SUBJECTS: Afghanistan; COVID outbreaks around Australia; lockdowns; vaccine rollout; need for national quarantine facilities; vaccine supply; Parliament sittings; hotel quarantine failures; mandating of COVID vaccines in workplaces; Prime Minister’s travel plans; climate change; Labor’s policy agenda; Labor’s vision for Australia to become a renewable energy superpower; IPCC Report; Labor’s policy agenda on climate change; importance of climate change threats and opportunities.

MICHELLE GRATTAN, HOST: Anthony Albanese, you're locked down in Canberra now like the rest of us, but you avoided Sydney early on in this third wave. How long since you've been at home? 

ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: It's been more than two months since I've been home now, since mid-June. And that has been quite difficult. I miss home. I miss my family. But it also has meant that I've been able to participate in the Parliament, which is my job. And of course, I was also able to visit Queensland on multiple occasions as well as Tasmania. I did have a visit to Darwin planned for when Parliament got up, Thursday night. And as we speak, I was planning to be in Tasmania. But that's just a part of living with COVID at the moment. So many Australians are doing it a hell of a lot tougher than Members of Parliament. 

GRATTAN: And how are you keeping your electorate office going during the lockdown in Sydney? 

ALBANESE: Well, there's no walk-ups, of course, because of where it is in the Inner West, but the office is open in terms of phone calls and assisting people in that way. And I've also done Zoom calls for the entire electorate, we invited through Facebook, but also for small business. And I'm keeping in contact with people virtually, which is what I'd be doing if I was back in Marrickville anyway. So I do have the advantage of being able to keep in contact with the electorate but still being able to represent the electorate in our national Parliament, which I think is absolutely vital at this stage. 

GRATTAN: Now, Afghanistan and COVID, of course, are dominating everything this week. So let's turn to them and start with Afghanistan. Did you, and do you, agree with the US decision to pull forces out of Afghanistan, which meant, of course, that our forces in practical terms had to go too? 

ALBANESE: Well, of course, that was a decision by President Trump last year. 

GRATTAN: Could have been reversed, though. 

ALBANESE: Well, the circumstances I think are that I'm prioritising the immediate concerns that I have. There'll be an opportunity to analyse what happened over the 20-year period of the war and engagement, including by Australian Forces. But my immediate concerns are the extraction of Australian citizens and permanent residents, the need for us to provide support to remove people who are in danger because of their support for Australian Defence personnel. I'm particularly concerned that people in Tarin Kowt, and in Uruzgan Province, where Australian Defence Forces were present, that there'll be a difficulty getting them to Kabul. 

GRATTAN: Well, it's impossible, isn't it? 

ALBANESE: Well, it is just a diabolical circumstance. 

GRATTAN: How would you even go about that? 

ALBANESE: Well, that's the great difficulty which is there. This is, I think, just the latest example of too little too late from this current Government. Admiral Barrie's comments, I think, are quite damning. 

GRATTAN: And he was Chief of the Defence Force when we went in. 

ALBANESE: He was. And he is fully aware, of course, of the obligation. And this isn't just a moral obligation. This is a national security issue. Australia needs to send a message that those people who provided us with support in our time of need, to our defence personnel on the ground, will be given support by us in their time of need. And if we don't do that, I really am very concerned about the circumstance which is there. I'm concerned, as well, for the families of those 41 Australian servicemen who gave their lives in service of their country. And they'll be going through a difficult time now, but so too will other veterans as well. 

GRATTAN: But are you suggesting that those people who helped us who are not in Kabul be somehow extracted by the forces of Australia, the Defence Force that are going in, who are very few in number? 

ALBANESE: Well, I'm just very concerned that they haven't been extracted already. That's the issue here. They shouldn't have been waited until there was a crisis. And something that really defines, I think, Scott Morrison's Prime Ministership, more and more, is that the first phase is to deny that there's a problem. The second is to wait till there's a crisis and then to have a response that's too little too late. And the third is to seek someone else to blame for the fact that there wasn't action earlier. And that's something that now defines the extraction from Afghanistan, but it also is the delay in calling Royal Commissions in areas like aged care, the response to the bushfires, the issue of sexual harassment, including in Parliament House, the issue of the rollout of the vaccines, the need for safe purpose-built quarantine facilities. It is always too little, too late from this Prime Minister. 

GRATTAN: Well, to talk about something that could be done pretty instantly, do you think the Australian Government should declare that Afghans who are in this country should be able to stay, rather like Bob Hawke did with the Chinese students after the Tiananmen Square Massacre? 

ALBANESE: Absolutely. The idea that people, for example, many of whom are Hazaras, are on Temporary Protection Visas, the idea that the circumstances are going to change, that these are temporary circumstances, is just not real. It doesn't acknowledge the circumstances which these people confront. And we want them to fully participate in Australian society. And they should have the capacity to become full Australian citizens. 

GRATTAN: So immediately, the Government should declare that all Afghans in Australia, other than any that are in detention for security reasons, should be able to get permanent residency now? 

ALBANESE: That's right. So people who are on Temporary Protection Visas, there's nothing temporary about their stay here. If they're on TPVs, it's because they've been recognised to be asylum seekers. And that's under the circumstances which were there previously. The circumstances now are far more dire with the return of the Taliban. And we need to acknowledge that reality and give people the security and certainty that enables them to fully participate, to get a job, to get a mortgage, to raise a family and to become full Australian citizens. 

GRATTAN: Do you think we should make any extra provision to take refugees from Afghanistan in this situation? Should the Government, for example, be expanding the humanitarian intake to include, in particular, women's leaders, human rights activists, and journalists who are now pretty desperate to leave? 

ALBANESE: Well, I certainly think we should consider that. But I make this point. That our humanitarian intake has been basically non-existent in recent times due to COVID. And therefore, there is ample space in our humanitarian program to fill that space with people from Afghanistan, who are under threat as a result of their activism, be they women's rights activists, human rights activists, people who've played a role in the government, as well as journalists. I think that would be a reasonable thing to consider.

GRATTAN: And presumably, you could stage them through another country so that the COVID issue was dealt with in that way?

ALBANESE: Well, presumably it would be nice if this Government got on and dug a hole for a quarantine facility that's purpose-built in this country. It's extraordinary that we're now more than 18 months into the pandemic and the only facility that is appropriate to put people in without the risk that has been there with hotel quarantine is at Howard Springs. That of course is a labour camp. But it is a labour camp that's been used efficiently, where you don't have ventilation issues, which has kept people safe. And we should be getting on with that, as I've argued now for more than a year. It is beyond my comprehension why this Government has been so complacent about hotel quarantine issues. And this just brings it home. Remember that the lockdown that currently has most Australians in lockdown today is one that began with a breach as a result of a limo driver driving a person arriving from overseas to quarantine. And that's where this began. Just as the previous Melbourne outbreak began with a breach of hotel quarantine from Adelaide, where someone who came from India didn't get COVID in India, they got it in a hotel in Adelaide. This Government has presided over 28 breaches of hotel quarantine. It is complacency which has emerged into, frankly, incompetence when it comes to a failure to do, essentially, the right thing by Australians in keeping them safe.

GRATTAN: I know you're focused on the present, but a couple of questions on the past I think are important. Do you think it was a mistake for Australia to return to Afghanistan in 2005? We went in the initial attack. We then withdrew to go into Iraq. We then returned. Was that 2005 return a mistake? 

ALBANESE: Look, I think that analysis will take place over a period of time. But let me make this point. The attempts which were made to rebuild Afghanistan in a way that respected human rights, that provided schools where girls could go, universities where young women could get an education, to have a regime in our region which respected human rights, is a worthy objective. And the fact is that Australia was impacted by Afghanistan's descent into barbarism with Al Qaeda being given safe haven, with the attacks on September 11, 20 years ago now almost to the day where Australians lost their life. But of course, in Bali as well with the Bali bombing, where many of my constituents, Debbie and Abbey Borgia, and others lost their lives. This was an issue where Australia was doing its bit. There was bipartisan support for this action. But there will be analysis of history. And the time for that, though, isn't right now. The time for that is down the track.

GRATTAN: Of course, you were very senior in the Labor Government that supported the war. Did you or any others in that Government have doubts that the war could eventually be won?

ALBANESE: Well, there was bipartisan support for the war. 

GRATTAN: Yes. Separate question, though, about doubts. 

ALBANESE: Well, everyone, I think, who looks at Afghanistan and its history, be it the Soviet Union, as it was then, and their involvement in Afghanistan over a long period of time. So I think that anyone who thinks, though, that decisions are 100 per cent to zero doesn't acknowledge the nature of decision making. But, did I support the bipartisan position? Yes, I did. 

GRATTAN: Now, let's turn to COVID. Do you think Parliament should sit in the next fortnight as it's due to and do you have any information about whether it will?

ALBANESE: No, I don't have any information. So I'm assuming that it will. Because I think there are a couple of points to make. One is that if there is health advice that we shouldn't sit, then obviously we should follow that health advice. But that isn't there at the moment. The Parliament has been able to sit, including in 2020 under changed circumstances, and we will be cooperative as we have been the whole way through with Parliament sitting. Do I think the fallback position or, if you like, the base position should be, ‘Should Parliament be sitting?’ Yes. I think that the functioning of a democracy is important. I also make this point that if Parliament does not sit, it will send a message about other activity as well to the nation that is not one that builds confidence. It's one that says to other activity that they perhaps should reconsider their position. We are having the National Rugby League functioning, the Australian Football League functioning, netball is functioning, a range of activities are functioning around the country. All of which is functioning on the basis of adaptation and flexibility. And if the Parliament can meet, it should be meeting, is my essential position. I have had no contact from the Government. And indeed, a number of members in isolation as we speak. Kristina Keneally, Jenny McAllister, Stephen Jones, to name just three of our frontbenchers who are in isolation for two weeks. They're nearing the latter period of that two weeks in order so that they can participate in the Parliament. And I know that a number of members on both sides are doing that or have remained in Canberra so as to participate, including members of my own staff. So it, I think, pales into insignificance compared with the sacrifices that have been made by people who've lost their jobs, people who, of course, tragically, have lost their loved ones. And there are too many of them. So I think that Parliament has an obligation to sit wherever possible.

GRATTAN: Now, given the extent of the outbreak, especially in New South Wales, do you think that Australia will be open for Christmas?

ALBANESE: Well, I hope so. The problem is the two issues that I continue to say the Prime Minister has failed us on this year. We didn't order enough vaccines and we don't have purpose-built quarantine. I was contacted by a doctor in my electorate just this morning, searching out for more vaccines from the Commonwealth. He is someone who serves largely people from non-English speaking backgrounds. They're desperate to get the vaccine. They keep hearing the message of ‘Get vaccinated’, but they can't get an appointment because there aren't enough vaccines. That's still a problem. And their rates of fully vaccinated people over the age of 16 has just hit above the one in four. But of course, we have the issue of 12- to 15-year-olds. The TGA has approved Pfizer for 12-to-15-year olds, but ATAGI is still considering that advice. Many parents are just beside themselves, worried about their students, their sons and daughters, and about whether it's safe for them to return to schooling. This is a predicament that we shouldn't be in. But we are. We are because the Prime Minister said it wasn't a race. We know it was a race. And we were running last in the developed world before recent times.

GRATTAN: Now, where vaccines are available, are you in favour of mandating jabs in workplaces? Some workplaces, any workplaces where employers want it? Or could there even be a vote on worksites? What's your opinion on this?

ALBANESE: Well, the problem here is that there aren't enough vaccines.

GRATTAN: Well, when there are?

ALBANESE: Well, then we'll consider it when there are. But the problem at the moment is we're having a debate about mandating. Once again, the Prime Minister is saying it's got nothing to do with him. We're not seeing leadership in that regard. But the problem is, at the moment, people can't get vaccinated who want to. I think in a range of areas, the question in some areas will solve itself. Really, Australians won't be able to travel overseas, that's very clear, without being vaccinated. Just as, you would recall, as I do, having to get vaccines for everything from Black Plague to cholera, to typhoid in order to travel to South America and other places around the world.

GRATTAN: So you support vaccine passports? 

ALBANESE: It's not a matter of whether I support it or not, it's going to happen in terms of the aviation sector will impose that. And so I think the real issue here is that there aren't enough vaccines at the moment. And the idea that we're in a position to get everybody vaccinated, we're not.

GRATTAN: But still, this is an argument, really, about competing principles and so on about workplaces. We know that there will be enough vaccines within hopefully some weeks. But what about aged care workers?

ALBANESE: Unfortunately, Michelle, there won't be enough vaccines available within weeks. Within months, perhaps, but not within weeks.

GRATTAN: Alright, months. 

ALBANESE: I note the Government, with great fanfare, announced a million vaccines from Poland on the weekend. That's a good thing, any more vaccines. But imagine what position we'd be in if we'd ordered enough vaccines in the first place? If we hadn't have waited from July to November when Pfizer first approached us. They did 34 deals for literally more than enough to vaccine Australians many times over before Australia did a deal. The fact is that the Prime Minister said that it wasn't a race, and it was. The Prime Minister said that our quarantine system was 99.9 per cent effective, and it's not. Each breakout has had dire consequences, as we're seeing at the moment. And for areas like aged care workers, I haven't seen the latest figures, but as of a week ago, we still didn't have half the aged care workforce fully vaccinated. 

GRATTAN: So you support mandating it for them? 

ALBANESE: As they have to with the flu now. Common sense tells you that where they need to keep people safe, that will be something that will be required as it is now for other vaccines. 

GRATTAN: But you're not so sure about mandating in factories or supermarkets?

ALBANESE: Well, we're just not up to that position at this point in time. So I think that people should be vaccinated, be very clear. And I think that message should be out there. The problem at the moment is that we're not in a position to have a debate out there in the community about those issues because we're still stuck in a debate over whether people can get access to vaccines and whether people can be vaccinated. I haven't met anyone, for example, in the aged care or disability care workforce who doesn't want to be vaccinated. What I have met is dozens, literally, of Australians in places like Ipswich, in places like Redcliffe in Queensland, in Maryborough, in Mackay, in Canberra here, in Devonport and Launceston, who haven't been able to be vaccinated. And that is a real problem. In the last weeks, we had a nursing home, an aged care facility, in Summer Hill in my electorate, where in the last two days, there's another death of an elderly resident who died in hospital. That is not the first fatality coming from the fact that an aged care worker was working in multiple facilities without being fully vaccinated. This is more than 18 months into the pandemic. This is a massive public policy failure with extreme consequences for people's lives, for people's livelihoods in terms of our economy. And we still have a Prime Minister who in the last sitting week was speaking about our vaccination rates going from strength to strength. That was the term that he used. Just extraordinary that he doesn't acknowledge the absolute failure that has occurred here.

GRATTAN: Do you think we should open up when the vaccination rate reaches 80 per cent and live with whatever COVID there is in the community at that point?

ALBANESE: Well, what we need to do is to get there. And I don't want restrictions to be in place for any longer than is necessary. 

GRATTAN: So is 80 per cent time to open? 

ALBANESE: We should listen to the advice. Of course, 80 per cent, we need as well to get the advice about younger people as well, because the 80 per cent isn't 80 per cent of the population on some figures. 

GRATTAN: It’s the over 16s, I think. 

ALBANESE: That's right. We had someone under that age die in the last week of COVID. They also had meningococcal, so there were complications there. But we know that COVID can infect young people.

GRATTAN: I think COVID wasn't seen as the primary cause from what we heard from the health people.

ALBANESE: But we certainly have young people who are vulnerable. I don't want to see restrictions in place for one day longer than is necessary. But throughout this crisis from the very beginning, Michelle, you might go back in time, if we can, to last March and April, whereby the Government was putting the case, including our Prime Minister, of basically, ‘Oh, well, we've got to just live with this’. We were saying that you needed to get the health response right and that would have an impact on the economy. It wasn't the other way round. If we ignored the health response, the economic consequences would be more detrimental, more extreme, more severe, there'd be more job loss. And we were right. 

GRATTAN: And talking about going back, do you think after this is all over, there should be a full-blown inquiry into the handling of COVID by governments, by bureaucrats, by others, to learn the lessons for the future? 

ALBANESE: It's inevitable that there will be an inquiry of some form.

GRATTAN: And a Labor Government would ensure that was called? 

ALBANESE: It's inevitable that will happen regardless of who is in office. 

GRATTAN: But Labor would do it? 

ALBANESE: That'll be a matter for the time. But it is inevitable, in my view, that there will be an inquiry into something like this. Because all of the health advice, as well, is that this mightn’t even be the big one. Which is one of the reasons why failure to build quarantine facilities is so short-sighted. We're using quarantine facilities from a century ago now. They’re restaurants, catering places on our North Head around Manly, for example, they're hotels in some places around Australia. We need to have purpose-built quarantine facilities. We need to have a response that recognises that this pandemic might not be the only time in our lifetime that it occurs. We hope that it does. But we need to be prepared. And that's why we need to analyse what we did that was good and what we did that was could be done better in the future. 

GRATTAN: So we can expect a Royal Commission?

ALBANESE: I'll make announcements when we make decisions through proper processes. But it's inevitable that there will be an inquiry of some form, whoever is in government.

GRATTAN: Now, there's been talk of the Prime Minister going to America sometime in September, for possible meeting of the Quad and, of course, there's the 70th anniversary of ANZUS. And then there's the November Climate Conference in Glasgow. Should Scott Morrison travel if there are still extensive lockdowns?

ALBANESE: Well, that'll be a matter for him. 

GRATTAN: You don't have a view on it? 

ALBANESE: That will be a matter for him, how he does his job. My job is to do two things. One to hold the Government to account and to point out some of the inadequacies and the character of this Government, which is defined, as I said previously, by always being too little, too late in its response. And secondly, it's to be constructive, to put up alternatives to the immediate issues which I've done through, for example, the $300 cash payment to encourage people to be vaccinated. I note that Telstra is offering its employees $200 to be vaccinated. And that's a positive thing in the absence of Government leadership. But it's also to present a plan for the country to build back stronger. And that is something that I've been doing through our National Reconstruction Fund, Jobs and Skills Australia, cheaper child care, making sure that we become a renewable energy superpower, and a range of other policies to take us to the next election.

GRATTAN: I just want to finish on the question of climate change. You are not revealing your election policy at this stage. But has the latest report of the International Panel on Climate Change inclined you to be more ambitious than you might have intended?

ALBANESE: Well, it certainly is, for some, a wakeup call. But I have followed the IPCC and I followed the UNFCCC processes for a long period of time. I attended the conferences in Montreal and in Nairobi some 15 years ago as Labor's Environment and Climate Change spokesperson. I wrote the Climate Change Blueprint in 2006, along with Kim Beasley, that was launched, that provided the basis for action that we took in Government, including the renewable energy target of 20 per cent by 2020 when the target was two per cent. I introduced Private Member's Bills to ratify Kyoto that were rejected by the Government. And I have been a long-term strong advocate on climate change. We will be ambitious about climate change. And we need to do so. And the longer we delay action, the more costly it will be. I also am of the view, very strongly, that climate change is a threat, but it's also a huge opportunity. And the latest report outlines that. We can be a renewable energy superpower for the world.

GRATTAN: So do you anticipate there'll be a big gulf between Labor and the Government in their climate change policies? Or do you think it'll be a more modest difference of degree?

ALBANESE: I think it will be a significant distinction. 

GRATTAN: That's somewhere in between, is it? 

ALBANESE: No, the fact is this Government are incapable of action. Because they have people who are the tail-wagging the dog. People like Matt Canavan, who made, quite frankly, a disgusting comment in recent days about the Taliban and zero net emissions that was entirely offensive. Once again, the Prime Minister refusing to haul him into line, as now with Barnaby Joyce as our Deputy Prime Minister, someone who's been sceptical, someone who did that rather bizarre video looking up at the sky with the cows in the paddock last Christmas. The fact is you won't get action on climate change from this Government. They don’t take it seriously. They're incapable of action. They're incapable of forward thinking. A Government that's defined by always dismissing crises until they are so extreme they have to be forced to act, and then blame someone else. Compare that with a Labor Party where everyone acknowledges the threat that climate change represents but also the opportunity that it represents to create jobs. The fact is that clean energy is the cheapest form of new energy in this country. That is why you're seeing renewables, in spite of the Government, step up. You're having every outlet from Tomago Aluminium, to BlueScope in Port Kembla, to Rio Tinto's facility at Gladstone on aluminium, all looking at how they move to clean energy, how they produce their products cheaper, but also cleaner. And we have an opportunity to do that, to have high-value manufacturing powered by clean energy in this country. Resources that we have better than anywhere else in the world. It's a competitive advantage that Australia has. And it's an advantage that we have not just in terms of domestic production, but globally as well. If you look at the largest solar farm in the world that will be built in the Northern Territory to help power Singapore, it just shows what can be achieved with a bit of planning, with a bit of vision, and with the guts to look to a better future and set about creating it.

GRATTAN: Anthony Albanese, thank you very much for talking with us today. That's all for this podcast from The Conversation. Thank you to my producer, Tom Glassey. We'll be back with another interview soon. But goodbye for now.

ENDS