SUBJECTS: Labor’s National Broadband Network announcement; Labor’s policy agenda; Federal election; lack of trust in Scott Morrison and his Government. 

SABRA LANE, HOST: You might not want to face it, but the countdown to a Federal election is well and truly underway. The Prime Minister spent the past couple of days claiming that petrol prices and interest rates would rise under Labor. This morning, the Opposition Leader, Anthony Albanese, is promising to connect more Australians to high-speed internet if he becomes the PM. We spoke a short time ago. Anthony Albanese, thanks for talking to AM. In a nutshell, you're promising one and a half million homes will have their copper connection upgraded to fibre, if they want it, by 2025. Why do you think this is a vote winner?

ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: Well, because one of the things that people have recognised during COVID is that fibre is better than copper, that people need high-speed broadband in order for students to study, in order for businesses to operate, in order for people to work from home. And the fact is that people were dudded when this Government trashed the NBN model to move to a mix of fibre and copper. And depending upon luck of the draw, some people have access to 21st century technology, but too many households don't.

LANE: Labor's original promise more than a decade ago was 93 per cent of homes on fibre. Will this upgrade bring it to that?

ALBANESE: This will bring it to 90 per cent. And we know that we have a big technological repair job as a result of the negative policies of this Government, who, when they came to office, of course, said that high-speed fibre was a waste. They thought it was all about downloading videos. We know that it's not. We know that it's about healthcare, it's about education services, it's about businesses being able to operate in the 21st century.

LANE: You're promising not to privatise the NBN. Is that a never, ever promise? Or is that just until this upgrade is finished?

ALBANESE: No, but it's until it's appropriate for full consideration to be given. That is, it's in the public interest for access to NBN to be publicly owned, to make sure that we don't have more divides between haves and have nots. And if you privatise the services, we don't want to see what happened with Telstra, which was a privatisation that led to monopoly power, privatisation that required Labor, as part of our NBN policy, to introduce the structural separation that was necessary to introduce competition into the sector.

LANE: Now, Australia's about 59th in the world for broadband speed currently. What ranking do you want to see it by the end of a first term Albanese Government?

ALBANESE: I want Australia to be as high as we can be. We are ranked 59th in the world. This Government have purchased 60,000 kilometres of copper wire, enough to go around the earth one and a half times. It's absurd in the 21st century.

LANE: Where do you want to see Australia by the end of the first term? Top 10, top 20?

ALBANESE: I want Australia to certainly be where we should be, which is we are a G20 nation and we should be in the top 20 in the world. I want to see Australia perform at our best. It requires bringing Australia into the 21st century, not being scared of the present and terrified of the future, which is something that defines this Government.

LANE: Now, to deliver this policy, you have to win government. The Coalition is signalling a cost-of-living campaign, asserting only it can be trusted. If you become Prime Minister, how will you keep a lid on record low inflation and interest rates amid rising petrol and housing prices?

ALBANESE: Well, overnight, the Reserve Bank Governor has said himself that interest rates won't increase in 2022. The Reserve Bank set interest rates, not the Government. When it comes to petrol prices, Scott Morrison hasn't filled up for a long period of time, because petrol is rising under his watch. It's up to $1.80 at my local petrol station. And this is an example of whereby the Prime Minister is running a scare campaign, just making things up, at a time when his own projections are that real wages won't keep up with inflation. And that's after record low real wages on his watch since this Government was elected in 2013.

LANE: Okay, on those two points, what would you do to keep petrol down? And boosting the wages of the vulnerable, are you offering direct government intervention?

ALBANESE: What we're offering is to fix the Fair Work Act so that secure employment becomes an objective of the Act. Properly defining casualisation, making sure that people like gig workers get at least the minimum wage and including them in the employment system. When it comes to petrol prices, this requires the ACCC to act. The Government needs to explain why it is that petrol prices are increasing on its watch. This is a Government whose idea of fuel security was to establish fuel reserves in the Gulf of Mexico, nowhere near Australia.

LANE: Mr Albanese, your offsider, Jim Chalmers, is calling Mr Morrison the ‘Liar from the Shire’. At a time when people are so jaded with politics, how wise is it to make it that personal?

ALBANESE: Well, the fact is what is not wise is having a leader who just makes things up and who denies his own words. And we have, in Scott Morrison, someone who himself says, 'Don't worry about what I said yesterday, because today I'll have something different to say' and pretend it wasn't said, whether it comes to electric vehicles, whether it comes to the sort of nonsense scare campaigns that we're already seeing being run out. This is a Prime Minister who has presided over a real decline in integrity. This is a Prime Minister who hasn't been prepared to have serious policy debates, whether it be on the floor of Parliament or in public. This is a Prime Minister who simply isn't up to taking Australia forward into the future.

LANE: Mr Albanese, thanks for your time this morning.

ALBANESE: Thanks very much, Sabra.

ENDS