SUBJECTS: Cleo Smith; local infrastructure funding in Ballarat; next Federal election; climate change; booster vaccines for COVID-19.
 
ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: Firstly, it's great to be back here in Ballarat. This is my first visit to Victoria for a number of months. And I want to give a big shout-out to those Victorians who made sacrifices to keep each other safe. It's fantastic that you've opened up.
 
I also want to give a shout-out to the fantastic news about young Cleo Smith, that young Cleo, four-year-old, has been found safe and sound and is now back with her parents. It is beyond imagination what it must have been like to have young Cleo go missing for some 18 days. And it is just remarkable that it has ended safely. And a big thank you to those people in police and volunteers who did so much work to make sure that Cleo was found safely and securely. And now, she's back with her parents.
 
Today, we also have some other good news here, which is a commitment of $4.5 million from an incoming Labor Government that we would put in our first budget for a community centre here in Sebastopol in Ballarat. There's a senior citizen centre here that's been here for a long period of time. And it's in need of a significant upgrade. But what this funding, together with $3.5 million from the Ballarat Regional Council, will do is to enable a facility to come together, which has senior citizens, which has early learning, which brings together community organisations, everything from girl guides, to other community-based centre, and right across the road here from the Men's Shed. So, what this will do is be a centre and a hub for community activity that will really lift up this whole community and enable that interaction to occur. Many people will have seen the show on the ABC with seniors interacting with some of the youngest Australians, and how they both benefit. What you can have, if you have a community centre with the capacity that this vision provides, is a real lifting up of the whole spirit of the community. And it's something that is a great project. I want to congratulate the Mayor and the Council on the vision that they have. And it's great to be here with my friend, the local member, Catherine King, who has been such a strong advocate of this project. I'm proud that one of the things that we did when I was last Regional Development Minister was provide support across the regions. Ad we need to build back stronger. And one way that we build back stronger is to invest in local communities.
 
JOURNALIST: When was the last time you were in Ballarat?
 
ALBANESE: I haven't been in Ballarat for a little while. I was here in 2019 making commitments here. And it's been difficult to get here, unfortunately. But I have been a regular visitor over the years. So, this would be the first time for a very long period of time that I've been two years in between visits. But I look forward to future visits. It's a great city. It's a beautiful city. It's a city with a lot of history, with a lot of culture, and with a real sense of community. And that's why I'm always pleased to come to Ballarat.
 
JOURNALIST: When do you think we'll be going to the polls?
 
ALBANESE: Well, the election could be held on December 11. So, we'll be ready for that. But if it's not, it should be held in March, in my view. We shouldn't delay beyond necessary. If it's delayed further than that, it'll be because the Government that is, as people can see, really struggling to get through to Christmas. This is a Government where people don't really like each other. You have a Prime Minister who travelled to Glasgow to have arguments with other nations. And that makes a change from having arguments with his own Cabinet members, which is what we saw in the lead-up to what was a very weak announcement. The Prime Minister gave, of course, a speech at the Glasgow Climate Summit. But it was an empty speech to an empty room that had no big commitments and that had no path forward. And Australia needs to do better.
 
JOURNALIST: Just on that, I mean, we just got a new Mayor and Deputy Mayor, both of them very strong statements about, 'Let's make environmental sustainability, let's make that the centre of where the City of Ballarat is going'. And for a local council, that's a pretty big deal. But we're talking secular economies, we're talking all these things as a local government. You would think it'd be a bit of support from the Feds? Should it be grassroots councils leading the way when the Federal Government is sort of absent?
 
ALBANESE: Well, I'm a big fan of local government. And people who followed my history know that that's the case. And one of the things that occurred when I was Local Government Minister was that I created the Australian Council of Local Governments to have that direct relationship between the Federal Cabinet, from the Prime Minister down, right through to every mayor of every shire and council area around the country. That was very successful. It's something that I'm committed to if I get the great honour of leading the country. Because I think that local community-based, bottom-up decision making is something that I'm very strongly supportive of. For example, when it comes to support for regional grants, this grant will go to the council to produce something for the local community. It won't go to increase someone's profits. It won't go to support one private sector body versus another. It is where community-based infrastructure should come from. But local government is also in a position, particularly in the regions, to understand the benefit that is there from the transition to a clean energy economy. What we can see, if we can lower energy prices further by having cheap, clean energy, and we know that the cheapest form of new energy is in renewables, what you can do is to drive down the costs of high-value manufacturing. And it is our regions that are perfectly positioned to benefit from that. Great regional cities like Ballarat and Bendigo and Geelong, and other communities not just here in Victoria, but right around the country, which is why the Government's decade of inaction has been so irresponsible, particularly for those in the regions. Because if you lower energy costs, and you level other issues out, like we tried to do to overcome the tyranny of distance with the National Broadband Network, if you do that, then because regions have lower cost overheads, they suddenly have a comparative advantage over businesses based in the CBDs of our capital cities. So, I see action on climate change as being something that can really benefited regional Australia and can particularly benefit great cities like this, which has the scale of people in the workforce. But to do that, we need to have the right policies in place. We need to train Australians to do it. We need to have a 'Buy Australian' plan that a Government I lead will have, to make sure that we make more things here, that we use every dollar of purchasing to support jobs here.
 
JOURNALIST: Given the IPCC report warnings earlier this year, do you think it's appropriate that gas production will continue on the south coast of Victoria?
 
ALBANESE: Well, we're going to need to continue to produce energy, including in gas which is going to have a role to play. What we know is that, overwhelmingly, the shift that will occur is towards renewables, but gas will also have a role to play. You can't go from A to Z, you've got to go A B C D, and you need to go through that transition in a way that maximises economic efficiency, that maximises jobs.
 
JOURNALIST: The Premier just down the road a short time ago flagged that his Government would have a role to play in the rollout of booster vaccines for COVID-19. Are you confident in how the booster rollout will take place?
 
ALBANESE: Well, I hope it's better than the rollout of the original vaccine that was all about supply problems. It's a race. And it will be a race for people to get their booster shots as well. We need to make sure that we're vigilant. It's good that the Victorian Government will play a role there. But of course, the supply of the vaccine has been the problem. And that is the sole responsibility of Scott Morrison. And the reason why we've had those breakouts and to the Victorian breakout that occurred was a direct result of someone in Sydney, a limo driver picking up a foreign air crew, taking them to hotel quarantine unvaccinated and without a mask. The fact is the Federal Government's failures to secure enough vaccine supply and to build purpose-built quarantine facilities have been responsible for more than 20 breakouts. And every one of them has had consequences.
 
JOURNALIST: Should states have a role in the rollout of these vaccines?
 
ALBANESE: States, of course, should play a role. The fact is that states have done the heavy lifting. States run our health systems. And whenever the Federal Government has been involved, like they have in aged care, there's quite horrific stories again coming out of an aged care report that was released on Melbourne Cup day about the horrific conditions that our elderly Australians were kept in, a report that was produced in April but dropped out on Melbourne Cup day by a Government that is embarrassed, and should be, by its failure to look after older Australians.
 
JOURNALIST: As a parliamentarian, do you think it's appropriate that Tim Smith, state MP, Tim Smith, remains in the Victorian Parliament after blowing 0.131 and crashing his car?
 
ALBANESE: That's really a matter for him. It is a matter for his Leader in the Liberal Party here in Victoria. I did see some of his comments. Tim Smith has been someone who has made some rather provocative comments over the years. But the Victorian Liberal Party, frankly, are a mess as an entire organisation. I do think, and I'm interested, in what Tim Smith has to say about who it is in the Federal Government, in the Federal Liberal Party, that is providing such strong support for him.
 
JOURNALIST: There is a new electorate just down the road. Did you make any stops there on the way here?
 
ALBANESE: I did. I did have the pleasure of dropping in the Hawke electorate, an electorate named after an outstanding Australian and someone who I regard as one of my mentors. It was the great privilege of my life to get to know Bob Hawke and to develop a strong relationship with him. Bob Hawke launched my biography, available in all good bookstores, written by Karen Middleton, called 'Telling It Straight'. I doubt whether my opponent's biography will ever be called 'Telling It Straight'. And it is great that a seat has been named after Bob Hawke. And he was a great Australian. I miss him dearly. And I would love to be able to have his advice as the Labor Leader. And Sam Rae is and will continue to make a fantastic candidate. And I think he'll be a great addition to the team. One of the things that we've been able to do is to have experienced people like Catherine and I served in the Federal Labor Cabinet. When we go through the next election, I'll be leading a team that will be the most experienced incoming Labor Government team in history, if we're successful. Catherine and I've been there for a long period of time, but we're regenerating as well by bringing in people of quality like Sam Rae.
 
JOURNALIST: Will you be spending a fair bit of time there and also in Ballarat in the next year?
 
ALBANESE: I certainly will be. And now that Melbourne's opened up, Parliament's been sitting for the last couple of weeks, but I've got here as soon as I can. And I look forward to campaigning with Catherine and with Sam. But most importantly, I think, after the election as well, I hope to be coming back as leader of the Government, a Government that is committed to serving people rather than serving itself. The more and more we see from this tired Government, a Government that is at the end of the cycle, heading towards nine years in office, they've been there for three terms, it is difficult to think of the great legacy that they leave after three terms of office. We left major infrastructure projects like Regional Rail Link, we had paid parental leave, the National Broadband Network fibre, not copper based, to the home and business, we had the Royal Commission into Institutional Abuse that I know is significant in this region. And that was a gutsy call. We made gutsy calls when in Government. I want to lead a Government that's ambitious, that is as strong as the Australian people have shown themselves to be over the last couple of years.
 
JOURNALIST: This project was announced today, it's a great case study for 'Here's a region or an area, a regional city that needs a lift'. And it's good. It's an established area. And it needs a bit of a hand. But here in Ballarat, we've got massive growth areas, I was just bugging the Premier about this as well. So, I'm intrigued to hear your response as well. We've got a massive growth area to the west here. And that needs services, that's going to need more high schools, hospitals, whatever, now, before these people arrive. It needs to have that sort of thing. Council is doing as much as they can. The state Government, well, they had their say on it. In terms of the Federal Government and a potential Labor Government next year, perhaps, where do you sort of see that situation going? Because it's very tricky to catch up once people are starting to move in.
 
ALBANESE: A Federal Government needs to play its part. And a Federal Government needs also to have funding based upon need, not based upon getting out the electoral map and getting colour codes and the sort of disgrace that we've seen, frankly, through Sports Rorts, commuter car park rorts, the sort of waste that we've seen from this Government, which has been quite extraordinary. The waste in JobKeeper payments going to companies, some of which have significantly increased profits, is substantial. The ABC reported last night, $38 billion going to companies that didn't meet the criteria that was supposed to be there. Governments have a responsibility to use taxpayers' money wisely. Imagine what could have come from that level of money if it was available for investment. So, our Government will prioritise based upon need. We know that there's a great opportunity. And the demand will always exceed what governments can do. But in areas like investing in early childhood learning, investing in education, investing in the health sector, investing in community-based organisations as well, one of the things about today and the announcement, is a relatively modest investment is an investment in the people who will use the senior citizen centre, who will use the early learning centre, who will use the different community organisations that will base themselves there. So, you get a much bigger bang for your buck than if you are prioritising where a marginal seat is and the nonsense that has gone on under this current Government with the rorting of programs. And I expect, as it gets more desperate, for that to grow. I keep reminding them that we will have a National Anti-Corruption Commission. And in New South Wales, there's ongoing hearings about these issues about abuse of taxpayer funds. And when I was the Regional Development Minister, we set up the structure, so it went through local government, that has audit processes, that make sure, as well, that you have procurement in the local area, so that to build the centre, you're employing local carpenters, you're getting local supplies in terms of metals and wood and other activity from local businesses, you're increasing local employment there. You worry about those issues as well that's one of the great advantages of having a partnership with local government is that it delivers better local results. Thanks.
 
ENDS