SUBJECTS: Visit to WA; Scott Morrison’s lack of presence in Western Australia; vaccine rollout.

HOST: Mr Speaker, I put it to you that the Leader of the Opposition is late.

ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: I'm here.

HOST: It's great to have you here, mate. And just quickly on Mix 94.5, it wouldn't do to not bring you in without fanfare.

INTRODUCTION: He's a big music fan, was co-host in an episode of Rage, and once used his political power to save a Dolly Parton tour. He also happens to be the Leader of the Federal Opposition and the Leader of the Australian Labor Party. Please welcome the thorn in Scott Morrison's side, Anthony Albanese. 

HOST: Good morning to you, mate. Welcome.

ALBANESE: I thought 'New Sensation' was for me.

HOST: We have all thought it was for us, but turns out that no, we missed the boat.

HOST: How are you going? Welcome to WA. 

ALBANESE: Good to be here. Day four back in the West. Here I am.

HOST: You were here not too long ago too.

ALBANESE: I am a regular here. I've been here, just a little fun fact, I've been here eight times since the last time the other bloke was here. 

HOST: He's here, isn't he?

HOST: The other bloke being the Prime Minister of Australia. 

HOST: The other guy. 

HOST: Okay, well, welcome to WA.

ALBANESE: Good to be here.

HOST: What are you doing here?

ALBANESE: I was here on Sunday. Firstly, we did an event with Mark McGowan to say thank you to all the volunteers who gave him the pretty extraordinary result and to encourage them to keep going over the next year or up until the Federal election. And then I did some more things here in Perth and then headed to up to Karratha where I had a look at various employment projects and jobs up there. I met with First Nations people at the Burrup Peninsula, had a look at the rock art. And I met with people there about the proposals they have for expanding tourism there. I did an event there at night at the pub. 

HOST: I don't know that you need to do this much. We were having a chat this morning just saying the way the Government is currently going, you might just be better just doing nothing and staying quiet until all of this washes over. 

ALBANESE: Well, I want people to get to know me here in the West in particular, which is why I'm back here. And thanks for having us in the studio again. And yesterday, I was up at Malaga at the manufacturing plant. 

HOST: Malaga?

ALBANESE: Malaga. Having a look at a manufacturing plant there. We've got a reconstruction fund. One of the lessons of the pandemic is we need to make more things here. 

HOST: Yes, manufacturing. 

ALBANESE: So we were looking at that. And here I am this morning. And after this, I will do a press conference with Patrick Gorman. 

HOST: Can I ask you a question about the pandemic? A serious question? The vaccine, have you had it? You have had both jabs? 

ALBANESE: I have had both jabs. 

HOST: Okay, where are we at? Because we the public are getting a bit, I will speak for myself, I'm getting a little bit, I'm not anti-vax, but I like to do my research. And you know, we're getting some bad press about vaccines and blood clots and whatnot. Where are you at? 

ALBANESE: The real problem, I think, is that we're getting a different answer from the Prime Minister every day. We were told that there'd be four million people vaccinated by March. We've just hit a million. We've had different announcements late at night. I found out that the Prime Minister had held a press conference after seven o'clock at night to change some of the advice. And that to me doesn't build confidence. And I want people to get vaccinated. It's important that they do. We need to deal with the health issues so that we can open up our economy. But today is another announcement from the Prime Minister, a different ruling, he's going to have meetings with the states a couple of times a week. Can we just get this right? We've known this is coming for a long period of time. We should have put in place deals with vaccines like Moderna, so we didn't have all our eggs in AstraZeneca basket. We did that and the chickens have come home to roost, unfortunately. 

HOST: Mr Albanese, one of the other things that we were talking about this morning is the fact that I don't know that anybody in his position would know what the right thing to do, particularly the last 18 months, through something that no generation in this room right now has been through before, and sometimes I feel like it would be quite easy to be in Opposition and go, 'We would have done it differently'. Hindsight is 2020. Can you actually genuinely stand there and go, 'We would have done it completely differently. And this is the plan we would have had along the way. And it would have been better under us’?

ALBANESE: Well, some things we would have done the same. Some things, though, happened because we advocated them. We were constructive. One of the things that's been said to me is, 'We didn't hear enough from you last year'. That's because we weren't out there just whinging and complaining. We were saying you needed wage subsidies to keep people in work. And that happened. We were saying you need to increase Newstart, and that became JobSeeker with the increased payment. We were saying you needed to get at least five or six vaccine deals done. We were saying that this time last year. Other countries started doing deals in March. The Government was complacent and didn't do any deals until September. It didn't put enough deals in place. And they were receiving that advice. International best practice, all of the countries that are ahead of us. and it's pretty easy to find them because it's just about everyone, and we're struggling to hit the top 100. And Scott Morrison, one of the things that he does is go out there and talk himself up. And he was saying we are first in the world, we are at the front of the queue. And it just wasn't true. And it's been proven to not be true. And that advice was there. International best practice was there so that, for example, in the UK, where they've done similar rulings to what we've now followed on AstraZeneca, they can just step up with Moderna, step up with other vaccines that they have access to. We didn't put it in place. And I think one of the things that has been disappointing is that gap between promise and delivery. You shouldn't overpromise. And the fact is that they did overpromise. And our job is to hold them to account.

HOST: Okay, now, we've got a couple of minutes. But look, we're going to play a game with you. 

ALBANESE: I did that last time.

HOST: Last time you were here we played 'Albo hard or Albo easy'. And today, we want to know who said what. 

ALBANESE: Okay.

HOST: Okay, so we've got some quotes that either you, yourself, or the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, have said. And we're hoping you'll be able to identify who said it. Okay?

HOST: Okay. Who said this? 'This is me doing what I do. I'm listening. I'm hearing. And I'm doing.'

ALBANESE: Well, it could be either. But in my case, it would be true. I'm saying it's Morrison. Talking himself up is what he is doing there. 

HOST: Okay. That was the giveaway there.

HOST: I got one for you here. Who said this? 'Sensational gig. Great band. Ended too early'.

ALBANESE: Me.

HOST: That was you on Rage. You were hosting in 2013.

ALBANESE: That was my alter ego, DJ Albo. That was on the bucket list. I was doing the Hack program and I was talking to these people afterwards about music. And the producers of Rage were like, 'Oh my god, you should produce a show'. And I begged. I was the Communications Minister at the time and was like, 'Please let me host Rage'. And I did, so I played Nirvana and a whole lot of stuff that would fit on this program. 

HOST: Great. 

HOST: Excellent.

ALBANESE: And the good thing is, actually, they had others as well. And Adam Bandt from the Greens played all techno rubbish. Julie Bishop played things like 'You've Got That Loving Feeling' and stuff that was rubbish as well. They had to have a bit of balance.

HOST: It is one of the great anthems from the times. Come on. 

ALBANESE: Seriously. Just because it is good in a movie doesn't mean you should play it on Rage at one in the morning.

HOST: We are with the Federal Opposition Leader, Anthony 'Albo' Albanese. We are playing 'Who said it, you or ScoMo’. This is the last one. 'Stop it'. 

ALBANESE: Well, that could be either of us. I'm going to say that it is me. 

HOST: You probably have done it. But in this case, it was ScoMo. But I tell you what, two out of three ain't bad.

HOST: It was ScoMo telling people to stop panic-buying toilet paper.

HOST: He was terribly disappointed with the Australian public in that moment. 

ALBANESE: That was the last time he showed leadership. About dunny paper. That is not being shown about the vaccines.

HOST: Mr Morrison, we know you're probably listening, or at least someone in part of your group is. 13 10 60 or 450 Roberts Road, mate. You are welcome to come and join us. The Federal Opposition Leader, Anthony Albanese, great to have you with us, mate. Thanks very much. 

ALBANESE: Thanks for having me in.

ENDS