ROB MITCHELL, MEMBER FOR MCEWEN: Well, good morning everyone. Welcome to Wallan. We're here today with the Prime Minister. It's great to have the Prime Minister back in the seat of McEwen. This Prime Minister has been a regular visitor to us. He's been out here. He knows the area well. He knows the issues well, and it's great to have him back as again, just on this lovely morning here in Wallan, to discuss an issue that's important to every family across McEwen. So, I welcome the Prime Minister and say thank you again for being here, mate. It's just it's great to always have you out here. Fantastic.
 
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Thanks, Rob. It is always great to be here in this wonderful electorate here in Wallan today, on a fantastic day. I do want to thank Milly and Matt for welcoming us into their home and introducing us to their young ones, Winnie and Laurance. Milly is a nurse and a TAFE teacher. Matt works in it in the city. Both of them work full time, and they're able to sustain a position of looking after young Laurance, who hasn't started school yet at four years of age, and before then Winnie, by being able to work from home. Matt works from home four days a week and then goes into the office on Friday. Milly works from home, does a lot of her course work from home, and then teaches up at the TAFE at Seymour. Working from home suits so many families. Peter Dutton has said that they'll end that flexibility. He now wants to pretend that that policy hasn't existed. It was thought through. He said very clearly that women should just job share if they wanted to get around his policy, showing how out of touch he is.
 
The new analysis shows that if families working from home switched to job sharing arrangements, they could be up to $740 a week worse off. Peter Dutton has said on industrial relations that we put in the legislation that they opposed and voted against, whether it was working from home provisions to be allowed as part of bargaining, whether it be Same Job, Same Pay, the right to disconnect. What we know is that when Peter Dutton cuts, you pay as Australians. Families like this one, who've organised their life around it, and we know that the private sector takes its signal from the public sector as well. Cuts that happen to the public sector then flow through. The argument is that there's a need for a level-playing field. Well, Peter Dutton doesn't want a level-playing field. He always wants to look after just some, not all. That's why every single taxpayer, including Milly and Matt will pay for his $20,000 lunch policy that I assume is still there. That's why every single Australian taxpayer will pay for his $600 billion nuclear plan. Peter Dutton wants to cut everything except for people's income taxes in order to pay for his policies, and now with the chopping and changing of policies that he'll put forward, we know what will happen. After the election, if he's successful, he will say, “I told Australians when I voted against the IR policy, what we would do. I told Australians that they should job share, and that they shouldn't be able to work from home. I told Australians that I'd sack 41,000 public servants.”
 
I'm not quite sure what they're saying about that today. It's hard to keep up, I've got to say, but 41,000 public servants who are the sort of people who are looking after people in the Queensland floods, the people who've got rid of that queue that was there, 42,000 veterans who are in that queue, are making an enormous difference. Peter Dutton, each and every day reminds Australians that they're just not ready for government. They haven't done the hard work. They haven't done the policies. They haven't put out costed policies. We know, though, their gut instinct, what it is their gut instinct is to always, always undermine working conditions for working Australians.
 
JOURNALIST: The Coalition said today they never had any intention for work time changes to apply across the private sector. He said, you're a liar. Have you misrepresented?
 
PRIME MINISTER: Well, which one, today or yesterday? You know, Peter Dutton can be really nasty. People have seen examples of that in past days, really nasty. The truth is he should defend his own position. And the truth is that everyone knows, everyone knows, and they say it – go through Hansard and look for Liberal Party IR spokespeople saying the reason why this shouldn't happen in the public sector is because it flows through to the private sector. That is what they say, that's their whole argument in attacking public servants. Go and have a look at any of their Senate Estimates appearances where they say that as well.
 
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, the family you just met, the two parents – I think one works in finance, the other works for the TAFE here. Will you concede they won’t be impacted by Peter Dutton’s ‘Work from Home’ because they’re not Canberra public servants? And Chris Minns says he supports getting some public service back to the office, why is he wrong?
 
PRIME MINISTER: Well, your term ‘Canberra public servants’ shows you're picking up on some of the language there. You know there are public servants who don't work in Canberra. A majority of them do not work in Canberra. That's one point. The sort of people who are in Hervey Bay and in western Queensland, helping Queenslanders at this point in time deserve respect from the alternative Prime Minister. Not to be denigrated, the sort of anti-Canberra rhetoric is, frankly, a bit unbecoming from a bloke who we know he doesn't want to live in Canberra – we know he wants to live at Kirribilli House – but it's a bit unbecoming. The truth is that public sector conditions then flow through and are used to argue in the private sector, that's the way industrial relations works.
 
JOURNALIST: Peter Dutton's policy was targeting Federal Government workers. This family are not Government workers. Is it disingenuous to be here today?
 
PRIME MINISTER: Not at all. These are people who've benefited from working from home. Peter Dutton said people should just go and job share. Now, Milly worked at TAFE. TAFE, in part, is supported by the Federal Government as well as the State Government.
 
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, if I may, what percentage of your own staff do you allow to work from home?
 
PRIME MINISTER: Oh, look, not everyone can work from home –
 
JOURNALIST: Isn’t that his point? Aren’t you making his point for him?
 
PRIME MINISTER: No, that's not his point. His point was that he would outlaw working from home. That was his point, except for himself at Kirribilli House, that is the point here. For many jobs, I can't work from home. I can't work a five-day week. That's part of the deal. If you're in construction, you can't build a house from home. Milly worked as a nurse. When she was a nurse, she can't be a nurse, you can't bring the patient home. She worked at a hospital, but she does her TAFE work here at home, and that is the point here.
 
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, the Coalition has now dumped the pledge on public service cuts was ultimately about getting government spending down. In an environment where gross debt to GDP is increasing, what's your goal plan for getting the budget back in order?
 
PRIME MINISTER: We've produced two budget surpluses, and we have halved the deficit.
 
JOURNALIST: You want one million batteries in homes by 2030. You said earlier today some batteries were as cheap as $4,000, but how many households have $4,000 that they can spend on a battery?
 
PRIME MINISTER: Well, the head of the Smart Energy Council, I refer you to their comments. Mr Grimes, who's an expert in this area – the point is that there are batteries of different sizes. There are houses which are different, not everything. It's not one size fits all, but that's why we provide a 30% incentive.
 
JOURNALIST: Just on batteries, if I may: you mentioned your policies constructing a level-playing field for Australians, but only households with solar panels can access the scheme. What do you say to renters and apartment owners who are effectively left out?
 
PRIME MINISTER: You can’t have a battery, obviously, to store power from solar panels if you haven't got the solar panels. So that's just, that's just a fact. But we, also, some of you might have come to my electorate with Chris Bowen just a little while ago with the scheme that we've established with New South Wales with funding in a unit in Ashfield. I'd encourage you to get the footage up there, because what had happened there, is there's a wonderful fellow that we'd met who's put in a battery in that unit block. It was a unit block from memory of about eight, right on opposite Ashfield Park. And what we're providing for there is a separate scheme, a separate scheme to encourage unit dwellings to do that. In addition to that, we've got a very specific plan for public housing right throughout the country, putting in batteries and putting in support for them to lower the energy bills for public housing tenants as well. In addition to that, of course, every Australian will benefit from not just our first, our second, but now our third, energy bill relief for every household. And that was in the Budget, that was something that was opposed by Peter Dutton as well.
 
JOURNALIST: The Liberals have announced a billion-dollar freight bypass for Adelaide. Will Labor match that?
 
PRIME MINISTER: The Liberals, we’ll see if they have a different policy tomorrow. What we have is a policy framework that establishes our major infrastructure investment with timelines, including, of course, there's more than $7 billion from the Commonwealth for the North-South road upgrade that began when I was the Infrastructure Minister. We're going to get it finished.
 
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, the White House has said more than 50 countries have reached out to them on tariffs to get a better deal. Is Australia one of them?
 
PRIME MINISTER: Yes.
 
JOURNALIST: Should there be any limits on working from home for public servants? Should they be allowed to work from home as much as during COVID?
 
PRIME MINISTER: This should be worked through as appropriate. Obviously, if you're the Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, then chances are you've got to be in the office. People have got to be there for the meetings of Cabinet. People have to engage constructively. But I tell you what, these arrangements can work. There are some people in my office, I was asked before. There are some people, you can be a speech writer, for example, without outing people's personal details, and write a speech from home. So, my office is run by Tim Gartrell in an entirely appropriate way that looks after people. It's one of the reasons why I'm very proud that there are people who work in my office, who've worked for me, who began literally last century, including my Chief of Staff, who began in 1996.
 
JOURNALIST: Can I ask you please your thoughts on some comments that Keir Starmer has made in the UK?
 
PRIME MINISTER: Well, if I haven't seen them, then that will be difficult. So, I haven't had a chance to see every TV program or see every comment, so if people give us a heads up, then I'm happy to respond.
 
JOURNALIST: Let me try. ‘The world has changed. Globalisation is over and we are now in a new era.’ That’s the British Prime Minister’s comments.
 
PRIME MINISTER: Well, that's Keir Starmer comments. Thank you for telling me about them. Thank you for telling me about them. Look, I haven't seen the context or what have you, but I had a really good discussion with Keir Starmer on Friday night. We were due to have a discussion just after eight o'clock. It got delayed. And I was very pleased, because I know the exact time that the phone rang, which was when the half time siren rang between Souths and East. And of course, at that stage, we were just ahead, but we went on to win on Friday night. And fortunately, while I was talking to Keir Starmer, the Roosters scored two tries, so I know exactly when the time started and when the time ended. Look, Keir Starmer and I talk regularly, and Keir Starmer and I agree. And my speech yesterday spoke about the uncertain world that we live in. We do live in an uncertain world, and that's why we need to respond. We can't control everything that we have to deal with. So my government has had to deal with the worst global inflation since the 1980s, the biggest global energy crisis since the 1970s, we've dealt with that in a calibrated, ordered, considered way, not with changing policies and platforms on a day to day basis, a considered way, with proper consideration by my Cabinet. We will deal with this, and that is why, on last Thursday, the US President, finished his statement at eight o'clock, I was doing a press conference with our plan and our response pretty soon afterwards. We do live in uncertain times, and we are concerned about the impact on global trade and the global economy. We're seeing a considerable impact, negative impact on the stock market. That impacts Australians, because superannuation funds had their shares there. So yes, we are concerned, and we’ll continue to engage. I'm concerned about the impact in Asia. If you look at the impact of some of the tariffs on Asia, some of them were quite high. No country got a better arrangement than Australia. I'm still not sure what some of the Heard Island and Norfolk Island, some of the stranger decisions are about, but from Australia's perspective, one of the discussion, well, the discussion that I had with Prime Minister Starmer on Friday night is certainly consistent with the quote that you put forward. Thanks very much. Thank you.

ENDS