SUBJECTS: National cabinet meeting; booster shots; rapid antigen tests; Omicron variant; definition of a close contact; comments from the Australian Medical Association; nuclear waste; vaccines for developing nations.

ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: Thanks for joining us this morning. The Prime Minister has called for a national cabinet meeting that will be held today. It's an important meeting. The Prime Minister says he's changing gears but the truth is he’s stalled the recovery. The truth is that there's so much uncertainty out there. What we need out of today's meeting is some clarity. Because people are anxious. People are worried people are voting with their feet by not going out, by not going to restaurants, by not undertaking activity that they normally would in the lead-up, particularly, to New Year's Eve. What we need from today is some national leadership that has been sorely lacking. We need national leadership when it comes to the rollout of the booster. Too many people still can't get an appointment for their booster. The Prime Minister needs to explain why it is that it’s four months in between the second shot and the booster shot in a week's time, but that is reduced to three months down the track at the end of January. Is that just because of capacity constraints? Surely that is the answer, and once again, an indication that the Prime Minister failed to secure enough booster shots like he failed to secure enough vaccines for this pandemic. There needs to be certainty with regard to the rollout of boosters for people in aged care. There needs to be certainty when it comes to the rollout of boosters for people in disability care. And there needs to be certainty when it comes to rapid antigen tests. What we've seen is state government step up into the void, like the Andrews Government, because of the failure of leadership from the Morrison Government. Once again, Scott Morrison yesterday, when he appeared at a media conference, spoke about it not being his job. Well, it is his job, and he should do it. As Prime Minister of the country, we need certainty when it comes to the testing regimes as well and certainty when it comes to the need for isolation. That is what business is crying out for, clarity and certainty. And that is what the population is crying out for as well. But from a prime minister, who's always playing catch up, always waits until an issue becomes a crisis before there's any movement whatsoever, and then always is looking for someone else to blame. What we need today is some national leadership, something that's been sorely lacking from this Prime Minister.

MARK BUTLER, SHADOW MINISTER HEALTH AND AGEING: Thanks, Anthony. This is a very important national cabinet meeting. The lack of clarity, the lack of certainty around rules and definitions for contacts has punched a hole in the confidence of businesses and individuals to continue going about their business over this busy summer period. So we need some national leadership around those definitions. We look forward to those outcomes later today. But we can't just have Scott Morrison go to this national cabinet meeting and deliver a lecture to the states, as has been his wont right through this pandemic. Scott Morrison also needs to outline the clearest possible plan to get the flailing booster rollout campaign back on track and to make sure that people have easy access to affordable rapid testing. We've heard over the last 24 hours that the Australian Medical Association, the AMA, warned the Government weeks and weeks ago, as they started their plan to open up Australia again, that they needed to have a clear campaign plan around rapid testing. And yet, yet again, Scott Morrison did nothing and pretends it's not his job. We know that from tomorrow, more than four million Australians should have received their booster shots, but only two million have so far. Yet again, we have one of the slowest rollouts of booster shots, which are so critical to providing full protection against this Omicron variant, in the developed world. And on rapid testing the states have again had to fill a vacuum left by this Prime Minister. We know that rapid testing is absolutely critical to this fast-moving variant. But Scott Morrison has done nothing on this except provide some rapid tests to aged care facilities and only in New South Wales and Victoria. Not a single test, for example, in the state of South Australia, or other states. Now Scott Morrison is telling the Australian people right now that they need to exercise individual responsibility. Well, that's all well and good. But to exercise that responsibility, Australians need their Government to have done their job. And right now Australians are asking, where's my booster shot? And they're asking, where is my access to a rapid test that will allow me to continue to go to work or to continue to keep my businesses open? The Advertiser reported this morning that of the 18 venues they tried to access a rapid test from, 17 of them had run out of supply and the 18th ran out of supply by 11am. And across the country, that is the story being told to the Australian people who are being lectured by their Australian Prime Minister to take responsibility. As Anthony said, yet again, once again, Scott Morrison is playing catch up footy in a crisis. And he's left the Australian people and Australian businesses dangerously exposed to this fourth wave.

JOURNALIST: Do we need to re-examine the national reopening plan and the booster rollout plan? We've had two urgent national cabinet meetings in as many weeks and, you know, at the last one we had a series of restrictions put in place and measures brought in place kind of at the last minute for Australians.

ALBANESE: Well, what we had at the last national cabinet meeting was not much. We didn't get national leadership arising out of it, we certainly didn't get clarity and we haven't had clarity since. State governments have been in a position whereby, if you listened to Scott Morrison yesterday, you would have been entitled to go out, if you're in Adelaide here, and say, ‘I’ll go get a rapid antigen test, that'll save me queuing for eight or nine or 10 hours’, which is what people have had to do here in Adelaide. But you would have gone to place after place to try and get a testing kit and been unable to purchase one. It's been quite absurd. And that gap between the Prime Minister's rhetoric and action is what needs to be closed. We get these declarations that are aimed at the front page of a newspaper and a big headline, but we don't get a follow up and we don't get any real national leadership. And then we get a ‘look over there’ moment, looking at various states to blame, in particular, Labor states. And in particular, Queensland, I think seems to be the Prime Minister's preferred target. Whereas the truth is that states, including here in South Australia, took action in order to keep their people safe. And the reason for a lack of consistency in the rules is that the national cabinet didn't determine enough consistency going through because the Prime Minister has been determined to play politics.

JOURNALIST: The nation’s leaders will today consider a new, more relaxed definition of close contacts. Does Labor support (inaudible)?

ALBANESE: We think a common sense approach should apply here. We should listen to the health experts. And it makes sense to have more consistency in terms of contacts coming out, business are crying out for that, but so is the population as well. But in order to achieve that, as well, we do need to deal with people's anxieties. When we had a lifting, for example, of the QR codes, and people not being notified, what occurred was that a range of people just chose to then not go about their normal way of life and to withdraw from activity. So we need to be cautious about this. But there also needs to be a common sense approach applied.

JOURNALIST: The AMA’s criticised that, saying that to isolate close contacts is the only way of reducing the spread of COVID. What’s your response to that?

BUTLER: Look, I think all we've seen so far is an announcement from the Prime Minister. What is clear is that the Australian people and Australian businesses are sick of the hodgepodge of constantly-changing rules and definitions that they've had to deal with, particularly over the last few weeks. So we do finally need some national leadership, we need consistency, we need clarity. And we need, as Anthony said, some common sense applied here. But obviously, the states are going to bring their positions, guided by the public health advice that they're receiving. We want to see what that is and we want to see the outcome of the national cabinet meeting is today. But the current situation is unsustainable. We need consistency, clarity and common sense and, finally, some national leadership. Our concern as well though is that we're going to perhaps, you know, solve one lack of certainty and consistency in the definition of close contacts and replace it with an entirely new set of inconsistent arrangements. Because the lack of national leadership around rapid testing means that every single state right now is taking a different approach to how they access rapid tests and who they are going to provide them to. New South Wales and Victoria are saying they'll provide them to some people free of charge, South Australia's saying it's not going to do that. And again, we have a Prime Minister saying, ‘Well, it's not my job’. So even if we resolve this lack of certainty and clarity around the definition of a close contact, the constant lack of national leadership by Scott Morrison means that there’ll just be some other area of inconsistency and lack of clarity that really restricts our ability to deal with this fourth wave.

JOURNALIST: Do you support a narrowing of that definition? Do you think the narrowing of it is the common sense approach here?

ALBANESE: Well, we think there needs to be a thorough review by the national cabinet. And we want to see the states bring their public health advice. All we've heard so far is Scott Morrison's view about this. We want to hear the approach that state governments think should be taken to this. But what we do urge is there needs to be consistency, there needs to be clarity and certainty and common sense, because businesses and the Australian people in individual states and across the country are really struggling with this hodgepodge of constantly-changing rules and definitions.

JOURNALIST: If you were to change the definition of close contacts, would we see the spread of Omicron accelerate even further?

ALBANESE: Well, we obviously want to avoid that. And that's something that needs to be considered by the national cabinet. But what we do need is that consistency out there. If you look at what's occurring internationally, in the UK there are sets of seven rapid antigen tests being delivered to every household, in the United States you have President Biden purchasing half a billion tests. And that, of course, is meaning that it's been more difficult to access those tests globally, because other governments are getting ahead, once again, of Australia. What we need here, arising out of today, is certainty about those whole range of issues, including making sure that the booster shot rollout is fixed, making sure that boosters are got to people in aged care, making sure that people who are in disability care have access to their booster shots, making sure that every Australian has access to rapid antigen tests and making sure that there are clear and consistent definitions of close contacts around the country that are consistent with good health outcomes and consistent with common sense. They're the sort of changes that need to happen at today's national cabinet meeting. This Prime Minister needs to do something other than go to a focus group this morning and get a definition about ‘shake and bake’ or some car definition or something else that comes out that just makes people shake their head as to what is actually going on and what their responsibilities are. This Prime Minister speaks about personal responsibility. This is the guy who won't take responsibility for his job, whose most common phrase is ‘it’s not my job’ when asked about things that clearly are the job of the Australian Prime Minister.

JOURNALIST: Do you think national cabinet is an effective way of speaking to the states and cooperating with them. And would you continue it under a Labor government?

ALBANESE: Well, what I won't do is politicise it the way that Scott Morrison has done. Scott Morrison is critical selectively of state governments. He has circumstances whereby, for example, here in South Australia, at various times, there have been the same restrictions in South Australia, Tasmania, Queensland and Western Australia, but no criticism of South Australia from the Prime Minister, or of Tasmania, but consistent criticism and undermining of Queensland and WA. That's not the way to provide national leadership. And that's not the way to bring the country together. I think that we need Federation reform. I think that we need more unity as a nation. This Prime Minister is incapable of providing it. The only opportunity which will be there is to change the government.

JOURNALIST: The AMA argues that rather than rethinking the isolation period we should be improving PCR availability. Do you agree with that?

BUTLER: Well obviously Australians have really struggled with spending hours in queues waiting for a PCR test and spending days at home during this Christmas-New Year period for their results, still not knowing when they might be able to get a booster shot, which is why the AMA advised the Government weeks and weeks ago that they needed to secure rapid testing as a supplement, as a complement to the PCR testing which has been used for the duration of this pandemic. So again, I say, you know, Scott Morrison has played catch up footy on rapid testing, we've got the slowest booster rollout. These are the two most critical weapons the Australian community have against this exploding fourth wave. They are the job of the Prime Minister to deliver them. And we're way behind on both.

JOURNALIST: (Inaudible) waste coming in from the UK. The path is expected to go through residential areas and ports. Should the public be told where this waste is going? And should we even be taking it in the first place?

ALBANESE: Well, there’s a need for transparency on these issues and the public are entitled to it.

JOURNALIST: The head of the World Health Organisation is warning that booster campaigns in rich countries are likely to prolong the pandemic as they divert supplies away from poorer, less vaccinated countries, which gives the virus more opportunity to spread and mutate. Should Australia direct more of our vaccines to developing nations?

BUTLER: Well, I don't accept that this is an either-or proposition. It is critically important that, to lock in the freedoms that the Australian community worked so hard to achieve over the last six months, we need an effective speedy booster program. All of the health advice from around the world says how important it is to get that third shot to provide protection against the Omicron variant. So I'm a strong supporter of a speedy, effective booster program and I'm a strong critic of the fact that, yet again, Scott Morrison has put us right behind the rest of the developed world in that respect. But I also accept what the World Health Organisation says that none of us are going to be safe against this virus until all of us are protected through a proper international vaccine program. And as a wealthy country, Australia's got to play a strong role in developing that, particularly in our own region.

ALBANESE: Thank you. Just in conclusion, when the national roadmap going forward was agreed to many months ago now by the national cabinet, one of the things that it found was that when we opened up we needed to get the isolation, testing, tracing, quarantine regimes all in place. How it is that the Federal Government continues to talk about the national plan, one that I and Labor have consistently said that we supported, but has failed on issues like testing where we've had these long queues, has failed when it comes to making available the rollout of the booster and has failed when it comes to making sure that people have access to these rapid antigen tests is something that needs to be considered. The Prime Minister can't continue to just come up with a new slogan in order to get the headline every week. He actually needs to go back and have a look at what he has said in the past and put it in place. Because we need less words and more action from this Prime Minister. Thanks very much.

ENDS