SUBJECTS: 2022 Federal election; aged care; National Reconstruction Fund; Defence Budget cuts.

JOURNALIST: Mr Albanese, are you getting too overconfident heading into the election?

ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION: Not at all.

JOURNALIST: Are you confident that you can form the majority government?

ALBANESE: Well, Labor has only won from Opposition three times since the Second World War. We have a mountain to climb. It's a difficult task going forward. But we're putting forward a constructive plan for the nation's future. One where no one’s held back, and no one's left behind. And it was important today to talk to our farming community and the agricultural sector. I want to represent all Australians regardless of where they live.

JOURNALIST:  Is this race yours (inaudible)? 

ALBANESE: It's tough for Labor to win from Opposition, three times since the Second World War. I'm only worried about a poll on polling day. But I'm also putting forward constructive ideas. We just had a constructive announcement about how a National Reconstruction Fund will make a difference for the agricultural sector, with $500 million of that fund put aside so that the agricultural sector can benefit from the use of new technologies, so they can boost productivity, so they can boost employment and growth in our regions. And as well, we need to get people in rural and regional Australia access to first class broadband and to communications technology. We've all driven along roads and had phones drop out and that's something that people in rural and regional Australia deal with every day. We have a plan to deal with that. We put it forward this morning, and we'll continue to roll out policies over the coming weeks. I say to the Prime Minister, though, as I said last Thursday night, it is this pretence that we're not in an election campaign now, so that taxpayer funds can be used for advertising, is not on. He should call the election and let Australians know when the date is.

JOURNALIST: Mr. Albanese, why do you think the election hasn’t been called?

ANOTHONY ALBANESE: Because this Prime Minister is addicted to spending taxpayers’ money as if it's Liberal Party money. And the ads you see from the government on the TV, which are promoting the Liberal and National parties are paid for by the taxpayers. That's why this morning, I flew commercially to Canberra, plane was cancelled this afternoon, I'll fly back to Sydney, then I'll fly commercially to Perth. Once the election is called, then there's more of a level playing field. This is a Prime Minister who doesn't believe in that.

JOURNALIST: Peter Dutton says that. Peter Dutton says there's potential for conflict in our region within the next two years. Do you agree with that?

ALBANESE: Well, what we need to do is to do all we can to avoid that. But we also need to prepare. And quite frankly, the article that I read on the plane on the way down here about some of the government cuts to our important Defence Budget. In Peter Jennings’ article in ASPI’s journal really indicate that this government has got some things wrong when it comes to investing. What we need to do is to make sure that our defence investment produces assets. We know that $5 billion has been spent on subs that haven't produced anything except a torn-up contract.

JOURNALIST: You ready for a long fight? It's promised to be a long one, a bit of a drawn out one. Are you ready?

ALBANESE: Well, the Prime Minister said last year, many months ago, that he’d stopped governing and that he was campaigning. And indeed, that is exactly what's been going on. This is a government that aren't governing in the interest and Peter Dutton – I said this on Sunday, how is it that we can have this issue in the Solomons with the potential of China increasing its presence there, that is not in Australia's national interest? Why is it that the government haven't dispatched a senior minister to the Solomons? Why is it that this government haven't had any response in terms of that engagement? The government needs to actually govern until the election’s called.

JOURNALIST: But are you ready? 

ALBANESE: I have been putting forward a plan that I've had for a better future. We've developed it over the last three years. I outlined at the National Press Club in 2019, our timetable to have a proper review of what – why we didn't win in 2016, 2019, and to learn those lessons to put forward a constructive critique of the government. We did that during the pandemic. We didn't allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good. But also, we've rolled out consistent policies and people will know that at the next election, if they want to have a National Reconstruction Fund that supports new industries and new jobs, they'll vote Labor. If they want 604,000 new jobs from renewable energy and the shift to clean energy they'll vote Labor. If they want a better NBN they'll vote Labor. If they want to fix the skills crisis they'll vote Labor. We have a plan to protect Medicare, but we also have a plan for cheaper childcare, and of course the centrepiece of my budget reply was about aged care. And yesterday, we announced further measures about ageing in the home, providing support for people who need that support. And I find this government's response that has dismissed the recommendations of its own Royal Commission on aged care to be quite extraordinary. We know that this is a system in crisis, and our older Australians deserve respect and dignity.

JOURNALIST: Just on the aged care. Your plan includes an element of aged care nurses being in every aged care home 24/7, how soon would that be happening?

ALBANESE: Well, what we would do is to work with the sector to make sure that it could happen as soon as possible.

JOURNALIST: Because Mark Dreyfus said it would be paused.

ALBANESE: We would, we would have 20,000 additional University places. That’s about training Australians in areas of skill shortage such as nursing, we'd work at ways in which it could happen as a matter of priority. We know, we know that. The idea, I'd say this about this point. I think for most Australians, if you stopped people at random, in any of the communities that are represented here at the National Farmers Federation, and asked them, do you think there should be a nurse in a nursing home? The answer to that is clearly yes. Thanks very much.

ENDS