SUBJECTS: Nationals' leadership; Scott Morrison’s failures on the vaccine rollout and quarantine.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: While farmers throughout Australia are dealing with a mice plague, there is a plague of disloyalty in the National Party. The last time they had a spill it was during the bushfires. This latest disloyal spill is all about just their internals and shows that they are not focused on the needs of the nation.

The fact is we are still dealing with the pandemic and the Liberal and National Government have failed to deal with the two big tasks that they have had this year. They have failed when it comes to the rollout of the vaccine and they have failed when it comes to appropriate quarantine facilities being in place at a national level. This weekend what I have heard from people around this city is the confusion which is there as a result of the changing advice that has occurred; of the failure to have a public information campaign; of people who can’t get vaccinated even though they want to, and others who  just aren’t sure what the current advice is.

This Government should have put in place more than a year ago an effective rollout of the vaccine, national quarantine facilities, a public information campaign that was effective. And of course we should have been manufacturing mRNA vaccines here. This Government has failed with the two big jobs that they had this year and now they are turning on themselves, talking about perhaps the fourth deputy prime minister in just their third term and they are up to seven or eight combinations of prime minister and deputy prime minister during this eight-year long government.

This is a Government that needs to focus on the needs of the Australian people and less on themselves.  They can’t advertise an effective rollout of the vaccine and a public information campaign, but they can spend a billion dollars on advertising for themselves and their political interests. This is a Government that is out of touch with the needs of the Australian people and it should be out of time come the next election. Happy to take questions.

JOURNALIST: We heard from Senator Payne this morning a fairly non-committal answer around the Government’s stance to do with the net zero emissions by 2050 target. What message do you think that sends to the Australian public and international business as well?

ALBANESE: This Government is all over the shop when it comes to climate change. They have had more than 22 different energy policies announced and none of them landed. They can’t even commit to net zero emissions by 2050 even though all of the major international nations, all of our trading partners, have all committed to it. Even though every state and territory government has committed to it. Even though all of Australia’s major corporations have committed to it and peak organisations like the Business Council of Australia and the National Farmers Federation have all committed to net zero emissions by 2050.

What is clear from Michael McCormack’s comments last week and other comments from the National Party is that that this government just isn’t capable of landing a policy of net zero emissions by 2050 and that will leave Australia increasingly isolated in the lead up to the Glasgow Climate Change conference and beyond. And it is very clear there are economic consequences for that because our major trading partners, whether it be Europe or the United States, are all talking about putting up trade barriers if Australia does not commit to a proper climate change policy going forward. And yet you have a completely a delusional government thinking that its rhetoric and its slogans are a substitute for sound policy when it comes to dealing with climate change. And the tragedy is that good action on climate change will be good for jobs, will lower energy prices as well as lowering our emissions and once again enabling us to join the global effort to tackle what is a global problem.

JOURNALIST: We’ve heard David Littleproud’s name put forward in relation to the Nationals’ leadership. Do you hold out any hope that if he was to become leader, there could be some movement on a net zero emissions target given previous statements he has made?

ALBANESE: What is very clear is that whoever leads the National Party will lead a party that is committed to not having net zero by 2050 and that will be part of the deal and that will be will be imposed as part of the Liberal-National party arrangements, which of course are secret. It is time that there was transparency in the agreement between the National Party and the Liberal Party to form a Coalition government. And the Australian people have a right to know exactly what is in that deal, what is in that agreement, because it has implications for their jobs, for their lives and for the way Australia moves forward.

And so it is very clear that under this Coalition Government they won’t be able to take action. That’s why you had the absurdity this week of Boris Johnson almost announcing where the Australian Government should go and it being vetoed by a journalist who was asking the question and Scott Morrison being struck silent when it came to actually giving a response. How embarrassing for Australia that the Australian Prime Minister not only could not secure a one-on-one meeting with President Biden, but then in a press conference had the UK Prime Minister talking about Australia’s emissions policy and the Australian Prime Minister being silent about the fact that the Boris Johnson got it wrong. All done? Thank you.

ENDS