SUBJECTS: Birthday; Aged Care Royal Commission.

MARCUS PAUL, HOST: Albo, good morning to you.

ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: Good morning, Marcus.

PAUL: Happy birthday.

ALBANESE: Thank you very much. That's very kind of you.

PAUL: It is our pleasure. I didn't realise it was your birthday. We put up a photograph that was shared by your social media team. You were a fairly decent looking rooster in your early days, Albo.

ALBANESE: What do you mean in my early days? It is actually three of the Shadow Cabinet today. It's myself, Jim Chalmers and Brendan O'Connor who all share a birthday. So there has got to be fair odds on that.

PAUL: All right. Fair enough. Look, we got to go to the news. You've only got a couple of minutes. So just a quick comment, if you could. Let's just leave it at Royal Commission into the aged care sector. A damning report handed down yesterday. What do we need to do about it, Anthony? You and I have spoken at length about the issue here.

ALBANESE: Look, it's a damning indictment about the treatment of Australians who built this country. Whether it be the people who've died waiting for homecare packages or for people who are in residential aged care, what we need is proper funding, we need some real regulation and control and we need to deal with workforce issues. Quite clearly, the neglect that is there whereby we have elderly Australians who aren't getting the right nutrition, who aren't getting the right care, is an indictment. And the Government has, of course, ripped money out by Scott Morrison years ago, but it has never been put back. So first thing is proper funding. But then it needs proper regulation and a workforce which is one that we would all expect and want if we were aged care residents, which we may well be one day

PAUL: Absolutely. Elderly Australians deserve nothing less. Anthony, happy birthday.

ALBANESE: They deserve respect.

PAUL: Happy birthday. We'll talk to you again on the program, I think tomorrow or the next day or so. Enjoy your travels. We'll talk soon. Thank you.

ALBANESE: Thanks very much, Marcus.

ENDS