SUBJECTS: Labor's $300 vaccine incentive; vaccine rollout.

MAZ, HOST: Leader of the Opposition Anthony Albanese joins us. Hi Albo.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Good morning, good to be with you again.

MAZ: Good to be with you again. And a you do you have some good news? I feel like at the moment, all of our chats and negative.

ALBANESE: Well the bunnies are coming equal second in the comp. That's good news.

GAWNDY, HOST: Happy with that, yes. And how do we get $300, Albo? Tell me, I just want to get straight to the money.

ALBANESE: By getting fully vaccinated, I'm saying that we need economic incentives. The Chief Medical Officer said that earlier this year. It's being adopted overseas. We need to do everything we can to encourage people to have a conversation about getting vaccinated and 300 bucks would be ample reward and also would help stimulate the economy. Help create jobs and protect jobs at a time when the economy is really struggling.

GAWNDY: Are you surprised there's not already an incentive in place?

ALBANESE: Well other countries have done it. Joe Biden supports it. There's all sorts of incentives. In Indonesia you get a chicken. In other places you go into a pool for a lottery. In some places you go in a pool for a cow. There's all sorts of incentives which are there. And the Government itself has, of course, a no jab, no pay policy brought in by a fellow called Morrison when he was Social Security Minister, that if you kids don't get the jab, don't get immunised, then you miss out on childcare rebate, you miss out on family tax benefits. So it's been used before and surely give we're running last in the developed world, this is just a common-sense proposition.

MAZ: I do wonder with, and it is it is a great thing that we have these financial incentives, that we have Job Saver and Job Keeper and that is definitely keeping, you know, businesses open during this really tough time for so many people. But where does that money come from? Is it going to sting us in the arse in a year or two, with rates going through the roof and I just wonder where all this money is coming from?

ALBANESE: Well look the problem is, if we don't get the rates up, the cost of lockdowns, full lockdown, is something like $3.8 billion according to what the Treasurer said, treasury estimates just yesterday. $3.8 billion dollars per week, every week. So, unless we stop these lockdowns, we're going to have a cost to the economy that is far greater than the modest cost of this, which is $5 billion dollars if 80 percent of the population did it prior to December 1.

GAWNDY: Hey look Albo, thanks for the update mate. Lot of talk this week about the $300 jab incentives so we want to hear from you yourself. We continue to wait to see if there will be an incentive anytime soon. But you should just go and get vaccinated, guys. Honestly.

ALBANESE: Yeah, please, get the jab.

GAWNDY:  Get the jab. Get the damn jab. Ok Albo, see you mate.

ALBANESE: The slogan I used last time Parliament sat, when Barnaby Joyce knocked off Michael McCormick was, you know, ‘more jabbing less stabbing’ is what we need from this Government.

MAZ: Wow.

ALBANESE: See you guys.

MAZ: See you later.

ALBANESE: I’ll leave you with that thought.

MAZ: Yeah, thank you.


ENDS