SUBJECTS: Definition of a close contact; booster shots; Scott Morrison’s failure of leadership; states going their own way on COVID rules; PCR tests for international arrivals; Port of Darwin; nuclear waste.

MATTHEW PANTELIS, HOST: Let’s have a chat with the Federal Leader of the Opposition, Anthony Albanese, who's been campaigning in the seat of Boothby over the last day or so. Leader, good morning to you.

ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: Good morning. Thanks for having me on the program.

PANTELIS: Now, national cabinet meeting today, do you support the moves to change the contact requirements there?

ALBANESE: Well, I think that health advice should always be followed, but common sense needs to apply also. But what we really need is clarity and certainty. At the moment, if we just change this one element, when the country opened up as part of the national plan, of course, it was clear that we needed to get tracing, testing, isolation, quarantine right. That was part of the national plan. But it appears that different states are going different ways. We need certainly about the rollout of the booster program, about getting the booster to people in aged care and disability care. We need certainty when it comes to the access to rapid antigen tests that we don't have at the moment. And I certainly hope that, on a range of issues, national cabinet provides national leadership from this Prime Minister, who has been absent. And states have been going their own way up to now.

PANTELIS: States have always gone their own way, haven't they? I mean, right through this process, you've got states proving, really, that the old colonial borders are very much still alive. Is that a problem, to all of this?

ALBANESE: Well, I think the problem has been that the Prime Minister has refused to provide that national leadership. He essentially holds a national cabinet meeting where states tell each other what they're doing and then he reports on it. We need to do much better because that's adding to the confusion and anxiety which is out there.

PANTELIS: New South Wales is pushing for international arrivals to skip the PCR test. Do you agree with that?

ALBANESE: Well, I think that we should provide for some examination of that based upon the health advice. I haven’t seen any health advice that would allow for a complete removal of any testing for people coming in. I think that people want to feel that people who come in have circumstances whereby they can be confident that they're not just bringing in COVID.

PANTELIS: Yeah and people coming into New South Wales, obviously, the bulk of internationals end up in Sydney and then spread out through the country. And that would be the concern many people have is that we would go back to basically importing the virus.

ALBANESE: Well, that's right. And that's why the New South Wales Premier needs to clarify exactly what the intention is here. Very early on with this outbreak, of course, Australia was quite right to stop flights from China. That was one of the early actions that was taken and that was the correct decision. But we know that what happened then was, of course, the virus was brought in and spread around by people entering without proper examination. I remember being at Sydney Airport, being concerned catching a regional flight, that people had just come through and not had any, even been questioned. And so, we need to be cautious about this. And we need to be cautious, be clear and have as much consistency as possible. I think it is a problem that different states have gone their own way. I'm not critical of the states, I’m critical of the national government for not trying to bring the nation together, because that's adding to the confusion which was out there.

PANTELIS: Couple of other issues on the boil today. The Port of Darwin. Now, yesterday I spoke with Rex Patrick on this, and this is an issue that a lot of people listening to FIVEaa have voiced an opinion on at some point. But to the Port of Darwin, we've had the Defence Department have reviewed the lease and essentially given the green light. You had concerns at the time, going back some years ago when the lease was being negotiated, about essentially handing it over. What are your thoughts today on that?

ALBANESE: Well, I opposed the privatisation of the Port of Darwin. It’s a national security asset and common sense tells you that it should have stayed in government hands, in my view, as a strategic asset. It is obviously our most northern port, it is close to our neighbours, it is a valuable asset as part of national security. We, of course, know, that at the time the US government, our most important ally, expressed their concern about the leasing of the port. We’ve asked for a proper briefing on this finding from the defence establishment. So we'll hold our comments on the basis of the report until we actually see it, rather than media reports on it. But, to my mind, it is a major error that occurred on the watch of this Federal Government and was, of course, undertaken by the Country Liberal Party government in the Northern Territory.  

PANTELIS: Alright, so we'll wait and see on that one. The other issue, nuclear waste coming from Britain, intermediate level nuclear waste to be stored at Lucas Heights. Any concerns with that? Because I'm just amazed. We've taken it from France in the past and now from the UK. You'd think these countries would have their own repositories?

ALBANESE: I've seen reports of that. We need to make sure that there's proper transparency there. If it's the case that it is waste that we are responsible for it, and I assume that that's the case, I can't see any argument that we should be just taking another nation’s waste, but we'll be taking a look at that. This is an issue that's been ongoing, of course. Lucas Heights is located not too far from residential areas. We do need to resolve these issues. We’ve attempted to be bipartisan about that. It’s been the subject of controversy and, of course, legal battles over a period of time. But we believe that we need to have a bipartisan resolution of the need to store waste at an appropriate facility. Of course, at the moment, nuclear waste is being stored in the basement of some hospitals. It's being stored in in various locations around Australia. And we need to do much better in the future about it.

PANTELIS: Alright. Anthony Albanese, thank you for your time and best wishes for 2022.

ALBANESE: Thank you very much and have a happy and a safe new year everyone. And thank you for the very warm welcome that I've received in Adelaide over the last couple of days.

ENDS