SUBJECTS: Visit to the Gold Coast; Labor candidates in the Gold Coast region; A Future Made in Australia; Russia-Ukraine tensions; national security; housing affordability; fuel prices; Labor’s policy agenda; infrastructure; 2032 Olympic Games.
 
MURRAY WATT, LABOR SENATOR FOR QUEENSLAND: Well, thanks, everyone, for coming along here today. It's a great pleasure to welcome the Leader of the Federal Labor Party, Anthony Albanese, to the Gold Coast, Queensland's second biggest city, one of Australia's biggest cities, somewhere that is known internationally for all sorts of fantastic reasons, including what we saw here today. I'll let Anthony talk about our fabulous team of Gold Coast candidates who, today, will be completed with the announcement of a new candidate. The only thing I want to say is that I think people around Australia and around the world know the Gold Coast as a fantastic tourism location. And it absolutely is, with some of the best beaches, best restaurants, best theme parks anywhere in the world. But what we've seen today is that the Gold Coast is a lot more than just that. The Gold Coast is the centre of world-leading research and technology around medical manufacturing and medical devices. That's something that's really consistent with Labor's agenda about making sure that we have a future made in Australia. And the Gold Coast will be a central part of that under an Albanese Labor Government. Albo, I'll hand over to you.
 
ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: Well, thanks very much, Murray. And firstly, I want to announce Glen Palmer as our candidate here for Moncrieff. We're in Moncrieff. And Glen is putting himself forward as someone who wants to represent this electorate. Because we want representation in the Caucus from the Gold Coast. We got Murray in the Senate, but we need House of Reps members. And Glen joins Letitia, who's here, we've even got them in the right order, Pam McCreadie is our candidate for Wright, Carl Ungerer, who I've known a long time, an expert in defence and national security issues, is our candidate for McPherson. And of course, Rowan Holzberger, who I've known for a very long period of time, since we were both teenagers, although he's a bit younger than me. I met Rowan when he was 14 years old. You could join the Labor Party in Broken Hill at age 14. And Rowan is a fantastic candidate for Forde. And we're very hopeful of getting an outstanding result here on the Gold Coast.
 
It's great to be back here today. And it's great to be here at Griffith University for what is a central theme of the major difference between Labor and the current tired Government without any vision for the future that is seeking a second decade in office. I've said Australia wants a better future. And we want a better future to come out of the pandemic, not just trying to go back to what was there before, but how we imagine a better future and then set about creating it. And one way we do that is through our world-class university system, our world-class innovation, our world-class science. We come up with fantastic ideas. What we often haven't done, though, is commercialise them. Here we see at Griffith University partnerships on medical technology, on aerospace, with industry, helping to create jobs and economic activity here on the Gold Coast. But importantly, as well, helping to make an enormous difference to people's lives. The sort of technology that we saw in practice here this morning is quite extraordinary. It will blow your mind that someone who has been through, as a result of an accident, become a quadriplegic can, through the use of technology, through sending brain signals to the nervous system, begin to get back some exercise into their limbs. Quite extraordinary technology. Technology, as well, that will assist with operations so that you're not practicing on real people, you're doing it through use of technology so that when the surgical procedure occurs, it's more efficient, it's safer, it costs less, and it makes a positive difference because you know that it will work. These are the sort of applications of the future that are available right now. What we need to do is to make sure that we commercialise them. And here on the Gold Coast, which is a fantastic destination for tourism, it's a great destination for people to come and engage in sporting activity or to spend some quality time, what we need is to diversify our economy. Queensland, of course, is known, under Peter Beattie, I think it was, who coined the term 'The smart state'. Indeed, we need to become the smart country. And part of that is making sure that we work with our universities, that we work with people who are just so smart, coming up with these solutions to real-world problems, making a difference to people's lives, but also commercialising them.
 
I want a future made in Australia, I don't want to continue to have the circumstance whereby we are offshoring everything that we can overseas and then we have to fix them and make them fit-for-purpose here. We need to be more resilient as an economy. The shock of the pandemic told us that. And there's no area where that is more obvious in areas of medicine and healthcare. Because when the pandemic hit, we couldn't even supply enough PPE. We couldn't supply enough ventilators. We had to import so many of the vaccines. And of course, rapid antigen tests. And we know the Government was so slow in all of that. That's why, as well, I want an Australian Centre for Disease Control, which is world's best practice. To make sure that we prepare for the next pandemic. But we know that international shocks can come from conflict, can come from a pandemic, can come from cyber security issues. What we need to do is to make sure that we have a stronger Australia, that we prepare for shocks in the future by really building up our national resilience and our sovereign capability. And the way to do that is right here. Working with our universities, having them work with industry to make sure that we're a stronger Australia going forward. Happy to take questions.
 
JOURNALIST: Housing affordability is a serious issue on the Gold Coast at the moment with regard to the rapidly growing population and rapidly increasing the price of real estate. What, if any, policy would your Government institute to make housing more affordable on the Gold Coast?
 
ALBANESE: Well, one of the things that you can do to make a difference, first, we have our Housing Australia Future Fund. What that's about is increasing investment in social housing, but also in affordable housing for essential workers. If you increase supply, you have an impact on the price of new housing, which makes it more affordable. We'll have more to say as well about homeownership during this campaign. But also, we need to invest in infrastructure. When I was the Minister for Infrastructure, we invested in the Gold Coast Light Rail project, just to name one. That was opposed by the Coalition. It was opposed by the Coalition Federal members here. It was opposed by the Coalition in Queensland as well, the LNP. It's a vital project. We need to invest as well, as we did when we're in office, in roads as well. And we invested, of course, in the major highways here on the Gold Coast. But we also invested in world-class quality infrastructure. The largest community infrastructure project, as part of the Regional Local Community Infrastructure program, a program worth over one and a half billion dollars that funded over 5,000 projects was $37 million that went into the Gold Coast Stadium that, of course, was so important for the hosting of the Commonwealth Games. Can you imagine the current Government, with its colour-coded spreadsheets, looking at marginal seats, investing in the major project for a major fund that they had in a safe Coalition seat? No. No chance. Labor will always deliver. And this Government have taken the Gold Coast for granted. They only invest in areas where it's marginal, with their colour-coded spreadsheets. They're the sort of things that you need. Leadership from Government to make a difference when it comes to housing affordability. And the other issue, of course, that you need to do is to lift wages. One of the reasons why housing affordability is such an issue out there is that real wages have declined in recent years under this Government. And they are due to go backwards over the forward estimates. We need to do better. We need to lift living standards by lifting wages, by fixing those issues such as the casualisation of the workforce, by making sure that in addition, that we make cost of living pressures more affordable by dealing with the cost of childcare, which is a major issue. Now, when we have put out our childcare policy as part of my first Budget Reply, the Government said it was welfare. It's not welfare. It's about increasing women's workforce participation. It's about increasing productivity. And it's about making an enormous difference in closing that gender pay gap over a period of time as well.
 
JOURNALIST: Just on the Russia situation. The Prime Minister has conceded that the sanctions announced yesterday won't stop the Russian President. Does Australia need to go harder on the sanctions now?
 
ALBANESE: What we need to do is to make sure that we're united in putting forward our view that Russia's behaviour is contrary to international law. They're an act of aggression against the sovereign state of Ukraine. And we call upon Russia, once again, to back off and comply with international law. That's what we need to do. And it's important in terms of the sanctions that we put forward sanctions which are consistent with what the US, the UK and the European Union are doing. Australia acting by ourselves isn't going to have an impact. What we need to do is to maximise that impact, is to be lockstep with our international allies and democratic nations.
 
JOURNALIST: But does Australia need to go harder on the sanctions or is it enough?
 
ALBANESE: I just stated the position pretty clearly. We need to move in lockstep with our international allies. And one of the things that I do, when it comes to national security issues like this, is I don't look for false distinctions between the Government and the Opposition. It's in Australia's national interest for us to have a common position. I had a one-on-one discussion on the phone with the Prime Minister yesterday, but also received a comprehensive briefing, along with my Shadow National Security team, from our intelligence agencies yesterday.
 
JOURNALIST: The Prime Minister has called the relationship between China and Russia a coalition. Are you concerned about what that relationship means for the world?
 
ALBANESE: Certainly, the joint statement issued by Xi and Putin was of real concern. That was issued during the Olympics. We are a democratic nation. We have different values to nations which are not democratic. And it's important that we continue to stand up for Australian values and for democratic values. And I'm very confident that Australia will continue to do so.
 
JOURNALIST: Experts say that fuel prices are going to rise. Should the Government look at backing in fuel excise to ease the pressures?
 
ALBANESE: Fuel prices have gone through the roof under this Government. Half of the refineries in Australia have shut down during this term of Government. This Government has not met its obligations under the International Energy Agency for fuel reserves. And Angus Taylor said that we are going to have fuel reserves and they'll be in the Gulf of Mexico. Well, that's useful, that is. This is a Government that, as well, in terms of our dependency upon fuel, with measures like the rise of electric vehicles that we're seeing around the world, Scott Morrison went out there and said that electric vehicles would end the weekend. When we advanced a policy about hydrogen, something I'm sure is being worked on at this university somewhere, because it's being worked on everywhere, it will make an enormous difference to Australia's opportunities going forward, this Government called it snake oil. We need to make sure that we look after Australia's national interest going forward.
 
JOURNALIST: The Olympics are coming up in 2032. And a significant number of Gold Coast projects are going to be critical for the delivery of that, like the light rail that was the mentioned, but also the extension of the heavy rail. Are those two projects you are going to be committing funding to if you win Government?
 
ALBANESE: Well, we'll make our funding announcements when we make them. But if you look at our record, if you look at my record as the Minister for Infrastructure, we provided funding, as I said, the major funding from the Regional and Local Community Infrastructure program was for the stadium here, a major investment. From memory, $465 million or there abouts, was for the first stage of Gold Coast Light Rail. Something that was opposed by the Government. We did that on the recommendation of Infrastructure Australia. We did that as a PPP. We did that as an example of innovative financing of projects to build infrastructure to make a difference. Had that Gold Coast Light Rail line not been finished, then there would have been a real issue in terms of the success of the Commonwealth Games that were here. I'm very confident that hosting the Olympic Games here in Queensland is an extraordinary opportunity. I have a meeting with the Premier in a short period of time today to talk about these issues as well. And I'm confident that we'll work with the state Government, as well as with local government as well. I have a good relationship with the Mayor here, Tom Tate. And I continue to work with all levels of government. I look forward to being able to do that. When we were last in Government, I worked not just that, we did the bike tracks, we did so much local infrastructure here on the Gold Coast. One of the things that I will do as Prime Minister, if I'm successful at the May election, is not allocate funding based upon a colour-coded sheet. I will act in the national interest. The problem with this Government is it's all about the 24-hour focus on the short-term political interest, which is why you end up, after nine years, not having a strong legacy on economic reforms, social reform or environmental policy, and why, in terms of going forward, this Government doesn't deserve another term in office and to enter a second decade without any real idea of what it wants to do, except to not have a Labor Government. That's not a reason for being. I've got a positive agenda. It's a positive agenda that we've witnessed today about a future made in Australia, about more secure work, about a stronger economy, more job creation, regional economic development. And I look forward to working with our members here and our candidates. We will continue to work with Senator Murray Watt, who plays an important role as part of my frontbench team, to achieve support at the next election for a better future. Thanks.
 
ENDS