SUBJECTS: Afghanistan; COVID outbreaks around Australia; lockdowns; vaccine rollout; need for national quarantine facilities.

PATRICIA KARVELAS, HOST: Opposition Leader, Anthony Albanese, joins me tonight. Welcome back to RN Drive.

ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: Good evening, Patricia.

KARVELAS: Australia issued 42,000 Permanent Resident Visas post-Tiananmen Square. What do you think of this 3,000 figure? What should it look like?

ALBANESE: Well, I think the first thing the Government has to explain is what is the basis of that figure? It seems to have just been plucked out from nowhere, that hasn't been explained, for example, where we're at with the 13,000 places that, of course, available. 13,750 to be specific, that are available for humanitarian visas to be granted in the current financial year. It is obviously the case that we're not taking in asylum seekers at the moment in any large numbers because of COVID and because of the restrictions which are there. And we certainly didn't in the last financial year as well. So the Government needs to explain why it is that they've picked this figure. The real issue here, of course, is that they failed to get people out earlier, in spite of Peter Dutton's statements I just heard, that was, quite frankly, at some stages, quite shrill. Shouldn't we have done this work was the question. The truth is that for many months, Labor, but as well, people like John Howard and Kevin Rudd, and others, including our veterans who served in Afghanistan, have been saying, 'What are we doing about getting people out who will be in danger?' People who assisted us as interpreters and providing other services as well. Because that's not just a moral obligation. It's also a national security issue. We need to send a message to the world that if you help Australians, we will help you in your time of need. And that's why this is such a critical question.

KARVELAS: You say they should be quizzed on their 3,000 figure. And my colleague, Fran Kelly, will actually be interviewing Alex Hawke tomorrow morning. And I'm sure that's exactly what she's gonna do because he's the Minister responsible. But what do you think the figures should be?

ALBANESE: Well, I need to know what the basis of it is. I'm not going to pluck a figure.

KARVELAS: But you've managed to say that you don't think 3,000 is enough. So you've plucked that view. So what do you think it should look like?

ALBANESE: Good try, Patricia.

KARVELAS: Because it's true.

ALBANESE: Well, the current figure of our humanitarian intake is 13,750. We need to know how many spaces will be available in that category. One of my initial response, and in discussions with Kristina Keneally, and others with portfolio responsibility as part of my team, has been, when these issues were raised in recent days, and particularly the idea that we would need a special allocation is, 'Hang on a tick here. There's this allocation that hasn't been used there at the moment'. And that, to me, seems to be the starting point as well. And then there needs to be further consideration. We haven't got a clear idea either from the Government about what numbers of people we are obligated, in my view, to accept. And obviously, Peter Dutton's right that there needs to be security checks in that part of the world.

KARVELAS: How about his argument that there's been a switch? People are Taliban sympathetic now. He doesn't want them to come here.

ALBANESE: And those security checks need to be made. I mean there are switches in politics in this system, let alone in a volatile circumstance such as Afghanistan. So, of course, there always needs to be security checks. But for goodness sake, we have known this was coming for some time. I mean, it was President Trump who announced the withdrawal from Afghanistan and then Australia joined in that process.

KARVELAS: So much so that our Government, I don't mean to be rude, but they say that's why they evacuated, that is why they closed the embassy. They were doing all of that work.

ALBANESE: They're now in a circumstance whereby we have emergency flights going into Afghanistan. We're now in a circumstance whereby Peter Dutton just said on your program tonight that they're still making assessments of people's applications. I mean, hundreds haven't had their applications processed. We have known about these circumstances for months. And that is why you've had unusual circumstances, such as John Howard plead for action, because he, along with others, and this was a bipartisan commitment, feel a responsibility that we had to those people who assisted us. And I've spoken to veterans in recent days, who are, quite frankly, beside themselves because of the concern that they have for people who assisted them while they were serving our country in our name in Afghanistan.

KARVELAS: I want to change topic if we can. There were 633 cases of COVID in New South Wales today, the highest daily totals for your state where have your seat too. The Health department says each person is transmitting the virus to more than one person. What do you make of those numbers? And is this current strategy working or acceptable?

ALBANESE: Well, the strategy quite clearly isn't working. I've had at least five of my constituents die in the last fortnight. And we've had circumstances whereby another member of my staff was contacted to say that they were close contact, not a direct one. But they essentially attended a shop that was somewhere where someone who was COVID positive had been 12 days earlier. So quite clearly, and they turned out to be negative, by the way, but quite clearly, the tracing system is just struggling to catch up. The reports that now we're not listing all the places now is of real concern. And the fact that the figures continue to rise, when Sydney has been in lockdown for the best part of two months, is not what we've seen when lockdowns have occurred earlier, when the restrictions have been more stringent. We saw what happened with the Bondi outbreak with people then just wandering around the beach.

KARVELAS: No doubt some decisions have been made which have led to some of this. But what should happen next? What extra restrictions should be imposed? Do you believe in a curfew for instance, which is happening in Victoria? Do you believe in playgrounds getting shut? That sort of stuff?

ALBANESE: I think the New South Wales Government should do whatever is necessary to at least be stabilising the numbers and then driving them down. Quite clearly, at the moment that's not happening. And I'm having Zoom meetings and various contact in Sydney in my electorate. And I know that in Canberra, you have no activity, you don't have cars on the road. I walk up to Parliament House and back from where I stay. People are observing the stay-at-home principles, except for essential work. There's obviously some activity occurring. That is not what occurred at the beginning of the process in New South Wales.

KARVELAS: So you think they should do whatever it takes to drive down those numbers?

ALBANESE: Well, they have to do it. Because what we know is that if you don't, it doesn't get better. You just have to, by stealth, impose greater and greater restrictions. And that's what we've seen from the Premier, it is greater restrictions imposed but bit by bit. It's like they're reluctant to acknowledge that when they boasted, and the Prime Minister cheered them on, over being the gold standard and being the best in the country, unlike Victoria and Queensland and WA, they just got it wrong.

KARVELAS: Okay. They just got it wrong. You say new measures, any measures to drive it down. But how about the counterfactual here? Aren't we getting to a point where COVID is here now, we have to learn to live with it?

ALBANESE: Well, the circumstances are that you end up with more extreme action being taken by stealth. You end up with businesses being closed for longer, more people being unemployed, more people losing their lives, more people getting sick.

KARVELAS: So you still think we should be chasing COVID zero?

ALBANESE: Well, I see no reason why we should be simply accepting the circumstance whereby we continue to see the numbers going up. Quite clearly, we need to do two things. Which is to increase the vaccination rates. And people need to have whatever vaccines they can that's available to them. But we also need to deal with the quarantine system, whereby I know today it was announced that construction will start on the first purpose-built quarantine system in Australia to be built in Western Australia in October. For goodness sake. We are 18 months into this pandemic, and we haven't had a hole dug yet to have a purpose-built quarantine system. Hotel quarantine has been the source of at least 28 outbreaks. And in this case, half the country is shut down tonight, Patricia, because a limo driver took someone who was a foreign air crew member from the airport to quarantine unvaccinated, without a mask, without any appropriate protections. And what's remarkable is that person wasn't breaking any rules in doing it. This is where it has ended up after the Prime Minister urged the state government of New South Wales to stay open and not lock down and praised them for him. Well, that was a major error. And people not just in New South Wales, but right around the country, and now in New Zealand, are paying the price for that complacency and, frankly, that incompetence.

KARVELAS: Thank you so much for joining us tonight.

ALBANESE: Thanks Patricia.

KARVELAS: Opposition Leader, Anthony Albanese, joining us there.

ENDS