Labor’s plan for disaster readiness; failures of the Morrison Government during the natural disasters and COVID-19; Labor’s policy agenda; Federal election; Better Future for Queensland visit; Novak Djokovic; rapid antigen tests.
 
SHANE HAMILTON, LABOR CANDIDATE FOR DAWSON: Good morning, everyone. It is great to have Anthony Albanese here today. This is his third trip to the electorate of Dawson and his third trip to Mackay in particular in the last 12 months. This is obviously a place where Anthony is really comfortable in coming. And it is great to talk to the people of Mackay. We have spent the past three days travelling Dawson and speaking to the people throughout the electorate. And what they are overwhelmingly telling us is that they want a government that provides an excellent health response, a government that provides safe and secure jobs, and a government that brings back regional manufacturing. And that is why we are here today in Dawson and ensuring that these things will happen. We’ve got an announcement today. And it just helps the resilience of our community. North Queenslanders are a really resilient mob. However. we don’t need to rely on resilience. We need to be planning for future disaster events. And today’s announcement will ensure that we are planned here for any future disaster events that come.
 
ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: Well thanks very much, Shane. And it is great to be back here in Mackay. During this visit, we have been to Bowen, we have been to Airlie Beach, we have been to Proserpine, and now in Mackay. And it is always great, the warm welcome that you get in regional communities such as this. And I want to take the opportunity to thank the people Mackay for the warm welcome. We were at the Northern Beaches Bowlo last night and just chatting with people there about the issues that concern them going forward. It’s always a great opportunity to get out and about and later today I am very pleased that we will be going to see a canegrower, the head of the association, on his property, but we will also be having lunch with the CWA today before we then head to Rocky as part of the Better Future for Queensland visit.
 
Today, we have a fantastic announcement which is about a better future for Queensland. Making sure that Queensland is more resilient. I do want to begin, given the nature of today’s announcement in particular, by acknowledging those heroes who are first responders in emergency services, who are cleaning up and looking after people around Maryborough, looking after the businesses and homes and properties around there, around Gympie, the Wide Bay region. I also want to express my condolences to the families of the people who have lost their lives as a result of this tragedy. It is indeed a reminder that we are a country that does have natural disasters. What we need to do is to make sure that we plan in the best way possible to mitigate the impact of these disasters.
 
Now, three years ago, the Government set up the Emergency Response Fund, taking money from a fund that had been established by the former Labor Government for education infrastructure. It was allocated, called the Emergency Response Fund - $4 billion. We welcomed it and we supported it. We put forward practical amendments that were adopted by the Government in the Senate.
 
Now, you think three years ago you established an Emergency Response Fund of $4 billion, I reckon you could do a trivia question about how much is in it today. Well people might be surprised and scratch their heads that it is $4.7 billion today. Because what has happened is that that fund has got $750 million of interest but has expended a total of $17 million. $17 million even though the whole idea of this fund was $200 million each and every year to be expended each year, including funds being spent on preparation, on planning, on making sure that measures were put in place.
 
It says it all about this Government that is all announcement and no delivery. They are always there for the press release, always there for the photo op, never there for the follow up.
 
It is extraordinary that in a country like ours that suffers from cyclones, floods, bushfires, the idea that they can’t find projects that are ready to go in order to invest the money that has been appropriated for that very purpose. But that is exactly what happened. Well, under Labor we won’t allow that to happen. What we will do is to allocate for disaster prevention $200 million each and every year to make sure that that occurs for projects like the missing link here on the Pioneer River in Mackay. This is a practical program. It is one that the Mayor has just been briefing me on, Mayor Greg Williamson. It’s one that the state member, Julianne Gilbert, understands and knows is important. And certainly, one that Shane Hamilton has advocated very strongly for.
 
A levee here in this missing link would protect those homes if there is a flood event, would lower insurance premiums. Importantly, it is far easier to prevent and protect in advance than to wait and then clean up and the costs - the human cost firstly, but also the economic cost of a disaster such as this.
 
So, we want to increase, to have the amount of money to safeguard communities from disaster, whether it is flood levees, cyclone shelters or evacuation centres. This is funding that will help to protect Australians, funding that will make an enormous difference and I am pleased today that I am joined as well by my Queensland Labor Senate colleagues Murray Watt and Anthony Chisholm here today. I am going to ask Murray to make some comments as well as the Shadow Minister for Emergency Management and also the Shadow Minister for Northern Australia and then we will hear from the Mayor and the state member.
 
MURRAY WATT, SHADOW MINISTER FOR DISASTER AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT: Thanks very much, Albo. It is a pleasure to join you and the rest of our local colleagues here in Mackay, my father’s hometown. I can’t think of a better place to make a big announcement that is really important for Queensland as a whole, the whole country and particularly for regional Australia, which bears the brunt of natural disasters each year. As Albo has said, one of the key faults of the Morrison Government, whether we are talking about COVID or natural disasters, is that they consistently fail to prepare and fail to plan for things that we know are coming. We have seen them do it at the moment with COVID by not getting rapid tests, by not taking all of the steps that we knew were needed and we see them do it over and over again when it comes to natural disasters as well.
 
And that is what Labor’s plan for disaster readiness is all about fixing. It's about time that regional Queensland and regional Australia had a government that was prepared to look over the horizon, see what's coming and take steps before we get hit by a crisis. It's just not good enough, whether it be natural disasters, COVID or anything else, that we continue to have the Morrison Government only swing into action when a crisis hits us. And that's what today's announcement is about when it comes to disaster management. What we're releasing today is a comprehensive plan to get Australia disaster ready. It's about preventing disasters. It's about preparing for disasters and it's about rebuilding after the disasters. As Albo has said, it is a disgrace that we are now in our third disaster season since the Emergency Response Fund was announced by this Government and we have not seen a single disaster prevention project built and we haven't seen a single cent spent on disaster recovery.
 
This is just another hollow log from the Morrison Government, just like the Northern Australia Infrastructure Fund, that is a big announcement and doesn't actually deliver for people here in regional Australia. What Labor's plan will do is we will fully fund disaster recovery through the usual budget arrangements, such as the disaster recovery funding arrangements. We will in fact speed up disaster recovery processes by cutting red tape, by working cooperatively with the states, territories and local government to get money out the door more quickly. And importantly, we will significantly increase the funding that is made by the Federal Government for disaster prevention and mitigation. Labor's new disaster ready fund will fund up to $200 million a year for disaster prevention and resilience measures. And, as Albo said, that could be anything from flood levees to cyclone shelters to evacuation centres.
 
Where possible, we will have this funding matched by states, territories and local governments. So, we could be looking at up to $400 million a year in a new investment in disaster mitigation and prevention. And what that means in simple terms is that that's going to save lives, that's going to save properties and it's going to save taxpayers the billions of dollars that we spend each and every year recovering from disasters. So, this is an important announcement about planning ahead, protecting Australians, keeping all Australians safe. And I know that we will build a lot of jobs in the process by building these projects. I'll let the Mayor, Greg Williamson, talk to you a little bit further about this, what this means at the local level. But of course, the first commitment that we're making from this new disaster ready fund is a $5 million federal contribution towards extending the flood levee here on the Pioneer River in Mackay. We know that Mackay is a flood prone community. And there's nothing that is going to change that. In fact, we're likely to see more floods and more cyclones into the future. But what we can do is invest to keep people in Mackay safe and to keep people all around regional Australia safe as well. So, I'll hand over to Greg to talk to you a bit more about what that means locally. Thank you.
 
GREG WILLIAMSON, MAYOR OF MACKAY REGIONAL COUNCIL: Thank you, Senator. Good morning. And welcome to the Leader of the Federal Opposition, Anthony Albanese. It's great to have you in Mackay, yet again, on your third visit during recent years. And I guess it's safe to say that a couple of years ago when Senator Watt started to talk to us about this unspent resilience fund that has in excess of, well, almost $5 billion in it now, sitting in the bank, whilst we in regional Queensland, who are very susceptible to disasters and disaster management and recovery, and the costs associated with it all. We decided as a council, we needed to put together some resilience programs for flooding, flood mitigation, for riverine flooding and for storm surge. We adopted that late last year, after two years of work by our team. And there's three projects in our region that will deliver us once what was wet, would be dry in our in our urban area.
 
So, those three projects include the missing link that's behind us on the northern banks of the Pioneer River. It's a $9 million project. There's a project down the south of the airport, a $13 million project. And a project just around this bank of the river that we're on right now, which will upgrade the levee system now. Those three projects total about $30 million. In terms of $5 billion in an unspent fund and $30 million to deliver lower insurance premiums, dry houses in terms of a riverine flood and a storm surge event. It just is a no brainer for us. So, this is a tremendous announcement.
 
And I’ve got to say thank you to Murray Watt, who’s been banging on about this for a long time. We've now got some rubber on the road. The $5 million committed here today to the missing link. That's one of the most critical projects on the northern banks of the Pioneer River. That's an open area where a riverine flood meeting a storm surge will just flow into North Mackay. That will give us maximum protection. So, Albo, if you can find another $15 million more, we’ll find the balance of that, and we’ll do the three at the same time. But look, it's a tremendous announcement here today. And this is a welcome step forward by the Opposition by committing this in terms of funding right now. It’s something that this community really welcomes.
 
ALBANESE: Thanks very much, Greg. And I might see if Julianne wants to make a contribution.
 
JULIANNE GILBERT, STATE MEMBER FOR MACKAY: Good morning, everyone. And how great is it to have Albo here in Mackay supporting Shane, who's going to be a wonderful next Member for Dawson. We have been talking about this flood levee with Senator Murray Watt now for a couple of years. And it's really a shame that the current Federal Government has been sitting on this fund of money. It's not like they had to go out and source some money. It's there to be spent. But they just cannot organise themselves to roll it out the door. What that means for places like Mackay and the whole of the eastern side of Queensland, we've already seen two cyclones across the coast. One formed just out here in the sea off Mackay, crossed down across near Bundy and Maryborough, and we just saw the devastation up there. We've seen another cyclone just a couple of days ago cross the coast up to the north. We're right there in cyclone season right now and we have got a Federal Government that is still fluffing around and not rolling this money out the door. So, it would be a great shame if we lose houses in Mackay if the cyclones do cross the coast here. And it's not a matter of if they're going across the coast, it's when. They're gearing up, we can feel that pressure in the air that we're bound to have more and more natural disasters this year. And we're still wanting in the flood mitigation that we could have had built by now. We could have had locals in jobs building those levees and keeping our homes safe. So, I welcome this funding here today and looking forward to having a government that just doesn't talk about things, that actually rolls up their sleeves, gets that money out the door, and work with the local councils and state governments to make sure the money is going where it's needed. Thank you.
 
ALBANESE: Thanks very much. Happy to take questions.
 
JOURNALIST: How will you decide what projects will be funded and where those projects will be?
 
ALBANESE: Well, what we have here is $200 million each and every year for resilience, for disaster prevention, projects like this that have merit. I tell you what we won’t do. We won't be getting out a colour-coded sheet. We won't be getting out a colour-coded map. And we won't be doing what's happened here, which is a bit of a closing of the loop, really. This this funding came, originally, from the Building Australia Fund and the Education Infrastructure Fund that was established when I was the Infrastructure Minister. This government has sat on this money that has been in the Budget, originally, way back, was put in there during the Global Financial Crisis. They sat on it and said, we don't want to spend money on infrastructure or education infrastructure, so what we'll do is, we'll put it into this fund, and then it's continued to sit there earning interest. What we'll have is a process of proper analysis by the department when business cases come in. Local communities know what is right. That is one of the reasons why I'm absolutely committed as the Prime Minister to take the principle, if I have the opportunity, that I did as Infrastructure, Local Government and Regional Development Minister. If you want to find out what's happening in a local community, go talk to the mayor. Go talk to the mayor. Because the Mayor or the Shire President will know. And this is an example of a project that's ready to go, that's a no brainer, will create jobs and make a difference for this local community.
 
JOURNALIST: How quickly would you be able to get funds to our council in Mackay to get these projects underway?
 
ALBANESE: We'd be able to do it immediately. We would pass the amended legislation that would be required. And we’ll allocate this funding for this project in our first year of office. We want to hit the ground running. I think people are sick and tired of a government that makes big announcements and then nothing happens. I mean, the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility. Remember that? $5 billion. People thought oh, well, they’re going to spend $5 billion. I'm not sure how much they've spent, Murray, on that?
 
WATT: Less than 10 per cent.
 
ALBANESE: They’ve spent less than 10 per cent in something like seven years. It's just absurd. For this Government, the media release is the end in itself. What we actually need to do is to build these projects, to build up this resilience. Because natural disasters have an impact on people's lives, literally. This project, all of these projects, and this fund will save lives, will improve communities’ resilience, will improve economic activity and will produce much better outcomes, including lower insurance premiums.
 
JOURNALIST: Given the Land Court’s decision on New Acland last month, do you personally believe the Palaszczuk Government should be approving the third stage of that mine?
 
ALBANESE: That's a matter for the Palaszczuk Government and for those processes to take place.
 
JOURNALIST: More than 200 workers have already lost their jobs because of stalled approvals. And the expansion demand has being given the green light by the court. If you can't throw your support behind the expansion of this mine, how do you expect coal workers in the regions to trust you’ll protect their jobs?
 
ALBANESE: No, I'm not in state government. The fact is that I believe that projects should go ahead once they receive environmental approvals. I'm not right across all of the legal details. This has been a considerable legal battle that has taken place. I'm in favour of projects as long as they receive environmental approvals going forward.
 
JOURNALIST: Greenpeace has today described this announcement as not dealing with the elephant in the room, which is climate change and the real way to prevent further disasters. Isn't it true that your climate target of 43 per cent and your refusal to put an end date on fossil fuels is actually adding to climate disasters in this area?
 
ALBANESE: No, it's not. And one of the things that Greenpeace, I'm sure, would say, if they got away and took a little bit of a step back from their rhetoric, they would acknowledge that the amount of climate change which is already in the system, we're seeing our climate is changing, all of the research shows, and the IPCC reports all indicate, that there will be more extreme weather events and of greater intensity. We know that that is happening. We've seen that in Australia where in the bushfire season, just two seasons ago, we saw areas of rainforest burnt, that haven't burned in any recent time. We've seen extreme weather events occur on a more regular basis. And we need to make sure that we deal with that. This isn't some academic exercise. This is about real people in real communities, real lives, real homes, and real impacts on people. And I make no apologies for the fact that we need to deal with that. Amelioration of the impact of climate change and adaptation has to be part of the response. The other part of the response is a Federal Government that takes climate change seriously, that isn't hostage to Barnaby Joyce and the Nationals and the sceptics holding Australia back. That doesn't say, ‘We'll go to a conference in Glasgow, that's all about increasing 2030 targets, but we won't be allowed to increase our 2030 target, even though we say that that will occur’. It's no logic there. I want Australia to be a part of the global effort. Australia can't solve climate change by itself. But what we can do is to be a part of the global solution, working with like-minded countries, such as the Biden Administration in the United States. That's what I'm committed to. And that's why I put forward a climate change plan of 43 per cent reduction by 2030. It would see renewables be 82 per cent of the national energy market, it would see $52 billion of private sector investment. It would see 640,000 jobs created and a reduction in power bills on average of $275 by 2025. It's a practical plan. It's a plan that has the support of the Business Council of Australia. It has the support of the Australian Industry Group, has the support of ACCI, has the support of the National Farmers’ Federation, and the Australian Council of Trade Unions. And it has the support of communities that I've met with here in Queensland as well.
 
JOURNALIST: Do you support new coal mines opening in Australia?
 
ALBANESE: It's a matter of environmental, the Government doesn't do those things, environmental, it's a matter for the market. The market will determine based upon, subject to environmental approvals. But what we see in all of the projections, including the Government projections, going forward to 2050 is a change in our energy mix.
 
JOURNALIST: The Carmichael Coal Mine received environmental approvals and it’s stalled. Do you support new coal mines opening in Australia that meet environmental standards?
 
ALBANESE: Yes.
 
JOURNALIST: How will your plan affect, the plan you just outlined, affect the Mackay Region specifically separate from the nationwide proposals to rewire the electricity grid to invest in green tech? How will Powering Australia change and alter the Mackay Region specifically?
 
ALBANESE: Powering Australia will bring massive opportunities to this region. And one of the things that's very clear is that if you look at the modelling which is there, which we've released, remember the Government released its plan without modelling? And then waited and waited and waited and then released modelling that says, ‘We'll rely upon stuff that hasn't been invented yet and still we won't actually show any way in which we'll meet Net Zero by 2050’. We haven't done that. We produced fully-costed plans and, the Labor Party, we paid for that process to make sure that it was very clear what our position would be. And, so, in one of the things that that envisaged is the big growth, if you lower your energy costs, then the big growth will be in regional Australia. Regional Australia has a massive advantage comparative in terms of where advanced manufacturing can occur with clean energy, with lower energy prices. We need to be a country that continues to value our resources, whether they be using them here, or whether they be exporting them overseas. But we could do far more. One of the one of the lessons of this pandemic is we need a Future Made in Australia. We need more national resilience. We are vulnerable to shocks in the supply chain. We need to make more things here. And the way that we do that, in part, is by use of cleaner energy and cheaper energy, because clean energy is the cheapest form of new energy. That's why I won't come here and do the pretence that the Government has had on Collinsville, where they are saying that they'll fund this feasibility project that they know is not going to go ahead, that ministers, including Josh Frydenberg, say is not going to go ahead and run this pretend pretence. Because the cheapest form of new energy in Australia is clean energy. And that is the future in terms of where the growth will be. And what that will do is enable high-value manufacturing to be located here. We were at a prawn farm yesterday. Australia's largest prawn farm, just to give you an example, near Proserpine. That now runs on, there's a lot of energy as their highest costs with aerating the water, a range of activities associated there. They have a massive solar farm there now but they're going to get a much bigger one, a much bigger one, to lower their energy costs. This is a market that's determined. Now, the Government wants to play these games. And some in the media want to play these games from time to time too. You need to look at where the market is, allow the market to operate. The problem with this Government is you're not just climate sceptics, they’re market sceptics as well.
 
JOURNALIST: Is it the case with your Powering Australian plan, that it will not require coal firms in the Bowen Basin to reduce their emissions until their counterparts or competitors in China and Indonesia reduce their emissions?
 
ALBANESE: One of the things that our plan does is to make sure that we actually acknowledge that climate change and the need to reduce emissions is a global issue. So, you don't reduce emissions by taking action in Australia that reduces economic activity that leads to higher emissions somewhere else. So, one of the things that our plan envisages is that no one, no company, will be asked or have any restrictions imposed which are greater than its competitors. Because what that does is, to use one of my mum's old phrases, 'Cut your nose off despite your face'. What we actually need to do is focus on reducing emissions. And that's why we want to do that, whilst making sure that Australian businesses continue to be competitive, whilst making sure that we maximise employment creation, that we maximise economic activity, here in Australia. That's our plan.
 
JOURNALIST: While that's the function of the policy, Barnaby Joyce and Matt Canavan were in Gladstone this week, laying the groundwork for you. A line that you wanted to personally tax 18 businesses gets more cut-through than reducing emissions and jobs for the future. How can you guarantee that message isn't going to happen again and it'll be a repeat of 2019 and you see a loss?
 
ALBANESE: It's their plan, in terms of the measure, the safeguards mechanism was introduced by the Abbott Government. It's the Abbott Government's mechanism. So, if Matt Canavan wants to say, who knows with Matt Canavan, if you actually talk to a coal miner about whether they would put coal dust on their face for a photo, they'll tell you exactly what the occupational health and safety issues are around that. Matt Canavan is a fraud. And Barnaby Joyce is someone who is, frankly, all over the shop, visiting this seat with George Christensen as the local member, during a pandemic where George Christensen is out there promoting conspiracy theories at a time where our priority should be keeping people safe. I saw Barnaby Joyce's comments. He is the Deputy Prime Minister of this country. And he can't bring himself to dissociate himself from comments of George Christensen in a podcast that he said he hasn't seen. He just has to listen to it in the car. It is promoting conspiracy theories that represent a danger to people's health, that could have a real impact. There are a range of people in this country who haven't been vaccinated because of misinformation spread, unfortunately, including by some MPs. That's not a responsible thing to do. And it's not responsible for a Deputy Prime Minister to refuse to dissociate himself from those comments and to say, 'Well, that's just George'.
 
JOURNALIST: (Inaudible).
 
ALBANESE: With regard to staff shortages, some of that is already happening. We know that in the health sector, for example, I know personally of the former Mayor of Ashfield, to give a shout-out to someone who retired some years ago, Lucille McKenna. She's a nurse. She was a nurse her whole life. She's retired. She's now a widow. She's gone back to help during this crisis. That's the sort of effort that we've seen from ordinary Australians right around the country helping their fellow Australians out. And it's being undermined by a Prime Minister failing to plan and therefore planning to fail. We've seen the Grand Slam of the Morrison Government's failures when it comes to tracing, testing, quarantine and vaccinations. Remember the tracing app that millions of Australians downloaded? No one I know - if anyone here use the COVIDSafe app, put your hand up - because I haven't met anyone yet who used it. That was like sunscreen, remember, was going to save us. Then we have testing which is diabolical. People can't get a PCR test. I spoke to someone last night here in Mackay, a doctor. I spoke to them at the Northern Beaches Bowlo. And she can't get her staff, the receptionist and other staff at that medical facility, can't get rapid antigen tests. For love or money. They're just not available. It is not a matter even of the cost, which is extraordinary that the Government refuses to move on that. And of course, purpose-built quarantine, it's taken the Palaszczuk Government to step up. And the reason why the vaccination booster rollout is so far behind is in part because the original vaccine rollout, of course, was way, way, way behind the rest of the world. And now, people are trying to book in for their booster shots who are eligible and can't get it. At that medical centre with the doctor I spoke to last night, just like the one I visited in Townsville, they had their delivery of vaccines deferred and put off. This is happening in the third year of a pandemic. So, working people have made incredible sacrifices and have stepped up. The trade union movement sat down and made compromises and gave up conditions in the short-term that they relied upon in order to keep the economy going. They did their part of the bargain. The Federal Government led by Scott Morrison has not done its part of that bargain.
 
JOURNALIST: Do you think Australians should deserve to know when Novak Djokovic was in the 14 days before he came to Australia, given there are now questions on whether he lied on his form? And regardless of what decision he makes, does the Immigration Minister need to make a decision today to end the ongoing saga?
 
ALBANESE: Well, this is a debacle. But it's another example of a Government led by a Prime Minister who waits for a problem to become a crisis before he acts. And on the way through, seeks to blame someone else. The Federal Government controls our visa system. The Federal Government gave Novak Djokovic a visa. They need to explain how that happened. Because they should have made assessments, like other people do before they get granted a visa. They have to put in all the details, and they get granted or not granted. There are many thousands of visas every day applied for to come to this country that are knocked back on the grounds that they don't meet the requirements. Now, one of the requirements here has been that people be vaccinated. We have a circumstance whereby this Novak Djokovic issue has been the major issue and talk about sport, except perhaps the Ashes here in Australia, but if you look globally, it's been the major issue. Whether Novak Djokovic, competing to win a 21st Grand Slam would be able to attend the Australian Open and play to try and win his 10th open. And Novak Djokovic is a great tennis player. But he has views on other issues that he's been very explicit about on vaccinations. How is it that the Federal Government has allowed it to get to this point? And what are they waiting for to make the decision? This is a Government that never make a decision before they do a focus group. Is that what's going on here? Is there research going on for what decision should be made by this Minister? He needs to make it. He needs to make it on the merits. And he needs to explain how it is that the visa was granted in the first place.
 
JOURNALIST: Do you think there should be a national plan for loosening isolation requirements from more workplaces? If so, should it be all workplaces? Are there specific industries you can think of?
 
ALBANESE: Look, what's really important, and I've been really consistent throughout all this, is that people without 'Dr' next to their name, who aren't the medical experts, not make those decisions, that they'd be made on the basis of the best medical advice. And that is what we need to do. We need to take that advice. Because where medical advice has been ignored, or short-circuited, the end economic consequences have been more dire than if the medical advice had been followed. If we'd have followed the medical advice, we would have been getting people vaccinated earlier, we would have been getting booster shots earlier, we would have had purpose-built quarantine, we would have been making sure that, for example, the kids who are eligible were actually able to get appointments so that school could go back on time. We would have taken the advice that was very clearly there. The AMA was saying last September, when the TGA approved the issue of rapid antigen tests, they were saying that we needed to prepare for it. And yet, what we have, remarkably, is Australia producing rapid antigen tests and being exported overseas, rather than, at the same time as there's a massive shortage here. And working people who want to go to work, who aren't feeling well, perhaps a bit, are having real trouble getting access to those RATs.
 
JOURNALIST: Do you think unvaccinated players should be allowed to play the Australian Open?
 
ALBANESE: I think we have a rule with regard to visas to Australia that was very clear in terms of access to Australia. The Australian Government said that it was clear. Why they issued a visa to Novak Djokovic is a question that needs to be answered by this Government. Thanks very much.