SUBJECTS: AUKUS; lack of trust in Scott Morrison and his Government; last sitting fortnight of Parliament for the year; religious freedom bill; vaccine mandates; extremists; climate change; Scott Morrison’s holiday to Hawaii text exchange.
 
KIERAN GILBERT, HOST: I am joined here in the studio by the Opposition Leader, Anthony Albanese. Just to clear up, on the AUKUS arrangement, Labor is on board with that, is it not?
 
ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: Yes.
 
GILBERT: And any caveats to that?
 
ALBANESE: No. We made it very clear, of course. There's nothing surprising about Labor supporting our alliance with the United States that was forged during World War II by John Curtin and has been supported by the Labor Party ever since. And our historic relationship with the UK is something that has always been there.
 
GILBERT: So, Mr Morrison saying that you're siding with the Chinese, was he conflating something that Mr Keating had said? Where is that from?
 
ALBANESE: No. It's just Scott Morrison always looking to divide rather than unite. This is a bloke who is very hard to agree with because he doesn't want people to agree with him. He wants division. And when it comes to national security issues, there should be one interest, which is the national interest.
 
GILBERT: You have had a crack at the Prime Minister, a strong crack, for doublespeak on the issue of extremists. Do you accept, though, that there are many everyday Australians who have concerns about the ongoing impact on their liberty?
 
ALBANESE: Of course. The problem here is that it is the role of political leaders to explain why health measures are necessary. And when the Prime Minister gave an answer in which he went through the violence that had been exhibited in Melbourne and correctly said that was not appropriate, he then always goes on to say 'but' and then goes on to speak about choice and various issues that he tries to say that the objections are about. But of course, the key to more freedom and opening up is people getting vaccinated. And the Prime Minister put up a Facebook post that we asked about directly in Parliament today whereby he kept the second bit, the bit about freedom and choice, him understanding people's objections, without any caveat there, while taking out, indeed, the first part of his answer to that question from a journalist, which was about condemning the violence. And so, what we need when you have things like gallows being dragged through the streets of Melbourne, you need to be able to just say, 'I condemn it'. Full stop.
 
GILBERT: Is it better to leave the issue of mandates, though, to the private sector, as opposed to governments? In order to impose them from the governments doesn't that risk the sort of societal dysfunction or lack of harmony that we need?
 
ALBANESE: The issue here, Kieran, also, is again the PM's doublespeak, whereby he said people should be able to go and have a cup of coffee in Brisbane, without showing, essentially, their vaccination certificate. But the truth is that's a health order based upon health advice. And the exact same health order based upon health advice is in place in Sydney right now. And the Prime Minister, if you want to unite the country and lead the country, you can't have a different thing to say about a state government in Queensland that happens to be led by a Labor Premier and something different to be said about New South Wales that's led by a Liberal Premier.
 
GILBERT: I'm asking you, the WA Government with its plan on December 1, a new range of workers will have to be double vaccinated. People in the bakery, the post office, staff working in school or boarding school, financial institutions, petrol stations. It's a very broad list.
 
ALBANESE: Well, you have to be, Kieran, in order to attend a Prime Minister's press conference, you have to be fully vaccinated. In order to travel to the ACT to Parliament, people have had to show that they're vaccinated in order to be admitted into the ACT. There are a range of restrictions in place. Would we rather this not have happened? Yes. We'd rather COVID not have happened. But measures have been put in place by governments, Labor and Liberal, state governments across the board. And what we need to do, if we're going to take the whole country forward in a positive way, we should be celebrating how fantastic it is that people have gone out there and got fully vaccinated, that things are opening up again, that people are able to go to restaurants. I was in a pub on Thursday night, the General Gordon at St Peters. It is a good venue. It was packed. It was packed. Everyone had to show their vaccinations to be able to get in. No one was complaining. People were just celebrating the fact that they could gather together once again.
 
GILBERT: Now, speaking of freedom, the religious freedom bill, apparently Michaelia Cash has begun negotiations with Labor. Are you of a mind to support that passage of it?
 
ALBANESE: Kieran, we haven't seen it yet. And so we want to see the bill. It goes to the Government Party room.
 
GILBERT: No one in your team has seen it? The Government is saying they're negotiating already.
 
ALBANESE: Well, no one's rung me. My understanding is there have been some conversations between the Attorney General and the Shadow Attorney General. But the bill hasn't been tabled, there hasn't been an exposure draft. It has been pretty poor, frankly, Kieran, that an issue which was promised prior to the 2019 election, we're now in the pre-caretaker election period, according to the Prime Minister, he has called the election effectively, he's out there campaigning, he's given up governing, and as part of that, there's this legislation that he's had three years to introduce.
 
GILBERT: Is it important for you to be proactive in supporting communities of faith after the backlash in Western Sydney, particularly, against Labor in the last election?
 
ALBANESE: Kieran, if you know my background, I'll always support faith communities. And I'll always engage. And you can protect religious freedom whilst not taking away the freedom of others. That should be the objective here. People should be able to practice their faith. I've always been very respectful of people of faith. And it's something that I was raised with. And it's something I always hold dear.
 
GILBERT: On the climate emissions reduction targets, Labor figures dismiss the Herald Sun report recently that it was going to be in the 40s. Are we going to see something around what the Government's projections are?
 
ALBANESE: What I'm not going to do, Kieran, is announced here on Afternoon Agenda where we are going.
 
GILBERT: Why not?
 
ALBANESE: I know you would want it.
 
GILBERT: A lot of your colleagues will be watching.
 
ALBANESE: I know you would want that. But we'll have our proper processes, as you would expect.
 
GILBERT: It goes to Caucus.
 
ALBANESE: As you'd expect, we'll have all of the proper processes, is what we will have in place.
 
GILBERT: Will it be during sitting week?
 
ALBANESE: We will have all of our processes in place. I've been very careful to say one of the things that we won't do is pick out some magic figure or what have you. What we're doing is announcing policies. We'll see where that takes us. But we've said that they will all be consistent with net zero by 2050 that we announced years ago. So, programs like Rewiring the Nation to fix electricity transmission in this country, projects like community batteries for solar.
 
GILBERT: Will we get your targets before Parliament wraps for the year?
 
ALBANESE: You will get more and more policy. You already have, frankly, more policy from us. And the Government don't really have a target, they've just got a vibe without any detail. And that was pretty inadequate, which is why they released their modelling late on a Friday night with no journalistic scrutiny.
 
GILBERT: Before you go, you took exception to something the Prime Minister said today in relation to his holiday to Hawaii. He then followed up your comments by saying that you've chosen to politicise the message he sent you and you've done so ever since. What do you say in response to that?
 
ALBANESE: What nonsense. Here's what happened today, Kieran. The Prime Minister stood up in the Parliament and he said, to quote him directly, word for word, he said that he texted me from the plane, 'When I was going on that leave and told him where I was going. And he was fully aware of where I was traveling with my family'. That's not true, Kieran. He did send me a text message. It was a private text message from him to me. It didn't say where he was going. I did not know where he was going. During that week, you'd be aware that the Prime Minister's office briefed out and said it was wrong that the Prime Minister was overseas. And they wouldn't even confirm that Michael McCormack was the Acting Prime Minister during that period.
 
GILBERT: Did he tell you he was going on leave overseas?
 
ALBANESE: No, he didn't.
 
GILBERT: You didn't divulge that to anyone that he was going on leave regardless?
 
ALBANESE: No, I didn't. Because, Kieran, if you sent me a private message, it stays private. And we know that this Prime Minister divulges text messages from world leaders. I have a view that if someone sends me a private text message, then it's private. But I couldn't allow it to stand that was the case, because he did say he was going on leave, he didn't say he was going overseas, he didn't say where he was going. And frankly, that was a matter for him. But I did find it extraordinary that it wasn't divulged in a normal way that he was on leave. That's where this problem comes from. And today, after he did that, and I gave my personal explanation, the Prime Minister stood up and doubled down and said, 'Oh, no, I was talking about not where I was going', and tried to pretend he was talking about something else. And then after the Speaker's tributes that were made, he stood up and again corrected the record in the Parliament. The problem for this Prime Minister is that he has this character trait whereby he says whatever is convenient at the time, regardless of what the facts are. And it is just extraordinary that he has been prepared to do that.
 
GILBERT: Mr Albanese, I appreciate your time.
 
ALBANESE: Thanks very much, Kieran.
 
GILBERT: Talk to you soon.
 
ENDS