SUBJECTS: Morrison Government failures on climate change; Nationals holding the Government to ransom over climate change; Barnaby Joyce shirking responsibility; Glasgow climate conference; Supreme Court decision on intervention into the Victorian Branch.

KIERAN GILBERT, HOST: Joining me live now on the program is the Leader of the Opposition, Anthony Albanese. Thanks so much for your time, as always. The Prime Minister says it's not a linear trajectory to net zero by 2050. Do you agree with him on that? Essentially, the point that he makes is that investments in technologies have long lead times, that we'll get to that net zero outcome.

ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: Kieran, this is a Prime Minister who has ridiculed new technology. As you just ran the excerpt from Question Time, it's the Prime Minister's own words that said that the biggest battery in Australia, in South Australia to store energy, renewable energy was as useful as the Big Prawn and the Big Banana. It's the Prime Minister who said that new technology in the form of electric vehicles would end the weekend. This is a Prime Minister who has disparaged action. And the one thing that he got right in Question Time today was when he spoke about a caricature. He's become a caricature of himself, having spent years ridiculing action on climate change. He speaks about Kyoto one and Kyoto two. Well, the fact is, it took the election of a Labor Government in 2007 to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. The Government, the Coalition, were against it until just the eve of the election, where they then, under John Howard said they would ratify Kyoto and they would have an emissions trading scheme. It's a bit like what we've seen now, on the eve of an election, changing their views.

GILBERT: But, answer me this question because it goes to whether or not you're going to take an ambitious 2030 goal yourself or target. Because he says it's not linear. Big gains are made later in the piece.

ALBANESE: It's not linear at all, Kieran. It's not linear. It's not a significant point, Kieran. You shouldn't fall for it. It's an excuse, not a point. And that point is that this Government...

GILBERT: I just want to know whether you're going to have an ambitious mid-term target?

ALBANESE: Well, we'll make our announcements, as I've said repeatedly, after the Glasgow conference. But we've already had significant announcements out there, including a $20 billion Rewiring the Nation program to fix transmission in this country. We have a plan for community batteries. We have a plan to make electric vehicles cheaper. We have a plan to make sure that we train and skill-up Australians in those renewable energy jobs. We have a range of policies out there and early on I announced net zero by 2050. The point about the 2030 target is that under state and territory government announcements already the targets, if you add them all up, 50% in New South Wales and Victoria, higher targets than the Federal Government target for 2030. If you add all them up, they add up to higher than the Federal Government without the Federal Government doing anything at all. And the fact is that the only reason why emissions have fallen are due...

GILBERT: That means you will up it, obviously?

ALBANESE: No, it means the Coalition Government in New South Wales has a target. And the Victorian Labor Government has a target. I'll make our announcements at the appropriate time after Glasgow. I said that really early on. I said last year that they'd be two big events that would have a real impact on where this policy was headed. One, it was the US election, and the Biden administration has made a significant difference to the stance of America and therefore the world, as the leader of the free world. The second was the Glasgow conference. And hasn't the politics changed, Kieran? And so the difference between Labor and the Coalition. 

GILBERT: It sure has, but are you not gonna write a blank cheque again are you? Because that's the way the Prime Minister put it, you heard it this afternoon. Labor blank cheque, that was the argument. 

ALBANESE: That's his absurd rhetoric.

GILBERT: I'm just saying to you, has Labor learned its lessons from the last election when there wasn't enough detail underpinning your climate policy?

ALBANESE: We'll have all the detail out there, which is why you won't get a glib answer on Sky News at 4.10 in the afternoon, I'll have a policy announcement. They'll all be done in a serious manner, as we have previous announcements as part of my Budget Replies. But we won't take lectures from a Prime Minister who's now trying to argue by the way that he supports net zero by 2050. The Government's policy is net zero by 2050. But Labor's policy of net zero by 2050 somehow isn't appropriate. I mean, it's bizarre, Kieran. This is a Government...

GILBERT: Is a carbon price in the mix for you? Because, again, just to get your response to the Prime Minister, he says, Katy Gallagher said a carbon price is in the mix.  

ALBANESE: No. I can't be clearer, Kieran. I can't be clearer than no. No. And I've said that very clearly.

GILBERT: Ok, there you have it. 

ALBANESE: I've ruled that out a long time ago. The reason why you needed a price on carbon way back in, when we were considering it in Government more than a decade ago, is that you needed to change the price of the market. The market is now speaking, renewables are the cheapest form of new energy. For all of this Government's rhetoric about modes of energy production, the truth is there's no coal fired power stations under construction. They've been in Government for eight years. The reason why there's not is because the market is speaking, renewables are the cheapest form of new energy. So you don't have to distort the market. What you need to do is to embrace the cheapest form of new energy, make sure that it can be connected with the grid. Can you believe Kieran, that the Snowy 2.0 project will be completed many years before it's connected up to the grid? I mean, this Government are just incompetent when it comes to dealing with these issues. 

GILBERT: I thought you would go to Glasgow. Why aren't you going to Glasgow? Because Bill Shorten did go to the Paris Summit as Opposition Leader. Wouldn't that be a place that you could be making your case to world leaders, all of our allies there an so on?

ALBANESE: If Scott Morrison includes me as part of the Australian delegation in the room, I'd be more than happy to go, Kieran, more than happy to go. But that isn't going to happen.

GILBERT: There's an invitation from the Prime Minister [laughs]. 

ALBANESE: I'm happy to go. Thank you, thank you for the invite Kieran. But in the pre-election period it would be, I think, a good gesture from the Prime Minister, and thank you for making it Kieran. So I would certainly make myself available to be in the room with Scott Morrison. It might be a bit embarrassing for him, but it might give him some credibility because what world leaders know, because they will get briefings from their foreign affairs departments. And they'll have briefings about Scott Morrison's comments that completely contradict his rhetoric of today. They know that he has ridiculed action. He's dismissed it, including dismissing action of countries right around the world, including our partners. And when they come up with this sort of silly rhetoric, they would be I think, dismissed. So perhaps that's a good idea that you've come up with here today, Kieran, and I look forward to you conveying that to the Prime Minister and his response.

GILBERT: I think he might be watching, hopefully. 

ALBANESE: I'm sure he is.

GILBERT: Now, you told your Party Room that there might be an election in December. What makes you think that?

ALBANESE: Because the speculation is possibly there and I want to make sure that we're ready, Kieran. The Prime Minister returns from Glasgow in time to call an election on December the 11th. And the truth is that this is a Government that are running out of time. We've seen the chaos and mess that they're in this week, whereby you had the Deputy Prime Minister on your program a short time ago, acting like he's some commentator, not the Deputy Prime Minister, who will be acting Prime Minister while Scott Morrison's out of the country and will have to back in, one would have thought, the Government's policy of net zero by 2050, but he says that's not his policy, or the party that he leads. He doesn't have a mandate for it, as if he's not part of the Government. I've never seen anything like this, Kieran. This did not happen during the Howard Government. You didn't have Tim Fisher or John Anderson or Mark Vaile or others, saying that they weren't a part of government decisions and somehow they were, they were on the outside. But that's what you see from Cabinet Ministers, like Barnaby Joyce, like Bridget McKenzie, like Keith Pitt. I mean this is a mess. Keith Pitt is the Resources Minister who made an announcement about a multi-billion dollar fund and then said, "Oh, I'm not speaking on behalf of the Government". It's quite extraordinary.

GILBERT: We're almost out of time. Just quickly, a development in the Supreme Court in Victoria. Basically a win for you and Daniel Andrews, essentially. Challenges to the legality of the intervention by the National Labor Party into the Victorian Branch, they were shot down today is that, obviously you welcome that development?

ALBANESE: Well, I very much welcome the decision that has confirmed that the ALP National Executive has power to act under its plenary provisions to ensure the interests of the Labor Party are upheld. And the interests of the Labor Party are upheld by taking action wherever we see wrongdoing. And the intervention into the Victorian Branch, which is the largest intervention since 1970, in 50 years, that myself and Daniel Andrews asked for, was appropriate. It was appropriate that we take over preselections and it was appropriate that we be in that position. I'm pleased that the Supreme Court has upheld that today.

GILBERT: Appreciate your time. Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese, talk to you soon.

ALBANESE: Thanks very much, Kieran.


ENDS