SUBJECTS: COVID-19 pandemic across Australia; Doherty modelling; national plan for reopening; vaccine rollout; need for national quarantine facilities; state borders; lockdowns; COVID-19 restrictions; women’s safety; Respect@Work; affordable housing; Addison Road Community Centre; climate change; net zero by 2050.

ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: Well, I'm back in Sydney here at Addison Road Community Centre where volunteers are doing incredible work here at Addi Road. Recently, unfortunately, there was an outbreak at Pyrmont Bridge Road, at Common Ground, just where I grew up. And the services here provided 100 food hampers within a day to that community. They're literally feeding thousands of people who are doing it really tough at the moment because of the pandemic. Taking food to them, people who are isolated, people who need that support. And I want to thank those businesses who are providing support here as well at Addi Road, in particular, the local Coles supermarket provides food that's perishable, that makes sure that it's not wasted. Everything that is done here is a good thing. And the volunteers here, today I've been with Kylie Kwong and with Craig Foster, of course, who is a regular here as well. Working with Rosanna, the coordinator of the centre, doing fantastic work for the community.

I do want to make some comments as well about the safety summit that's being held in Canberra today. I wish all the participants well. I wasn't invited as a delegate to the summit, but I'll be watching very closely what happens there. Quite clearly, last week was very disappointing that the Government didn't adopt fully the recommendations of the Respect@Work report. That report by Commissioner Jenkins was a good one. It made 55 recommendations and Labor supports all of them. It was disappointing that there wasn't support in the Parliament last week for paid domestic and family violence leave. This is necessary if the security is going to be there to enable women to leave relationships that are violent, that are causing distress. And unfortunately, what we've seen during the pandemic is an increase in the reporting of family and domestic violence. But there'll be many others, of course, that go unreported because women don't have somewhere safe to go. One of the reasons why we proposed in my Budget Reply 30,000 additional social housing and affordable housing units was to deal with this crisis. And Labor would allocate at least 4,000 of those units to women and children fleeing domestic violence. It is a tragedy that in Australia in 2021, every single night, women and children are turned away from shelters because there simply isn't enough space for them. They're forced to choose between sleeping in their car, or couchsurfing, or worst-case scenario, they go back to a situation which is not safe because they simply don't have somewhere to go that is safe for them. We need to do much better as a society. And the Government must address the housing crisis when it comes to these issues and it must address it at this summit this week. There must be increased funding and increased support committed to by the Government.

JOURNALIST: Do you think that the national summit will change the Government's attitude? You said you're disappointed in terms of their responses so far. Do you hope that today will change their attitude?

ALBANESE: Well, we have one of Australia's leading business women helping here at Addi Road, helping here because she knows that so many women are vulnerable, particularly during the pandemic, but at all times. So we need to listen to the stories. And I would encourage the Government to go back and reconsider the Respect@Work report. Women need to be safe, whether at work, whether it be in the home, or throughout society. This is a scourge on society and we need to do much better when it comes to ensuring women can feel safe in the workplace and in the home.

JOURNALIST: What do you think of the Greens proposal of higher taxes on large companies and miners? Would Labor ever support that?

ALBANESE: We will be supporting our own policies going forward at the election. And I've said before, we won't be in a circumstance whereby any minor party tells us what to do. We're seeking a mandate as a party of government to secure a majority Labor Government after the next election, so that we can concentrate on fairness, concentrate on growing wealth, but also wealth distribution as well, making sure that no one's held back and no one is left behind. 

JOURNALIST: In general, do you think that large companies and miners pay enough tax?

ALBANESE: We will make our own tax policies at the appropriate time. And it's not surprising that minor parties, from time to time, try to get attention. But we'll be seeking, as a party of government, to have a fair taxation system and a fair society.

JOURNALIST: Fair enough that you might not want to take advice from a minor party, but the United Nations is urging Australia phase out coal within the next decade. 

ALBANESE: We have outlined our policies, which include net zero emissions by 2050. We need to adopt that, as have every state and territory government, as have the business community. We need a plan to get there. And Labor has been also outlining specific plans. Plans like community batteries, plans like making electric vehicles cheaper, plans to deal with making Australia a renewable energy superpower. What we have said is that good action on climate change is good for jobs, good for lowering prices, as well as being good for lowering emissions and good for the environment.

JOURNALIST: But does it mean that coal needs to be phased out at some stage?

ALBANESE: What we've said is there's nothing to stop, right now, Australia having a new coal-fired power station except the market and the market has spoken. And the market is speaking towards having renewable energy as the cheapest form of new energy in Australia. And that's why we will transition towards a clean energy economy. And that includes Australia having the potential to become a renewable energy superpower. This is an opportunity for Australia.

JOURNALIST: What do you make of reports that News Corp is planning to advocate for net zero emissions by 2050?

ALBANESE: Well, any business that has a look at whether it wants to exist in a sustainable way in the future will support net zero by 2050. That's why all of the four banks have. That's why the mining companies have. That's why Australia's leading companies like Qantas and Telstra and others have all adopted net zero by 2050. What's extraordinary here is that the Federal LNP Government led by Scott Morrison and Barnaby Joyce are the holdouts here. They're holding out, still running their scare campaigns. At the last election, they ran a scare campaign about electric vehicles that they said would end the weekend. What we need is rational policy discussion. And I welcome News Corp and any other business supporting net zero emissions by 2050 because it's just common sense. Common sense in terms of the opportunity for jobs and the economy, but also for the obligation we have as good citizens to leave something better for the generations to come, for our children and our grandchildren. That's why Labor takes climate change seriously. And that's why it will be one of the key issues at the next election.

JOURNALIST: Mark McGowan says he won't set a date for bringing down WA borders until after the state reaches an 80 per cent vaccination rate and that it could be a few months after that happens when borders reopen. Are you comfortable with that?

ALBANESE: I'm comfortable with the job Mark McGowan's doing. He's keeping Western Australians safe. And you can see the difference here in New South Wales. We're in lockdown. We have reporting of deaths every day. We have numbers that are now up around about 1,500 every day. We have our hospitals that are having ramping where people can't get into the hospital but are being looked after, positive COVID patients in the backs of ambulances outside hospitals. That's tough on them. But it's also tough on the medical professionals who are looking after them. Mark McGowan, like Annastacia Palaszczuk and the South Australian Premier and the Tasmanian Premier, are living in states which, at the moment, don't have positive COVID cases in any numbers. And it's not surprising that they want to keep their people safe. The people of Western Australia will enjoy the AFL Grand Final in a few weeks' time. And it's not surprising that Mark McGowan continues to show leadership and continues to prioritise keeping his citizens safe.

JOURNALIST: But will there come a time, though, when all the state leaders have to get on the same page? It seems that they've got very different views on the national plan. You have got Gladys Berejiklian saying she wants all Australians to be united by Christmas, which is obviously a completely different timeframe to what Mark McGowan is talking about.

ALBANESE: Well, you don't have leadership from the national Government here. What you have is a Prime Minister who called Western Australians and Queenslanders cave dwellers in the last fortnight and insists on attacking those two premiers, Annastacia Palaszczuk and Mark McGowan, but is silent when it comes to the views of the Tasmanian Premier. The Tasmanian Government this week said that they're looking at above 80 per cent before they open up, and South Australia, who also have very strict measures. The fact is that's not a way to bring people forward. This Prime Minister says one thing in closed meetings and something very different when it comes to his public comments. He referred to Victoria as the Victorian disease at one stage and has been quite duplicitous in the distinction that he has given in Victoria as opposed to New South Wales with this outbreak, where of course, this outbreak began with a limo driver in eastern Sydney, taking someone to quarantine unvaccinated and unmasked. That's where this outbreak came from. And if it wasn't for the Prime Minister's failures to deliver enough vaccines, and to deliver purpose-built quarantine, we wouldn't be in this lockdown right now. We'd be far more advanced. There'd be far more freedom right around Australia right now today if the Prime Minister had done his job and hadn't concentrated on spin and saying we were first in the queue. 

JOURNALIST: Finally, as you mentioned, a few months since you've been back in Sydney, what's it been like coming home and seeing the impact of COVID in your electorate? And how do you think the state government has handled it? 

ALBANESE: Well, it is good to be home. And it was good to be home yesterday on Father's Day. It is a difficult time for the community. There are parts of my electorate that are under curfew. There are other parts, of course, that are really struggling. And that's why food hampers have been delivered to people from Addi Road here. I think Premier Berejiklian, quite frankly, got the call wrong, encouraged by the Prime Minister when she refused to lockdown early enough and when you saw the outbreak spread. But it's a tough job. There's no question about that. And certainly, what I want to do is to pay tribute to those health workers and others who are providing that support to people today and also pay tribute to those essential workers here in New South Wales who are delivering food, who are cleaning, who are looking after our hospitals, who are looking after the vulnerable people in the community. It is a pity that the Prime Minister didn't do his job, deliver enough vaccines so that people who are in category 1A are really still struggling. We still don't have our aged care workforce or disability care workforce fully vaccinated. We still haven't addressed the vaccination of aged care workers who provide homecare. And we should have done much better. We need to learn the lessons though, going forward. And going forward, that's why we need to have a plan for 12- to 15-year-olds that either need to be included in the target or they need to have their own target. We need to plan now for paediatric vaccines, as has happened in the United States and other countries that have already done deals with pharmacy companies for those drugs once they are approved through the appropriate authorities. We need to do much better still on purpose-built quarantine, where there won't be any Commonwealth facilities built in the coming months, and the Queensland Premier has had to go at it her own way with the Wellcamp facility. This Prime Minister needs to do much better. There are, in this electorate, we've lost at least seven people to COVID in recent times. Two of them, the Ibrahims, were due to get their vaccine the week after they died. We need to do much better. And I would finish by just encouraging anyone who can get vaccinated, please do so. Thanks very much.

ENDS