that horizons are things that are never met.

SPEERS: Just on the priority groups you mention, aged care workers will have to a have vaccine by mid-September - at least one jab. But disability care workers, National Cabinet has decided not to make it mandatory for them. Do you think they should?

ALBANESE: Look, I think essential workers who are dealing with vulnerable people in the community should be vaccinated. I think the issue here though David is that they have been unable to be.

SPEERS: When it is available should it be mandatory for disability workers?

ALBANESE: I think it is a good idea if people who are dealing with vulnerable people should be vaccinated and just like in a range of other areas, like the flu vaccine for people working in aged care there is lots of precedent for ensuring that there’s protection, not just for the workers, but for the people they are dealing with. But aged care workers, disability care workers. They are not in it for the money David. They are in it for their sense of compassion and the care that they have for those that they look after and I am very confident that were it possible, we would have seen people vaccinated by now.

SPEERS: Greater Sydney is now into its third week of this lockdown, staring down the barrel of a fourth and maybe further. Should JobKeeper be reinstated?

ALBANESE: Well, if not JobKeeper something very similar David. Because the key with wage subsidies was that it kept employees and employers together. So it was a good idea. We also need to look at businesses like hairdressers and others that have been forced to close down. We also need to make sure when it comes to the vaccine rollout that we take it to people in those communities as well. These businesses do need support and workers need support. Workers are suffering. They are losing their jobs and businesses are losing their profitability and some are losing their capacity to be able to continue. I had a business owner in my area on the phone the other day in tears. He employs 20 people. He is desperately passionate about his business and he is worried that he is going to have to put people off. Now this is a direct result of government inaction - the failure to vaccinate enough people, the failure to have national quarantine facilities. So the Federal Government has a responsibility to step up here.

SPEERS: They are providing income support of up to $500 a week. It is in line with where JobKeeper finished before it was withdrawn. The difference though, and you touched on, it is that JobKeeper had a link between the employer and the employee. Is that the part that is missing here that you would still like to see?

ALBANESE: It is missing David and if the circumstances are the same as when that support was provided, then why isn’t it being provided right now?

SPEERS: So bring back JobKeeper?

ALBANESE: Well I think if not, if the Government has another idea that would perform a similar function of keeping people in employment, then we’d certainly be prepared to look at that. We are not being prescriptive here. We are being constructive. We will continue to be so as we were during 2020. But the Government can’t just sit back and wipe its hands of responsibility in Scott Morrison’s usual style. He has to accept responsibility here and the Federal Government have to step up and work with, constructively with, the NSW Government to achieve outcomes.

SPEERS: Just a couple of other issues here and perhaps issues that go to the sort of Prime Minister you would be if given the chance. You mentioned aged care workers – they don’t do it for the money this was a clear recommendation of the Royal Commission. They are seeking a 25 per cent pay rise right now. It’s before the umpire. Should the Government fund a 25 percent pay increase for aged care workers?

ALBANESE: The Government should be making a submission to the Fair Work Commission that they should be paid for work of their value and that clearly requires a substantial increase in their salary.

SPEERS: Paid by the Government?

ALBANESE: Well essentially it flows through in terms of just as the Social and Community Services Award was changed in 2012 when we were in office. The fact is that feminised industries, those industries that employ women, are likely to be the most underpaid and that is why we continue to have a 13 per cent gender pay gap in this country. In 2021 we should be closing that gender pay gap and we should also be respecting the hard work that aged care workers do. The Royal Commission has been very clear. There is a case before the Fair Work Commission at the moment. But at the moment the Government is standing off as if it doesn’t have a role. It should be making a constructive submission to it.

SPEERS: And a final one. You have also been highly critical of the Government’s Commuter Car Park Fund after that scathing report from the Auditor General. I am interested in the standards that you would follow on these things. Would you allow ministers to dish out grants for car parks sporting clubs and so on or once politicians have set up a grants scheme, should they really be at arm’s length from deciding how that pot of money is distributed?

ALBANESE: Well what you need is an appropriate advice that is at arm’s length. We certainly did it when we were in office. The Regional Local Infrastructure Program did that. We used the Commonwealth Grants Commission formula for example to allocate money to each council around Australia. The problem here is David it’s a $600 million scheme to fund 47 car parks of which only two have actually been built and some of the grants have gone for commuter car parks where there’s no railway station here. This isn’t a park-and-ride scheme, it’s a pork-and-ride scheme.

SPEERS: You wouldn’t have politicians dishing out the money though? Can you give us that commitment?

ALBANESE: What we wouldn’t have is the absence of any advice whatsoever, absolutely not.

SPEERS: After they get advice they can still dish it out?

ALBANESE: With an integrity process there and I tell you the other thing we would do David. We’d have an anti-corruption commission. I tell you what, if you had an anti-corruption commission with teeth, with independence, then you would be able to deal with the sort of rorts that have characterised this Government. This Government sees taxpayers’ money as Liberal Party money, whether it be Sports Rorts, community safety rorts, the pork-and-ride scheme or whether it be paying $30 million for a piece of land that was worth $3 million around Badgerys Creek Airport. This Government has established 21 separate slush funds in its last budget. It’s shocker David and it needs to stop. There needs to be appropriate processes that treat taxpayers’ money with integrity, that have proper processes there for the allocation, not an electorate map that is colour coded in the Prime Ministers office.

SPEERS: Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese, thanks for joining us this morning.

ALBANESE: Thanks very much David and congratulations to Insiders on 20 years. And go Ash.

SPEERS: Indeed, well done Ash Barty too.

ENDS