SUBJECTS: Australia’s relationship with France; climate policy; federal election.
 

RAF EPSTEIN, HOST: And there is one political leader above all others who wants to pick that up and run with it. It goes to Labor's story, Malcolm Turnbull's line that Scott Morrison does not take telling the truth seriously, Anthony Albanese sure to weaponise this sort of conversation. He's the Leader of the Opposition, he is an ALP MP, of course in Sydney, and he's in Melbourne today. Thanks for coming in. 

ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: Thanks Raf, it's great to be here in Melbourne. First time in many months. 

EPSTEIN: Welcome to the rain. Was Australia within its rights to cancel that contract? There's nothing stopping us doing that was there? 

ALBANESE: No, we were within our rights. But what is brought into question now very clearly from the comments of both President Biden and President Macron is the way that all of this has been handled. I find it absolutely extraordinary that you have such clear and unequivocal comments from the President of the United States and the President of France, and then Scott Morrison thinks it's appropriate to respond to that by releasing a private text message from Emmanuel Macron to him. From President Macron's phone to his phone to actually release it, and frankly, it doesn't say much doesn't say anything at all. 

EPSTEIN: Really, it was a text saying, can I expect good news or bad? 

ALBANESE: Yeah, yeah. So what, there's a meeting being lined up, and you're trying to find out what's going on? What it's about. Scott Morrison has said himself, that he didn't inform the French of what was happening and that he says he wasn't in a position to. So that text message doesn't say anything, but considerably escalates the tension. And then they also released, of course, a 15 page document relating to US security, and it's quite extraordinary behaviour. I got a phone call about the change of policy. I didn't know what it was about, from Scott Morrison saying, could I come to Canberra for a top secret security briefing.

EPSTEIN: That's right it was a big hush-hush meeting in Canberra wasn't it?

ALBANESE: There was. On the Wednesday, I got the call on Tuesday, I cancelled all of my arrangements and reset. Out of respect for the Office of the Prime Minister. And I was told it was an important issue. I went down there. I didn't tell anyone apart from people who were in the meeting, did I have discussions with and then that night, later that afternoon, my office started to receive calls from journalists who'd been briefed by the Prime Minister's Office that I'd been briefed about tomorrow's 7am announcement. It was just extraordinary behaviour.

EPSTEIN: Maybe there is a world where Australia went, you know what? It's not working with France, we need to switch it. Would Labor have done the same thing? I mean, if Labor had been told by Defence, we don't think the French option is a good one, go with America and Britain, Labor would have done the same thing? 

ALBANESE: Well, we would have taken advice and come to decisions in our national interest. And our problem isn't with the decision if it's the case, which is what the advice says, essentially that the option of a nuclear propelled submarine is a better option going forward. But up until that point, you had in August meetings of two-by-two, the defence and foreign minister of Australia meeting with the defence and foreign ministers of France. A communique issued that essentially if you read the communique you would think everything was hunky dory. And up until that point of the briefing that we received, there'd been no acceptance by the Government that the French deal, the future submarine arrangement was behind time and was over budget. 

EPSTEIN: Maybe that was the only way they could handle them. If you have enough problems with a project that takes that long, and is that expensive. How do we know there was another way of dealing with it? It's easy to cite Macron and Biden as critics but they're also losing out, they've got their own political agendas. Do we know for sure there was another way for Scott Morrison to handled it? 

ALBANESE: Well, what we know is that diplomacy requires consistency. And it requires respectful relations. And even in the way in which Scott Morrison dealt with this issue. Firstly, his response was to say 'oh well, journalists were taking selfies with President Macron'. That was not true. That was not true. So at the very point in which he was being accused of lying, he told something that wasn't true and attempted to put the accusation back onto journalists. 

EPSTEIN: Is anyone going to remember this at a federal election? 

ALBANESE: Well, I think what they remember, is a Prime Minister, who, previously on bushfires, you'll remember that he dissembled about where he was whether he was whether Michael McCormack was the Acting Prime Minister at that time, they'll remember that he said it wasn't a race on vaccines. They'll remember that on the issue of women's safety, including in Parliament House, he dissembled on that issue and won't say what his office knew. They'll remember about invites that were given to the White House that he refused to give a straight answer to. This is a Prime Minister, who according to people who've been closest to him, and remember, he was Treasurer in Malcolm Turnbull's Government. 

EPSTEIN: That's a long list of the things people might remember about him. How do we know that the Prime Minister had any other option than to do what he did on the submarine deal to switch? Well, what do it in the way that he did it? 

ALBANESE: What we know is that diplomacy occurs and decisions are made between governments, and we're talking about governments which are friends, and it may well be that it was always going to be difficult. If the Australian Government was going to move away from the arrangement.

EPSTEIN: There's no nice way to tear up a $90 billion contract. 

ALBANESE: Absolutely, absolutely right. There is no nice way. But there are ways of handling things diplomatically between international leaders, and it happens all the time. And what we know is that there's been now an absolute breakdown in the relationship, and we know that it is unprecedented for the leader of Australia, to release a private text message. I can't imagine John Howard, doing something like that, or any of the Labor prime ministers or for that matter, Tony Abbott doing that either. 

EPSTEIN: Anthony Albanese is the voice you are listening to he is in Melbourne today for the first time in a long time.We'll get to your texts and your calls. A specific question on our emissions Anthony Albanese. Scott Morrison says Australia's emissions are going to be reduced at the end of the decade by somewhere between 30 and 35 per cent, they aren't making that a target but that's their projection. Don't you need to give people a specific answer. Are you automatically going to promise that your emissions cut will be above 35 per cent, above where Scott Morrison says they are already headed? 

ALBANESE: Well, we still haven't seen the Government's modelling that gets them to that 30 to 35 per cent. We still haven't seen it. It is remarkable that Scott Morrison's almost home without it being released. And we asked questions about it in the Parliament. What we'll do is examine that modelling, to see where we are now. You've got to know where you are to know how far you can get in the future. What we will also do is examine what comes out of Glasgow, and we'll be making our announcements as I've said, before the election. 

EPSTEIN: Well, why can't you say we're going to do better than whatever their projection is right now? 

ALBANESE: You'll have to be a little bit patient, Raf, because that leads to another question. And then it leads to another one, and I've been very clear. 

EPSTEIN: Can't you just make it a statement of intent? What ever the projection is right now, we will do better?

ALBANESE: The statement of intent is we will do, we will have action which is consistent with net zero by 2050. 

EPSTEIN: That's not the same thing.

ALBANESE: Well actually if you follow the science, you'll be able to work that out. 

EPSTEIN: I appreciate that it's not a linear trajectory. But the targets I'm talking about if I, if I can are about what happens at the end of this decade, in 2030.  I've had people from your party like Josh Burns, say, look, I want to do better than the Federal Government. What I don't understand is why Anthony Albanese as Opposition Leader can't say whatever the Government says we are already getting to with their policies why can't you say 2030, we will do better than that. 

ALBANESE: Because what I can say is that Labor will always be more ambitious, and more committed to action on climate change than a bunch of people who aren't doing much at all. 

EPSTEIN: Is that the same as saying we'll do better than the current projection? 

ALBANESE: Well, you can try but then what you do is say by how much and then it leads to more questions. What I've said very clearly, is that we would give proper consideration to international events this year. The election of President Biden made an enormous difference. The Glasgow conference will make a difference. We need to examine. I don't have Treasury and the Department of Industry at my disposal. It is responsible for us to have a look at what the modelling shows of where we are now. And to make a single announcement, not one and then change like this Government has, we will have a climate change policy, that will be ambitious, that will be consistent with net zero by 2050 that I'm very confident that we will take to the election, and that will receive support of people who want serious action on climate.

EPSTEIN: Tim Smith is a the Liberal MP in the state parliament here in Kew, he was Shadow Attorney General until the weekend. I'm sure you've heard the story about his car crash over the weekend. Now his Leader is saying he should leave Parliament. As a general rule of thumb for politicians if you get caught drunk driving, and you've crashed,  and you've blown a lot above the legal limit, as Tim Smith did. Does that mean you've got to leave Parliament? 

ALBANESE: Well, at the end of the day, the Australian public in this case of Victorian Public, the good people of Kew, will get to make a decision about that. It's up to the Liberal Party what their endorsement processes are. And I note that the Leader has said that Tim Smith should not be a candidate at the next election. 

EPSTEIN: Yes. 

ALBANESE: I think part of Tim Smith's problem, I never met the bloke. But I have seen some of his more outrageous comments over the years. And I think some of those comments have come back to bite him as well. 

EPSTEIN: I might just try this one more time, I realise it's hypothetical. But if an elected MP drink drives, blows a really high limit. And has hit a house, being involved in an accident with a car and a house. Does that rule people out of public life?

ALBANESE: Well, you can't do hypotheticals. This is a specific occurrence that has occurred and it's a shocker. And people will make their judgements on that. I don't know all of the circumstances. It's a bigger story in Melbourne than it is in Sydney. I've got to tell you.

EPSTEIN: Well, he used to be on Sydney radio a lot. I will get people's reactions. 

ALBANESE: Not on the ABC though Raf.

EPSTEIN: No, no, no, he was on commercial radio in Sydney. The key criticism of Labor in Opposition now might be, you are waiting for the Government to fail, rather than trying to convince people that the Opposition are a credible alternative. Do you think oppositions win elections or do governments lose them? 

ALBANESE: I think it's a mix of both. I think the people will make an assessment after three terms of whether this Government deserves a fourth term. But they'll also be looking very closely at what the alternative is. And take, for example, on climate change. We've already said, we support net zero by 2050. We've got Rewiring the Nation, which is to fix electricity transmission, a $20 billion program. That's low hanging fruit. We've done assessments about the difference that that will make by itself to lower emissions by 2030. And it's substantial. 

EPSTEIN: Is it enough of a difference in climate policy? 

ALBANESE: Well, we have more to announce. But we've done that. That is the single most significant thing that you could do. And in discussions that I've had with people like Kerry Schott who used to be in charge of energy security in this country, I think there's no one better. She certainly regards that as the most significant thing you can do.

EPSTEIN: Is it enough. Can you go and win an election? If you say, look, we'll do a bit more on climate. And we'll give you an integrity commission. Is that enough?

ALBANESE: We're going to do more than that. And we've already done more than that. We've got a plan for our National Reconstruction Fund. $15 billion to make sure we have Australian industry. We've got our Buy Australia Plan. We have Jobs and Skills Australia to make sure we address the skills crisis and give young people and people being retrained opportunities. We're going to have increased funding for the ABC that we've announced as well. We're going to have a range of policies that we have announced for the National Broadband Network to fix it. Across the board we will have a different foreign policy position as well, in terms of our place in the world, we'll have more to say about issues like foreign aid. We have cheaper childcare that we have out there and I want to move towards universal provision of affordable childcare. And of course, we have a secure work policy that is substantial, including making wage theft a crime and a range of other measures. 10 days paid domestic and family violence. 

EPSTEIN: I appreciate the laundry list. It's an important laundry list. We will get you back in to talk about some of those issues in the lead up to the election. 

ALBANESE: Thanks very much Raf.

 

ENDS