SUBJECTS: Government shambles on climate action; Scott Morrison’s ridicule of renewable energy; Scott Morrison’s Government’s patterns of acting too little, too late; mid-term targets; bipartisanship on climate action around the world; nuclear energy; transparent policy processes; Matt Canavan’s absurdity; Same Job, Same Pay; NSW Government’s tax policies; Government advertising; mRNA vaccines. 

ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: Good morning. A week ago I held a press conference here at Parliament House awaiting a decision by the National Party which was imminent. The Government finally, just a fortnight before the Glasgow conference, was going to come out with what its position was on climate change. A week later, we're in the same position.

This is a government that is frozen in time while the world warms around. This is not really a government, more like a rabble. What's extraordinary isn't that Scott Morrison isn't in the room where decisions are being made about Australia's economic and environmental future, it's that Australian people are being excluded from what's on the agenda of that debate. The Australian people aren't being told about what's on this so-called wish list, what the responses are to that wish list, what the debate is that's going on. It's as if it has nothing to do with them. Well, it has everything to do with them. It has everything to do with the future of our economy, the future of jobs, the future of the regions and the cities, the future of their natural environment and Australia's place in the world.

And that's why the rest of the world has moved on. Every state and territory government, every major business in the country, the National Farmers Federation, the Business Council of Australia, everyone's moved on from this debate. And here you have a government that, once again, is just following, not leading. This is something that characterises Scott Morrison's response to everything. It doesn't matter whether it's bushfires where he said ‘I don't hold a hose, mate’ or the vaccine rollout, which of course, according to him, was not a race, or the issue of women's safety that he didn't acknowledge was an issue or the issue of climate change, this government has a pattern. The first is to deny that there's a problem. The second is to blame someone else. The third is when there's eventually response it's always too little, too late. And he pretends that that record of his statements can just be rubbed out and disappear. Like his record of saying that renewable energy targets were ‘nuts’, or his record of saying that electric vehicles would ‘end the weekend’, or his record of saying that batteries to store renewable energy were as useful as The Big Banana, or The Big Prawn. That's the ridicule that Scott Morrison had towards climate change action, and now he'd have us believe, sometime this week, he'll come out and say, ‘guess what. We're now supporting net zero by 2050’ and expect to receive applause for that. Whereas we know he's been dragged kicking and screaming, we know he wanted to make changes to 2030, but wasn't allowed to by the National Party or Barnaby Joyce, and we know that he's incapable of leading. This is a government that is scared of the present, but terrified of the future. Only Labor has an optimistic view of Australia's place in the world and our future, an optimistic future where we have cleaner energy, where we have lower energy prices, where we produce high value manufacturing, where we take advantage of the fact we're in the fastest growing region of the world in human history, where we have an economy that's growing with high wage jobs, and an economy that's also looking after our environment. We have an opportunity to be a renewable energy superpower for the world. But it will never happen under this government, a government that isn't really committed to doing anything except its political survival, which is why everything is all about the politics, never about the substance, always about following never about leading.

Happy to take questions.

JOURNALIST: Would you agree with Matt Kean, who says this morning that the Federal 2030 at the very least be the average of all the states’ targets? <inaudible>. Do you think that should be the position?

ALBANESE: Well, I note Matt Kean's position, and I note that that's consistent with what every state and territory government around the country is saying. The Federal Government is isolated when it comes to acknowledging the opportunity set out there for job creation. And let me say this, in most places in the world, this is not a partisan issue, in places like Germany, and in Europe. In the United States of course it is, and Mr. Morrison's friend, Donald Trump, of course, led the world away from global action and withdrew from the Paris Accord. But in most places, this isn't an ideological issue. And here in Australia, it's as if the Federal Government's isolated from the shift that's happened, the shift from the business community, the shift from farmers, the shift from state and territory governments.

And we'll talk about what we think should happen in the short and medium term after the Glasgow conference. That’s appropriate. If we were the Government, we would be going to Glasgow with a very clear position, but we're not. I won't be in the room. I note I got asked last week ‘Why aren’t you going to Glasgow?’ and I said if ‘Mr. Morrison wants to take me, I'm sure there's a spot on the plane, and I'm happy to sit in the room with him with world leaders’, given we are in the pre-election period.

JOURNALIST: Does that mean at the very least you will take the average of the state and territory governments’ targets?

ALBANESE: No, it doesn't mean anything of the sort. No, what it means is you've waited nine years for this government to come out with a policy. Our policy will be impacted by what comes out of Glasgow. That is something that I said earlier this year, I've been consistent. What you won't have from the Labor Party is a position one week and another position the next week and everything else. We’ll say, I said, this time last year, I was talking about two big events that would change the climate debate in this country. The first was the US election. And that obviously changed the climate debate, we can see that. The second is Glasgow, we await Glasgow.

JOURNALIST: Mr Albanese, it does feel a bit like Groundhog Day today. You’re obviously anticipating Scott Morrison will adopt a target of net zero by 2050. That's also Labor's policy. It will be the first time in a very long time, won’t it, that there's at least consensus, at least bipartisanship, on this one part of climate policy in Australia?

ALBANESE: Well, it's been our policy, of course, for a long period of time. And it's one of the first policies that I confirmed, given we lost the last election, everything had to be reconfirmed or confirmed what our policy direction was. The difference is – we’re fair dinkum. He's not. He is going to a conference whereby, frankly, the ticket into this conference is net zero by 2050. That's why he didn't even get an invite to the conference that Boris Johnson, his conservative, the Conservative Leader of the UK, convened last year. Australia couldn't even get a seat at the table.

JOURNALIST: Mr Albanese, should Australia sign up to any agreement from the meeting that says we should stop burning coal as a fossil fuel by 2030?

ALBANESE: No.

JOURNALIST: Why not?

ALBANESE: Because we need to keep our lights on. And in terms of our energy framework that’s there at the moment, what we need is a path going forward that changes what occurs in terms of the use of cleaner energy as the form of new energy that's occurring. We know that coal-fired power in places like Liddell is closing down. We know that Australia has an ageing coal-fired power system, except for Queensland is newer than some of the other states. When that happens, remember, there used to be a debate under this government about Liddell. Josh Frydenberg used to stand up about Liddell, he doesn't talk about that anymore. Because of course it's closing down. The truth is, though, under this government's watch, there's not a new coal-fired power station under construction. And that's not because of any law. That's because of the law of economics, the market. And the market’s determining where new energy is the cheapest and the cheapest form of new energy is playing renewables.

JOURNALIST: There’s speculation that nuclear energy has been raised in discussions over net zero agreement. Do you think there needs to be full public transparency on the wish list that's been proposed by the Nationals on this debate?

ALBANESE: Well, there should be full transparency about everything that's on this list and this debate. This is somewhat surreal. This building is the people's building. This is how democracy works. What we're having here is a small group of people hold, essentially, the country back and a prime minister who, from time to time, has shown no commitment to climate change action, indeed, has ridiculed it.

And I do think it is interesting that there is a synergy between those people who are most cynical about climate change and who put up the nuclear energy proposals as a solution. I look forward to any member of the National Party saying that they want a nuclear power plant in their electorate. I look forward to having that debate in their electorate. Matt Kean called it out this morning as a fantasy. Matt Kean is right.

JOURNALIST: Mr. Albanese, you say there should be full transparency on this debate. If you had a small group of backbenchers in your party putting a list to you on what they want on a particular policy area, would Labor have a fully transparent debate in public over that policy development?

ALBANESE: We do. It's called a national conference, and it’s broadcast live on national TV. Not just parliamentarians, members of the Party, we broadcast it live, there's transcripts. You should watch it. It's interesting, from time to time. We even have all of our state conferences broadcast. Last Saturday, or the Saturday before last, the New South Wales conference, the South Australian Party Conference has been broadcast this weekend, the week before New South Wales the West Australian Conference was broadcast. We're not like the Coalition or the Greens, it must be said. The Greens have had leadership ballots in this in this building and no one knows about it until a year later.

The truth is that that we’re an open transparent party. From time to time, that brings difficulties. But on climate change there is no one in our party who argues against net zero by 2050. There is no one in our party who argues against climate change action. There might be debate, in a democratic party everyone doesn't have exactly the same position as to going forward, but that's appropriate. And out of those processes come better outcomes. But our processes are very transparent and on public view. What we have here is just extraordinary the way that this is being debated through.

And can I say that this happens in government as well. I was a delegate to various conferences when we were in government under Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, when policies wanted to be changed about telecommunications or airlines, there were full national ALP conferences to change that policy that were broadcast in full public view, again on national TV.

JOURNALIST: Some of the Nationals have seized on a leaked part of the IPCC report ahead of Glasgow talking about the need to reduce the amount of meat you eat. Matt Canavan says ‘net zero means everyone has to become vegans’. Would you encourage, is that the path Labor would, to get to net zero should there be a consideration of <inaudible>?

ALBANESE: No. I can confirm in this caucus room, without consulting my colleagues, that Labor is against compulsory veganism. And it says everything about Matt Canavan and about the state of this debate and how absurd it is that that sort of rhetoric is being used. This is a serious debate. It’s a serious debate about people's jobs. It's about the regions. It is about urban communities. It's about our way of life. And what Australia needs is a government, not one led by someone who regards renewable energy targets as nuts, and who dismisses electric vehicles as ending the weekend. Nor does it need a government that is held back by someone unlike any coal miner who’s never put soot on their face. Because that's an issue of black lung and it's a serious issue. And I've had miners say to me that they regard that as just an open example of the absurdity of playing politics with this issue.

What we actually need to do, and I'm absolutely committed to standing up for working people, which is why one of the things I'd like the Nats to do is to come out with a policy of Same Job, Same Pay. I wonder if that's on their list, because that's a big issue in the Hunter Valley and in Central Queensland, the fact that permanent work and wages and conditions, that have been fought for by generations of miners, are being undermined by cowboy labour hire firms that are cutting wages and conditions. I never hear anything from the Nats about that. That's having an impact on occupational health and safety in the mines. That's having an impact in reducing the income that is circulating around those regional economies, as well as hurting individuals.

JOURNALIST: The New South Wales Liberal Government has suggested, on housing affordability, to help with that, actually curtailing the capital gains tax discount would be a good idea to do, to take up to lower pressure on house prices. It's a position that Labor took to the last two elections. Now with house prices soaring again, is that a policy you’d consider again on the capital gains tax discount?

ALBANESE: No.

JOURNALIST: Have you seen the Government's latest ad? Do you think it'll encourage the last 10-15 per cent of people who haven’t been fully vaccinated to do anything? And on mRNA, Greg Hunt says we'll have an announcement next week on where the Government is going with that.

ALBANESE: Snuck in two there, well done Rob. On the first, we welcome advertising to encourage people to be vaccinated. This was one of the points that we were making many months ago. And we were told in the COVID Committee the reason why ads weren't being played was because there weren't enough vaccines. There wasn't enough supply. That's why we didn't have an advertising campaign.

I have seen the ad. And I'd suggest that one of the slogans that they could have used, which would have been effective, was ‘it is a race’. It's a race to return to life as normal. It's a race to get vaccinated. But I guess Scott Morrison's comments earlier made sure that that wasn't used. I think that would be a far more direct way to do it. And I think that advertising companies, if left alone, would come up with ‘it’s a race’. I think that's the way to encourage people to be vaccinated very much.

And on mRNA vaccines, well, it's now a year ago since the then Minister said that mRNA vaccine manufacturing would be advanced in nine to 12 months. The 12 months is up. And what we have, once again, from the Government is too little, too late. They're too slow. They're always behind. Never leading, always following.

Thanks very much.

ENDS