SUBJECT: Federal Budget 2021.

MICHAEL ROWLAND, HOST: We can now bring in the Opposition Leader, Anthony Albanese. Mr Albanese, good morning.

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

ROWLAND: Thank you for joining us.

ALBANESE: Good to be here.

ROWLAND: I want to talk about the broader Budget parameters shortly, but I want to pick up the vaccine rollout. The Prime Minister nor the Treasurer couldn't guarantee all Australians would be fully vaccinated by the end of this year. That creates uncertainty looking ahead to next year.

ALBANESE: Absolutely. And it just takes one breakout to put a big hole in the Budget or a further hole in the Budget. There's also not a plan for quarantine. The Government had two jobs this year to get right – the vaccination rollout and quarantine. They have bungled both.

ROWLAND: At the same time, when the Treasurer got to his speech last night and unveiled all the spending in traditional Labor areas like health, disability services, aged care, did you have a moment of political panic?

ALBANESE: This is a Budget for Scott Morrison's short-term political future, not for Australia's future. Their heart's not in it. 

ROWLAND: Spending is certainly in it.

ALBANESE: Bits of it. Take child care, they have spent $1.7 billion. They say that will add $1.5 billion to the economy each and every year. They have acknowledged the issue that if you invest in child care, you get workforce participation, you boost productivity. There's a dividend from it. It's an investment in Australia's future as well as in our children. But they will help one in every four families that Labor's plan that we announced last year, that they said wasn't necessary, will assist. Take aged care, they have adopted some of the recommendations to the Aged Care Royal Commission, issues of hours in which nurses and carers should be able to see aged care residents. What they haven't done is do it on the same time frame. There's not the next stage. That was seen to be the first step. There is nothing there also about wages in terms of aged care workers.

ROWLAND: I hear what you're saying about the spending. I can't imagine Labor opposing any of these spending measures. Is there anything in this Budget you will say no to when it comes up to a vote inside the building here?

ALBANESE: We don't block supply. That happened down the road here in 1975. 

ROWLAND: You can oppose certain Budget measures, though?

ALBANESE: We will look at measures. It depends how it's legislated. We will look at every bit of legislation.

ROWLAND: Is there anything, when looking at the Budget papers, that you think, ‘Wow, that's really bad, Labor is going to vote against that particular initiative’?

ALBANESE: The problem that's really bad, Michael, is that there is no long-term plan for Australia's future to set us up. Where's the big new infrastructure projects? They spoke about $10 billion extra. When you look at the Budget papers, there is a $3.3 billion dollars cut in infrastructure investment over the next four years. Peak debt comes at 2025 at 41 per cent of GDP. When it was 15 per cent, they said there was a crisis. We have a trillion dollars of debt, but no legacy for it. If you look back with the GFC, what did we have? The National Broadband Network, fibre to every home and premises, what we were envisaging before this Government brought in copper, last century's technology. We had major infrastructure projects, we completed the duplication of the Hume, we upgraded the Pacific Highway, we had major rail projects right around Australia. We had paid parental leave. We had things that made a real permanent difference. This Government haven't done that. It's all about short-term political expediency. And wages are going to not keep up with the cost of living over the next four years. That's the damning indictment of this Government in its own Budget papers.

ROWLAND: Couple of quick questions because you have to go. Labor is spending more on child care, that's acknowledged. Do you see an opening, though, when you deliver your Budget Reply speech tomorrow night, to spend more on aged care? Advocates are welcoming the $18 billion but say it is not enough.

ALBANESE: There will need to be more when it comes to aged care, particularly around workforce issues.

ROWLAND: Will Labor spend more?

ALBANESE: You will have to wait and see, Michael, in the fullness of time. What we'll do is set out a plan whereby every dollar that we invest will be about Australia's future. It will be about building up the resilience of our economy. What the Government has tried to do is just try and get back to where we were, but with an enormous amount of debt. No productivity improvements, no wage improvements for Australians. The outlook, very low economic growth into the future, declines from the bounce that you'd expect from this massive stimulus. So this is a Government that, I think, is really just focused on the next election. We know that last year JobMaker, 450,000 new jobs they said they'd create. It only created 1,000. So look at what they do, not just what they say.

ROWLAND: Very, very quickly, the Prime Minister told us on the show that the election is next year – his words. Do you believe him?

ALBANESE: Well, the election's due next year. If they go early, it will be because things are going to get a lot worse. And people will notice the fact that their wages aren't increasing and that a lot of this Government's plan that never matches up to its rhetoric. That gap between announcement and delivery will be exposed, as it has each and every year of the last eight years.

ROWLAND: As the choir warms up in the background, we will leave it there. Anthony Albanese, thank you.

ALBANESE: Thank you very much.

ENDS