SUBJECTS: Vaccine rollout; aged care residents and staff not being vaccinated; Belt and Road Initiative; Australia’s relationship with China; electric vehicles; domestic mRNA vaccine manufacturing; Labor’s National Reconstruction Fund; energy; climate change.

JOSH BURNS, MEMBER FOR MACNAMARA: Welcome, everyone, to the Sacred Heart here in St Kilda. It is really a great day and I am really pleased that Anthony Albanese, the Leader of the Australian Labor Party, and Clare O’Neil, our Shadow Minister for Aged Care, have joined me today. Sacred Heart is an amazing organisation. And they are looking after some pretty vulnerable residents. I am really pleased that Cathy and Graham have taken us here around this facility. These residents and the staff here at Sacred Heart are really nervous because they were promised by Scott Morrison, like the rest of the aged care sector, that they were going to get vaccines, that they were going to get four million vaccines by March, that group 1A were going to be vaccinated. But as we have seen, Scott Morrison is well behind schedule and these residents have been left behind by Scott Morrison. We need to vaccinate our residents in the aged care sector, we need to vaccinate our residents in the disability sector, our immunocompromised Australians, and it is just not good enough that they have been forgotten and left behind by Scott Morrison. So we are here today to stand up for these residents. And I am really pleased that Anthony and Clare are doing so. So I am going to handover to Clare O’Neil to say a few words.

CLARE O’NEIL, SHADOW MINISTER FOR SENIOR AUSTRALIANS AND AGED CARE SERVICES: Thank you so much. Scott Morrison said that delivering the vaccine program in Australia wasn’t a race. There has been no sense of urgency and no sense of hurry from the Federal Government about the one thing that they have actually taken responsibility for in the way that our country has tackled COVID. Well, I can tell you from the Victorian point of view, we know exactly the catastrophic consequences of what happens when COVID gets into aged care. When we had our outbreaks last year, almost 700 older Australians died while they were in the care of the Federal Government living in aged care. And we never want to see that happen again. So we are here today to say that there is a sense of urgency. Aged care homes around the country, only one-third of them have been vaccinated. And the Prime Minister promised us that this job would be done and dusted by March. So we are calling on the Government today to recognise how urgent this task is and to quickly make a plan to vaccinate the other two-thirds of aged care homes around this country. 

Can I say something brief about the staff? It is stark, raving mad to spend time and energy going around the country vaccinating aged care residents, and yet doing absolutely nothing to vaccinate the 300,000 or so people who work in aged care in this country. What is the Government thinking? These are the people who are in and out of these facilities. And during COVID, they are the ones that continue to turn up to work every day. Now, I've talked to aged care workers who were not able to eat dinner with their families for weeks and weeks and weeks. Aged care staff who couldn't hug their children, because every day they had to go back to work in aged care homes that were rife with COVID. We do not want that to happen again. So again, we're calling on the Federal Government today to give us a clear plan for the 300,000 hardworking people in this sector, to properly protect them and the people that they look after against coronavirus. Thank you.

ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: Well, thanks very much to Graham in particular for showing us around his home, and for educating us about the lifestyle and the benefits of living in this facility. But the residents of this facility are being let down. They're being let down by a Prime Minister and a Government that promised a lot but delivered very little. In this case, the Government has delivered nothing. Not a single vaccine to a resident of this facility. Not a single vaccine to a staff member of this facility. This Government said that we were at the front of the queue, when nothing was farther from the truth. This Government has been complacent. This Government then said that four million Australians would be vaccinated by the end of March. And they've struggled to get to one million and it's the middle of April. This Government also said in February, that category 1A, that includes aged care residents, would be vaccinated in the next six weeks. That was eight weeks ago. And yet not a single resident in this facility has received a vaccine and not a single staff member. It simply is not good enough. And it's one thing for the Government to get a headline saying they're declaring Australia's on war footing when it comes to the rollout of the vaccine. But the truth is, it's an odd view of war when war isn't engaging with this virus, it's having a virtual telephone hook-up, which we had on Monday, which decided to have another telephone hook-up this afternoon, which we'll have another telephone hook-up next week. What Australians want is to know when they're going to be vaccinated. And it should be an absolute priority that aged care residents, who we know are vulnerable, and their staff, are absolutely a priority. Staff are being told, ‘Go to your GP’. GPs aren't being told how many vaccines they're going to get and when they're going to get them. The message is very clear to the Federal Government. Australians just want to know when they're going to be vaccinated. Happy to take questions.

JOURNALIST: The Federal Government has said that it's beholden to the overseas supply chain, that everybody's trying to get their hands on the same vaccine at the same time, and that's largely due to that. 

ALBANESE: Well, that's what they've said today. But they said something different last year, and they'd said something different in January and something different in February. If you go back and have a look at what Scott Morrison said unequivocally, he said we're taking into account all the things that might happen. Greg Hunt said it wasn't dependent upon what was happening overseas, that they had measures in place. They made commitments. They said, indeed, that they were going to under-promise and over-deliver. Of course, the thing with this Government that has characterised Scott Morrison, no matter what you look at, is that he over-promises and under-delivers. The Federal Government had responsibility during the pandemic for only a few things. On most occasions, they have handed off all the responsibility to the states. They had responsibility for the COVIDSafe app. Remember that? The Government spent a lot of money importing that app from overseas, doing an advertising campaign, getting people to download it on their phones. I was asked to press conference after press conference, did I have it on my app? Guess what? No one has used it, really. Just a few. The truth is that state governments have had to step up into the void. The next issue, of course, was aged care. The Federal Government funds, regulates, and is responsible for aged care. And yet what we've seen is a failure when it comes to the Federal Government trying to hand off, once again, responsibility to the states. And the Federal Government received a report last year from Jane Halton. One of the things that she raised was the issue of ventilation in hotels and the need to have a national approach towards dealing with that. But we've seen in the past couple of days, a couple of outbreaks as a direct result of people being in hotels and being infected because those issues haven't been dealt with either. This is a Government that talks itself up all the time. But for it, once you make the announcement, job done, nothing to see here, we can just move on, and then tries to pass off responsibility or blame. And the reason why the Federal Government has called upon the states to assist after the states, including Liberal states like New South Wales, have been very critical of the rollout.

JOURNALIST: The Belt and Road Initiative is obviously a huge issue here in Victoria. The Federal Government has said that Victoria needs to withdraw from that agreement. Is that something that you support? And if so, why?

ALBANESE: Well, the Federal Government passed legislation. We supported that legislation. The Federal Government's responsible for our international relations. That's one thing that they can't avoid responsibility for. And it's not surprising that this decision is being made given that the Government flagged this as the reason why they were pushing their legislation.

JOURNALIST: So you supported the legislation. Why is the Belt and Road Initiative so damaging to Australia?

ALBANESE: Well, that is for the Government to explain. We supported the decision that the Federal Government should have responsibility for these matters. I note the Victorian Government has accepted the decision and we move on from there. But it's of no surprise, the fact that the Government is seeking to rollout a range of announcements at a time whereby the issue that Australians are concerned about, not just here, but around the kitchen table, around the classrooms, in homes right around Australia, is the rollout of the vaccine.

JOURNALIST: Should Australian producers be worried about any potential retaliation now given China has reacted angrily?

ALBANESE: Well, that's up to the Federal Government to respond to those issues. The Federal Government has flagged this decision. I don't think it'll come as a surprise to anyone, they flagged it for a long period of time. Federal Labor, we said that we wouldn't sign up to the BRI. But I do note that the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs was giving speeches that were positive about the BRI not too long ago. And I do note, as well, that the Trade Minister was up signing MOUs with China not too long ago. The former Trade Minister, of course, because they change jobs every six months or so under this Government. 

JOURNALIST: You supported the legislation that enabled the Federal Government to step in and block it. Why are you concerned? What is it about the Belt and Road? 

ALBANESE: It's up to the Federal Government to explain. 

JOURNALIST: You supported the legislation. You said you did not support the BRI. Why not? 

ALBANESE: It's up to the Federal Government to explain international relations. They put this legislation forward. It's up to them. 

JOURNALIST: What's your reaction to 25 organisations right now opposing the Victorian Government's electric vehicle tax? Should the Andrews Government be listening to those organisations?

ALBANESE: Well, the Federal Government itself initiated an inquiry and a process during the last term under Paul Fletcher as Minister, looking at these issues in terms of road user taxation, etc. There's been no leadership from the Federal Government on those issues. The Federal Government needs to examine all of the issues related, and I know this as a former Transport Minister, related to the use of taxation when it comes to our roads. Some of the road funding, of course, comes from petrol taxation. The nature of electric vehicles is that they don't, obviously, pay that tax. And the Federal Government needs to have a comprehensive plan. I find it extraordinary that the Federal Government initiated a response on that a number of years ago. Labor welcomed that process and said that should occur, there should be participation in it. And there's been no response since. Once again, they made a big announcement, and they walked away without an outcome. So it's not surprising that state governments are doing their own thing.

JOURNALIST: So would you back all states bringing in a tax and making it nationally consistent??

ALBANESE: No, it's not my job to determine state issues. What is my job, as the alternative Government, is to call for national leadership when it comes to transport issues. These are issues that have been coming for some time. There's a need for national leadership on them. And the Federal Government should be examining a process of how we deal with this transition that will occur over a period of time. Labor's policy on electric vehicles is to make them cheaper, to make them cheaper by dealing with the fringe benefits tax issues, and also with tariffs on electric vehicles, particularly those that are more accessible to people, to encourage the importation of cheaper electric vehicles into Australia. And our policy will result in a reduction in price of between $1,000-$2,000 on an electric vehicle like the Nissan LEAF, which costs $50,000. And in terms of FBT, it would make a difference of about $8,000, which would encourage the take-up of them in fleets. There's a need for this. The problem for the Federal Government, of course, has been that they ran that ridiculous scare campaign in the last election, one whereby when Scott Morrison in recent times has forgotten that these things that are pointed at me now are actually recording. And the difference between what he said during the election campaign, that electric vehicles were going to mean the end of the weekend, and what he says now, is just another example of the opportunism of this Government, the failure to have appropriate policy development, and the concentration on the 24-hour media cycle. 

JOURNALIST: Doesn’t the Andrews Government tax on electric cars run counter to your argument about making electric cars cheaper and trying to encourage that take-up? 

ALBANESE: There's an issue with road user charges. There's a need for a national approach to these issues. That was recognised by the Federal Government when it initiated an inquiry into those issues. It hasn't resulted in any response at all. And Michael McCormack, as the Federal Minister, needs to explain exactly how it is that the Government plans to deal with these issues so that we don't have the absurdity of the different states and territories going different ways as we see, increasingly, a rollout of electric vehicles, not just passenger vehicles, but of course, buses and heavy vehicles, right across the spectrum. It is happening.

JOURNALIST: What do you think the Government should be doing on domestic mRNA vaccines?

ALBANESE: Well, I am of the view, I note that Victoria's made a very positive announcement. And one of the things that Labor did at our national conference was establish a National Reconstruction Fund. What that is aimed at is supporting existing industries to become more efficient to transition, including through transference to the use of renewables to lower their energy costs. It's also about new and emerging industries. And I can't think of a greater emerging industry that's a priority for Australia than the manufacturing of mRNA vaccines. This is something that's relevant not just for COVID, it will be increasingly relevant in terms of a breakthrough that's occurred and will be increasingly relevant as time goes on in terms of the health sector. So I believe, very clearly, that the National Reconstruction Fund, $15 billion available to support private sector investment to facilitate that investment, one of the ways that it could assist is through the development of mRNA vaccine manufacturing capability right here in Australia. What that would do is, obviously, create jobs here in Australia, but also boost our economy whilst making sure our health is looked after. The report suggests, for example, that we're going to need booster shots, just like we require booster shots for the flu each year. So this is an issue that isn't simply going to disappear and problem solved. So Australia needs to look at ways in which we can look after the health of our population, whilst also getting economic and employment benefits. One way we can do that is by investing in local manufacturing. And we will establish a board that would look at any proposals from commercial organisations on whether it is viable to give them support. And that's what the $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund is there for.

JOURNALIST: How much of that $15 billion would you use for domestic mRNA investment?  

ALBANESE: We will establish a board, just like the Clean Energy Finance Corporation has very successfully done. For every dollar that's been contributed in the form of a loan to the private sector, it's been $2.50 of private sector investment, and it's produced or returned to government. That's the model that we're using for the National Reconstruction Fund. Decisions will be made independently by a board. And so that would be a matter for them to receive submissions, from private sector organisations, pharmaceutical organisations, who would look at manufacturing here in Australia. That would be a matter for them. But it is one example of how the National Reconstruction Fund can facilitate that investment and those jobs. 

JOURNALIST: What do you make of the Government's latest pledge on energy with funding pledged for national technologies?

ALBANESE: Well, this Government's going to be, yet again, embarrassed on the international stage. And the truth is that last time we were at an international conference, because there was one held, of course, convened by Boris Johnson last year that didn't even invite Australia to it because Australia didn't have much to say. The last time we attended a major international conference, we had Australia sitting, essentially, with Saudi Arabia and Brazil as the countries that weren't participating in stepping up. The Government’s gap between rhetoric and reality is something that doesn't wash in international forums. And we'll wait and see what comes out of this forum. President Biden is showing great leadership from the United States. But the gap that is there between what the United States is doing and what Australia says with its rhetorical positions, essentially, Australia is benefiting from action by state governments and action by private sector organisations. An Australian Government that is providing four million dollars to the proponents of a new coal-fired power station in North Queensland that everyone knows won't happen, just because they want to send a signal to voters. Even they know it isn't likely to happen. Josh Frydenberg knows that isn't going to happen, but he's happy to use taxpayers’ dollars in gesture politics. The Government needs to get serious about climate change. And when Scott Morrison is at that virtual conference over the next 24 hours, he'll be one of the few people participating in that conference who hasn't committed to net zero by 2050. China has committed to net zero by 2060. But all of our major trading partners, Europe, the UK, United States, Japan, South Korea, have all committed to net zero by 2050. As has every state and territory government, as have Australia's big four banks, as had BHP, Woodside, Santos, and other resources sector organisations, as has the Business Council of Australia, the National Farmers’ Federation, and others. Scott Morrison is isolated on this. It's embarrassing for Australia. And he is betraying his responsibility that he has to this and future generations. Thanks very much. 

ENDS