SUBJECTS: Australia’s relationship with France and the United States; Glasgow conference, climate, Labor candidate for Reid, Scott Morrison, voter ID proposal. National Anti-Corruption Commission. 
 
 
ANTHONY ALBANESE: Thanks for joining me here in this beautiful park in Burwood to launch the campaign of Sally Sitou, who will be Labor’s candidate for the electorate of Reid. I want to acknowledge John Murphy, who is here, a former great representative and someone who I had the privilege of serving with in the Parliament. I will make some comments firstly about some broader issues before I turn towards Sally.

Can I say that the news overnight that President Biden was surprised by the breakdown in relations between Australia and France is not surprising. This is a Prime Minister who always spins over substance. This is a Prime Minister who has presided over a real problem with our relationship with France and it appears that created problems with our relationship with the United States as well.

What we need is a Prime Minister who is prepared to be transparent and this week we’ve seen another example of that as well with his non-plan to hit net zero by 2050 through a vibe rather than through any great strategy.

When the Prime Minister speaks in Glasgow the other world leaders will know the difference between style over substance. And whilst we welcome the fact that the Government has removed that one word from its net-zero emissions position - that of preferable - we want to see some actual substance from this Prime Minister.

The fact that the modelling hasn’t been released because it hasn’t been produced yet is a major problem. And what we have from this Prime Minister is a whole lot of rhetoric and a response to the politics, rather than a response to what Australia needs.

Action on climate change will create jobs. It will lower energy prices and it will lower emissions. It’s good for Australia. We are in the fastest-growing region in the world in human history and we stand to gain greatly if we move towards being a renewable energy superpower.

But under this Prime Minister we just see a whole lot of spin. We don’t see any substance. The Acting Prime Minister right now is Barnaby Joyce. Barnaby Joyce doesn’t support net zero by 2050. Barnaby Joyce has described climate change science as a scam.

Australia deserves better than being led by Scott Morrison and Barnaby Joyce and part of the path to that is the election of the fine, outstanding young woman next to me as the candidate for Reid.

Sally’s parents, who are here with us today, fled Laos after the Vietnam war. They are of Chinese background. They fled to Australia to make a better life for their family, including Sally. Sally lives in Homebush here in the Inner Western suburbs of Sydney. Sally is raising a child, Max, with her husband here. She works at the University of Sydney doing doctoral research and is doing work particularly into the finance sector and how we can improve the representation of women and people from culturally and linguistically diverse communities.

Sally is someone who I was very pleased and encouraged to run for preselection in this seat. Sally is the sort of representative that this electorate needs, not someone who has nothing to say about climate change, not someone who won’t stand up for the need for a national anti-corruption commission, not someone who won’t stand up for working families. We need someone in this area who will defend Medicare as the centrepiece of our health system, who wants cheaper childcare, who wants affordable housing, who wants creating secure jobs for this community and I am very pleased that Sally will be the candidate for this electorate of Reid and will return Reid to where it should be as part of Labor’s heartland. Over to you Sally.

SALLY SITOU: I want to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land in which we meet - the Wangal People - and acknowledge their elders past, present, and future. I also want to thank the Leader of the Australian Labor Party, Anthony Albanese. He is someone who cares. He cares about you, your family and this country. He is a leader who has ambitions for Australia and he will build a future that we can all be proud of. I feel humbled and honoured to be the Labor candidate for Reid and we are standing in Burwood, the busiest part of this lively and energetic, diverse electorate. It is a great place to live, work, raise a family, start a business and I am proud to call this place my home.

I want Australia to be the best it can be. We have the talent, the determination, the natural environment, but we are being held back by a Prime Minister and a government who are failing us. They are failing to grasp the opportunities that innovation and education can give us, failing to invest in our people.

The policies and decisions by governments matter. They change lives. I know because they changed mine. My family is of Chinese heritage but my parents were born and raised in Laos and they fled their homeland because of the Vietnam War and we are incredibly fortunate that Australia gave us refuge. Shortly after arriving here, my parents found factory jobs where they worked hard, really hard. With little English and no skills, they were able to find secure work with good conditions. But when we needed help, we were able to find rely on our community and our government. So when my father was injured at work, it was the unions that stepped in to help him. When my mother was retrenched, we were able to get support from the Government until we could get back on our feet and I am standing here before you as the candidate for Reid because the Labor Party and the labour movement stood by me and my family.

I tell you my family’s story because in some ways it is still a unique story for someone wanting to stand for Federal Parliament. But I hope that stories like mine become increasingly common in our Parliament because it will make our country stronger. My family is indebted to the Labor Party in so many ways. But for me the most important is the Labor Party’s support for education. Education opens doors regardless of your background. I’ve worked at the University of Sydney for almost ten years and I saw the incredible power that can occur when you invest in education and research and how much that contributes to society. My parents came here with big dreams and those dreams may end up lifting their daughter into our Federal Parliament. In turn, I want to dream big dreams for my son, his generation and this electorate. I want to hand them a country that is more successful, sustainable and just. I want to hand them a country where they can see themselves reflected in our political representatives. Thank you.

ALBANESE: Well done Sally. You can see why we are so excited. And can I say, as the neighbouring member in Grayndler, expect to see a lot of me in Reid during this election campaign. Happy to take questions.

JOURNALIST: Sally what are the big issues facing (inaudible)?

SITOU: Two issues that I think are on top of people’s minds at the moment. One is climate change. They know that the Government has failed them and they are concerned about the future that is being handed over to their kids and those in this electorate are really crying out for some action on climate change.
The second I think is honesty and integrity in government. I think that is a really important point to make because we need people to have trust in us and have faith in what the Government is doing and believe that what the Government is doing is in the public interest. But we can see that the current Government have totally disregarded any notions of integrity, honesty or what is in the public interest.

JOURNALIST: This is a seat held by the Liberal Party in NSW. How confident are you that you can wrestle that back?

SITOU: I wouldn’t be putting my hand up if I wasn’t confident that we should have this seat. This seat should be a Labor seat because this seat is incredibly diverse. It’s energetic. It’s young. It’s exciting. And this is a seat that the Labor Party will represent well because the values that those in this electorate have – that of aspiration and hard work, those are the values that the Labor Party has.

JOURNALIST: Mr Albanese, how much do you think Gladys Berejiklian’s evidence helped help your push for a federal integrity body?

ALBANESE: Well, they are a reminder of the need for a federal anti-corruption commission. Scott Morrison should have pause for thought about the comments that he has made attacking ICAC as a response to this investigation. The fact is that we need a strong national body. Every state and territory government has one. The model that was put up, but never put into legislation by this Prime Minister, is a flawed body that has been rejected by senior legal sources, essentially saying that It will hide corruption, rather than expose it and our political system is I believe an important one. Our democracy is strong, but we shouldn’t take it for granted. We need to make sure that Australians can have absolute confidence in it. All we have seen from this Government is no legislation to have the national anti-corruption commission even though it was promised way back in 2018. But what we saw this week was they did have legislation in order to stop people voting in federal elections. This is a government that want people to produce voter ID in order to vote in elections, but don’t want donor ID for Christian Porter with the up to $1 million that was given for a private legal matter.

That says it all about this government’s priorities. We’ve had the Christian Porter fiascos. We’ve had documents produced from Angus Taylor’s office and given that allegedly were from the Sydney City Council but no-one knows where they are from. We’ve had land at Badgerys Creek bought for $30 million that we know was worth $3 million. We’ve Sports Rorts fiasco. We’ve had the Commuter Car Parks fiasco, whereby commuter carparks were funded where train stations don’t exist. We have had just issue after issue after issue with this government. We have seen people like Bridgit McKenzie and Stuart Robert resign as ministers in this government but be brought back like it is a revolving door, just as Barnaby Joyce is back as Deputy Prime Minister. If Australians want a national anti-corruption commission they need to vote Labor at the next election. And people in this electorate need to vote for Sally.

JOURNALIST: Scott Morrison has (inaudible) the popularity of Gladys Berejiklian. Is her loss a big win for you?

ALBANESE: I am running on our own merits and we will let the mess that is the Liberal and National parties speak for itself. We’ll continue to provide a strong critique of a government that has a characteristic about it. First they deny a problem is there. Then they blame someone else. Then, eventually when they act, it is too little, too late. That is what they did with the bushfire crisis. It’s what they did with the need for wage subsidies. It’s what they did with the rollout of the vaccine. It’s what they did for women’s safety, including in Parliament House. It’s what they did with the Royal Commission into Veterans’ Suicide. It is what they are doing on climate change right now - too little, too late.

Only when there is mass pressure do Scott Morrison and this Government ever respond. They are too busy defending their own interests no matter what. They made some very bold claims about the ICAC hearing into the former premier of New South Wales before knowing the detail and seeing that laid bare. I think people will pass their own judgement on the evidence that has been given before the ICAC in New South Wales by Gladys Berejiklian’s own former colleagues, own former staff, own former bureaucrats. I think that it is being laid out. I will wait until the conclusion of it of course. But I think people will be making their own judgements and I think that Scott Morrison rushed to judgement very early and was prepared to use the ICAC to attack and to excuse the fact that he hasn’t done anything on a national anti-corruption commission. And of course the minister who was supposed to introduce the legislation is a fellow called Christian Porter. I wonder why he wasn’t interested.

JOURNALIST: Emmanuel Macron has called on Australia to cease the production and consumption of coal at the national level and abroad. Is that a position Labor supports?

ALBANESE: No we don’t. We support our own position of net zero by 2050 with strong legislation to make it a real commitment, not a pretend one. We support a $20 billion program fixing electricity transmission in this country. We support new energy apprenticeships. We support community batteries. We support our National Reconstruction Fund of $15 billion that will support new industries to grow jobs, particularly in our regions, taking advantage of the fact that cleaner energy can drive down the cost of national high-value manufacturing.

We can create jobs. We can succeed in this country. Our exports of our resources will be dependent upon international demand and the projections are there. And I note when it comes to usage and the energy mix here in Australia, the Government’s own projections, although we haven’t seen the modelling, are for a 97 per cent reduction when it comes to energy production here in terms of emissions. What that means is that they acknowledge the facts which are there which is that at the moment there’s no new coal-fired power stations under construction in Australia. That is not because they are outlawed. It is because the market is speaking, Clean energy is the cheapest form of new energy and imagine how far advanced we would be if we hadn’t had almost a decade of inaction from this government, almost a decade of blocking action, including blocking renewable energy projects, whilst they continued to run the line that climate change science was not real, while we have a Prime Minister who said that electric vehicles would end the weekend, that renewable energy targets were, to quote him, “‘nuts,’’ and that a big battery to store energy was as useful as the Big Banana or the Big Prawn. This is a Prime Minister who has ridiculed action on climate change. He deserves to lose office at the next election because he is incapable of dealing with the present, let alone taking Australia into the future.

JOURNALIST: What are your 2030 emissions reduction targets?

ALBANESE: I have said for more than a year now we would await what comes out of the Glasgow summit. It is an important summit. I said a year ago that there would be two big events that would be significant, there’s now a third. We still haven’t seen the modelling, nor has any Australian, for the Government’s own projections and we do want to see that. I note that Treasury has said that it hadn’t had any input into that modelling and I note as well that senior bureaucrats told Senate Estimates that a document hadn’t been competed yet. I find that just extraordinary. The Glasgow date wasn’t something that was a secret. It was known for a long period of time. You had the Prime Minister do this big press conference last Tuesday, have a glossy booklet ready, but the only thing we know that is a new policy is that Keith Pitt got put in the Cabinet. Keith Pitt, who thinks that solar and wind don’t work when the sun isn’t shining. He hasn’t heard of this thing called storage. Keith Pitt must get a real shock when he turns on the tap and water flows from that tap even though it is not raining outside. It must be a real shock for Keith Pitt when that happens. But this is a guy who got a promotion this week as a result of the Government’s so-called action on climate change. That’s the only concrete thing that we have got. We will examine the modelling. We will examine also what comes out of Glasgow, just as the election of President Biden over Mr Morrison’s friend Donald Trump, who he is now channelling with his voter suppression measures introduced to Parliament this week, the election of President Biden has made a major difference to the global debate. Thank you.

ENDS