SUBJECTS: Queensland border reopening; MYEFO; Labor’s Future Made in Australia Skills program; A Future Made in Australia; Labor’s policy agenda; Federal election; migration; debates; Senate committee inquiry into media; South Korean President visit.
 
KIERAN GILBERT, HOST: You said this morning you're about reconnecting with Queenslanders. You've gone straight Longman, one of your seats you're hopeful of picking up. What's the mood like? Are you feeling optimistic of picking up that electorate?
 
ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: I've been very positive here this morning. I began with Anika Wells in Lilley. And then I'm here in Caboolture with Rebecca Fanning. And then after this, I'll be spending time with Mick Denton in Petrie down on the Redcliffe Peninsula. They're pretty excited down there about the Dolphins winning the bid. But it's been very positive. And I'm here at a TAFE to talk about our skills policy, which will provide 465,000 free TAFE places. And it's really about training up Queenslanders for the jobs of today and tomorrow. That's one of the lessons of the pandemic is that we're pretty vulnerable, we don't have enough Australians trained for the jobs that are available. And that makes us vulnerable to shocks such as when the borders were closed. We've become too reliant upon temporary migration rather than training Australians up for the jobs that are available.
 
GILBERT: You enter Queensland on day one of travel reopening. But if we're frank about it, it has been Premier Palaszczuk, her Government, that has prevented this, and not just you but others from returning to Queensland sooner.
 
ALBANESE: Well, she's done a fantastic job of keeping Queenslanders safe. And the fact is, Kieran, that if the Federal Government had done its job of ordering enough vaccines earlier, then those vaccination rates would have been higher, and the borders would have been open. The fact is that this Government didn't secure enough vaccines. Scott Morrison said it wasn't a race. It always was. And the other thing he didn't do was have purpose-built quarantine. Annastacia Palaszczuk had to go her own way, and together with private sector interest, building a purpose-built quarantine facility at Wellcamp, near Toowoomba. And that's something that should have been done a year ago.
 
GILBERT: When you talk about the skills program, obviously, that's something that we need to deal with as a nation in terms of productivity. But surely, the other side of that is getting skilled migration and students back. At the weekend you called it mass migration. But isn't it simply returning back to the levels that we had prior to the pandemic? Don't we need it to boost economic activity?
 
ALBANESE: Well, that was Josh Frydenberg's term in making announcements prior to the Mid-Year Economic Forecast. Migration plays an important role in our economy. There's no question about that. I've never questioned the need for migration. What I say, though, is we need to make sure that we skill up Australians. What happened when the borders were shut was that we'd become so reliant upon temporary migration, we're not identifying where the jobs are today and the jobs of the future and then training Australians for them. So, I said as my first announcement, really, the big one in 2019, that we would create Jobs and Skills Australia to do for labour and labour needs what Infrastructure Australia should be doing for our infrastructure investment, to identify the direction that it should go over the coming years, get that planning right, provide Australians with those opportunities. Kieran, there are 2 million Australians who are either unemployed or underemployed, who want more hours. Why is it that we have this need for skilled workers, and we have people who want more hours, but we can't match them together? Common sense tells you that part of making our economy more resilient is skilling up Australians. I don't want us to compete in the Asian century on the basis of driving wages and conditions down. I want us to compete on the basis of skilling Australians up and providing them with training. And that's why we made the TAFE announcements, that's why we'll have an additional 20,000 university places as well.
 
GILBERT: But on that specific number the Treasurer put, 160,000, that includes family reunions and includes skilled migration, the whole envelope of migration. Is that number reasonable in your mind, 160,000?
 
ALBANESE: Well, we haven't seen any of the figures Kieran. That's the point. I support family reunion. I support skilled migration where it's appropriate as well. So, we need to, though, have a strategy. Something other than just projecting, 'We will just do what we're doing before, we'll pick the same number that was there before without getting a proper analysis of what's appropriate'. We'll have a look at what the Government puts forward at the end of this week. But one of the things that I know is that we need to skill Australians up. We need to provide them with opportunities. When we're talking about, for example, in the resources sector and other sectors of skilled work, they can be good, permanent, high-value, high-wage jobs. Why is it that our first instinct isn't to provide those opportunities for Australians to get those skills so they can fill those positions? And of course, there will always be a role for temporary migration. And I have said, repeatedly, that our university sector needs foreign students coming in. That's critical as well. But we need to get the balance right of providing Australians with opportunities.
 
GILBERT: Well, before we move on to a few other issues we've got to get to, on that migration issue, what do you say to those who argue Labor lacks credibility on that front, given what happened last time you were in office in terms of losing control of the borders, at least when it comes to the asylum seekers and illegal migration?
 
ALBANESE: We can talk all we like about things that happened a decade ago. But Labor has a clear policy, which is similar to the Government's in a range of those areas. But one of the things that you'd also say Kieran is that why is it that the Government hasn't taken up the offer of New Zealand, which would have saved a lot of money and made a difference with regard to settling people there? This Government can't continue to talk about a Government that is now, at the time of the next election will be a decade ago, as if it hasn't been in office for an entire decade. It's like when Scott Morrison was there in the car around Bathurst saying he didn't want to look in the rear vision mirror. Well, of course he doesn't. Because he doesn't want to be reminded that this Government's been in office for a decade, that indeed, they told the Australian car industry to leave. Both Holden and Ford, of course, aren't being made in Australia anymore. But also, they continue to look back beyond the last decade as if they haven't been there. And that's because there's no legacy for this Government. There's nothing for them to point to where they've made a positive difference in economic, social or environmental reform. And they're asking for a second decade in office.
 
GILBERT: The Federal Labor Leader, Anthony Albanese, has committed to taking part in the Sky News People's Forum ahead of next year's Federal election. The Morrison Government's been seeking to establish a debates commission to oversee the campaign showdowns. I was joined a short time ago by Anthony Albanese. And I asked him how many debates he'd like to see during this campaign and if he's happy with what the Government has put forward so far in relation to the debates commission.
 
ALBANESE: Well, the debates commission, as put forward by the Government, is a commission to have no debates. Because what they put forward is this big, cumbersome, bureaucratic committee where everyone gets a guernsey and everyone has the right to veto whether any debates go ahead or not. It's a recipe to avoid having debates. And it's not surprising for anyone who's observed Parliament, as you do, that the Government that shuts down debates, whenever anything is moved on the floor of the Parliament, doesn't want to have debates during an election campaign either. I'm up for a debate today, tomorrow, next week, next month, as many as possible. And we should be doing that. This Government has avoided debates on the floor of the Parliament. And now, they're trying to avoid debates during the election campaign as well. So, I'm up for a maximum number of debates. It will be good to have at least one debate every week while the election campaign is on. And I'm certainly up for that.
 
GILBERT: Let me invite you then to take part in that traditional event, the Sky News People's Forum with undecided voters. Will you commit to taking part on that debate, at least that debate, as part of this campaign?
 
ALBANESE: Absolutely, I'll commit to that, Kieran. And Sky News People's Debate is an important forum. It gets ordinary Australians to have an opportunity to question the Prime Minister and the alternative Prime Minister during an election campaign. I want to see that debate take place. And it should take place here in Queensland. This is an important state for the election. And I certainly would welcome at least one. We can do more than one, if you like, if Scott Morrison will agree to it. But we certainly should have one here in Queensland. We should have other debates as well. We should have a debate at the National Press Club. The ABC should be allowed to host a debate. I'm up for debates being hosted by the commercial networks as well. There should be the full suite of debates about issues that are about a difference that it makes to people's lives. When we elect a government, we have an impact on people's lives, on their living standards, on their job, on their childcare costs, on the costs of living, on whether we deal with climate change. And all of those issues should be up for debate. And I'm certainly prepared to engage in as many debates as possible. But one of those should certainly be the Sky News People's Forum. And it should be held here in Queensland.
 
GILBERT: All right. Well, we will agree to that. Do it in Queensland. And there's at least one, maybe more.
 
ALBANESE: Well, there is yourself as well, Kieran, so we'll have at least two people there. We'll see if Scott Morrison is prepared to front up for debates. Scott Morrison avoids debates whenever possible. The most common motion moved in the Parliament this year has been to shut down debates, to move that the motion be put or move that members be no longer heard. And unlike all of his predecessors, whether it was Malcolm Turnbull, Tony Abbott, John Howard, Julie Gillard, Kevin Rudd, they were all prepared to have debates in the Parliament. Scott Morrison just shuts them down and doesn't respect other people's views. He isn't prepared to defend his record, which will be by then almost a decade in office. And isn't prepared to debate the future. I want a better future for Australia. And I want to debate the ideas that I have to make sure that people's wages and living standards are lifted up, that we address the issue of equality for women, that we address the issue of climate change, and all the other suite of issues that this next election campaign will be about, as well as address the Government's failure when it comes to rolling out the vaccine and having purpose-built quarantine.
 
GILBERT: Well, we've got that challenge set. Well, let's see what the response is. I'm sure the Government, the Prime Minister, will be keen to be part of that traditional forum, as you said, during the campaign. Let's move on, though, because Michelle Rowland, the communications spokesperson for Labor was on this program last week. She said it's not Labor policy to support the Senate committee inquiry into the media. Why did your Senators, in terms of that committee, back it? Did they back it with your approval?
 
ALBANESE: Look, I don't approve or disapprove of what Senators or Members do in committee reports. They undertake their work independently of the Leader's office. And there has been now an inquiry. There's been an inquiry by the Senate about media diversity and about those issues. Those issues are important. And they were considered already by the committee. Michelle Rowland is our communications spokesperson. I think she does a fantastic job.
 
GILBERT: And so, you rule that out, any such inquiry if you win office?
 
ALBANESE: Well, I've seen no argument to do it. Kieran. We've already had an inquiry. It seems to me strange that an inquiry found that we should have another inquiry. We've had that. And of course, there's nothing to stop, if people are critical about any bias in the media, they can call it out. And they do. And I do on a regular basis when I think there's been unfair treatment. And of course, what we see is changes in the media landscape, with a whole lot of new vehicles springing up. In my local area, there's a new newspaper starting early next year that I did an interview for just at the end of last week. There's actually nothing to stop competition in terms of a newspaper starting up. Many, of course, have started up in the last decade in terms of online productions. But I think I have not seen a case made for a further inquiry at great costs of a Royal Commission. What we've said is we'll have a Royal Commission into Robodebt is my priority. We've said that already as an announcement. We will also have to, I think, have a look at some of the way in which we've dealt with the pandemic. It's inevitable that there'll be some form of an inquiry there into our handling so that it can make recommendations going forward as well.
 
GILBERT: Kevin Rudd made some disparaging remarks about Michelle Rowland after she ruled out an inquiry. Have you spoken to him about that? Would you take it up with him to complain about that?
 
ALBANESE: People are entitled to their views. I respect Kevin Rudd. He's very much a friend of mine. He's been a friend of mine for a long period of time. But Michelle Rowland is our communications spokesperson. I think she does a fantastic job. She'll be the Communications Minister in a Government that I lead. And she has a background, of course, in the law when it comes to communications. She's an outstanding spokesperson. She's right on top of areas like the National Broadband Network where we've made significant announcements. And of course, we've also made announcements about improved funding for the ABC, about making sure that there's that security as well for the ABC and SBS with five0year funding, and as well, we will have a feasibility study into whether SBS should move to the multicultural heartland of Sydney in Western Sydney.
 
GILBERT: And finally, you're going to be meeting with the South Korean President tomorrow, as I understand it. What will be your message to him if you win Government next May, most likely March or May? Will there be continuity in terms of foreign policy and particularly when it comes to the way Australia deals with China?
 
ALBANESE: Well, my message is there certainly will be continuity in how we deal with the region. Labor has three key themes, if you like, that we've had consistently. The first of those is our alliance with the United States. The second is our engagement in the region. And the third is our support for multilateral forums. And of course, South Korea as well. We could play a much closer role with our position on climate than the current Government. We see climate change as being a national security issue. It's about our positioning in the region as well. That's really important. So, I look forward very much to meeting with the President tomorrow in Sydney. And we are great friends with our Korean neighbours, as we are with other countries in the region. And I look forward to forging a close relationship with South Korea, as we've had for some time on a bipartisan basis. And it's a good thing that the President is visiting Australia. We haven't had many visits, of course, from international guests in recent times. And it's one of the signs that Australia is beginning to open up again. And that's a very positive thing.
 
GILBERT: Mr Albanese joining me from Caboolture in the seat of Longman in Queensland. Thanks for your time. Appreciate it.
 
ALBANESE: Thanks very much, Kieran. Have a great day.
 
ENDS