SUBJECTS: Barnaby Joyce elected Leader of the National Party; Vaccine rollout; national quarantine; Morrison Government failing Australians during a health pandemic; climate change; net zero by 2050; Great Barrier Reef; regional electorates.

LISA MILLAR, HOST: We'll leave those pictures there, because we have Anthony Albanese on the line. And the Opposition Leader, certainly you saw it there, the pictures. You've got a new Deputy Prime Minister there. What are your thoughts?

ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: We do. My thoughts are that at a time of a pandemic, where the Government had two main jobs this year, to roll out the vaccine effectively and to fix national quarantine, they have been focused on themselves. And this is an act of self-indulgence by the National Party and the Coalition. When Michael McCormack left the chamber yesterday, he got given a standing ovation. Barnaby Joyce had no-one regretting when he resigned as the Deputy Prime Minister.

MILLAR: Well, they weren't focused for too long. It was all done and dusted in two days, 48 hours from the first article leaking it. So it is done.

ALBANESE: No, they've been focused on this for a long time. And what we needed from this Government this year was more jabbing and less stabbing. They had to rollout the vaccine. We are on three per cent of Australians are fully vaccinated. We have aged care residents who still haven't been fully vaccinated. We don't know how many aged care workers have been vaccinated. We have problems with less than half of the people in disability care having been vaccinated. We've had 24 outbreaks from hotel quarantine and the Government refuses to fix it. And what they've focused on is their own job rather than the job that they have to do.

MILLAR: I think we are getting a preview of what Question Time might sound like today. Anthony Albanese, the focus is clearly going to be on climate change as well and the policies. Do you think the Government can still get to net zero by 2050 with Barnaby as the Leader of the National Party?

ALBANESE: They have never said they would, ever.

MILLAR: They've indicated certainly that it's their preference.

ALBANESE: No -

MILLAR: They've been inching towards it.

ALBANESE: What does that mean? They've been crab-walking because this is a Government that is incapable of actually saying what its position is, incapable of declaring, like the rest of the world has, every country in the G7, every state and territory, the National Farmers' Federation, the Business Council, every major business in Australia has committed to net zero emissions by 2050. And yet this Government have to use weasel words because they haven't got the ticker to take on the climate sceptics in their own backbench and now a climate sceptic as the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia, sworn in on a day whereby UNESCO have a draft recommendation that the Great Barrier Reef be put on the endangered list. The fact is that climate change is an opportunity for Australia to create jobs whilst we're lowering energy prices and lowering emissions. And this Government is incapable of embracing that opportunity.

MILLAR: Just on that, the UNESCO, because this is all happening while we've been on air, we've been hearing that there have been calls to UNESCO. What's the issue there? Why is the Federal Government so keen not to have it on the endangered list? You know, they've said that this is the best managed plan for the Reef and that UNESCO taking this step is not going to help improve the Reef.

ALBANESE: Well, we know that just in the last term of this Coalition Government, people from the Great Barrier Reef Foundation attended a meeting here in Parliament House, didn't ask for anything, came out the other end with over $400 million in the kit of taxpayers' money for I'm not quite sure what because they weren't sure at the time. 

MILLAR: But turning to the UNESCO decision –

ALBANESE: Well, this Government has mismanaged the Great Barrier Reef.

MILLAR: So you're okay with the recommendation from UNESCO to put it on the endangered list?

ALBANESE: No, I want to save the Reef. And I know that in order to save the Reef, just like in order to save Kakadu and our other iconic natural wonders that we have as our great assets, environmental assets, but also economic assets – there are so many jobs dependent upon the Reef – that we can't ignore the challenge of climate change. And we have a proposal in North Queensland funded by this Government for a coal-fired power station at Collinsville, a feasibility study for a project that they know just doesn't stack up, otherwise the market would do it. It is that sort of action that globally, people must understand that globally Australia is a pariah. We had a Prime Minister who couldn't get a meeting with the President of the United States one-on-one on the side of the G7 just a week ago.

MILLAR: The issue for you, though, as the Leader of the Labor Party, is that Barnaby Joyce has a message that is going to fly in seats like Capricornia and Dawson and Flynn and in the Hunter Valley. You have got a problem on your hands.

ALBANESE: It is going to go well in Leichhardt.

MILLAR: But you have a problem in those seats, in the regional areas, especially Queensland?

ALBANESE: Not at all. Barnaby Joyce is a failed former Deputy Prime Minister. He failed last time he had the job. We know how this movie ends because we've seen it.

MILLAR: But it's not about Barnaby, I'm asking about you and the message from you.

ALBANESE: You did ask about Barnaby, in fact. But this is Barnaby Joyce: The Sequel. We will continue to put forward our strong arguments for regional development. The fact is, if you talk about Central Queensland, I've visited the Rio Tinto aluminium refinery there at Gladstone. That is one of the biggest employers there in Gladstone, it’s a critical facility. What Rio Tinto is looking at is powering that facility with solar energy. What they are looking at is lowering their prices, their costs of production, by embracing renewables. That's what's happening on the ground. I was in Townsville last week, the Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announcing a major renewable energy precinct and supporting industries there. I've met with companies there that want to manufacture solar panels and manufacture renewable energy there that will create jobs. But the big opportunity that’s there is how do we lower our energy prices in order to boost manufacturing in the regions? We lower our energy prices by embracing the lowest cost of energy.

MILLAR: We are going to have to leave it there. Thanks for your time this morning, Anthony Albanese.

ALBANESE: Thanks very much.

ENDS