SUBJECTS: Labor’s Powering Australia policy; Cheap clean power; Australia’s renewable energy powerhouse potential; Labor’s commitment to the NDIS; Aged care.
 
JOHN GRIMES, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF SMART ENERGY COUNCIL: My name is John Grimes, I'm the Chief Executive of the Smart Energy Council. And we're absolutely delighted today to welcome Anthony Albanese and Chris Bowen to our 60th annual Smart Energy Conference and Exhibition. We've been doing this since 1954 in Australia. In fact, a lot of the solar technology used around the world was invented right here in Australia. So we are the brains that have actually made the breakthroughs in Smart Energy for world consumption. And so we're absolutely delighted to see today, innovations like electric trucks with swap-and-go batteries. You should hear these things idle. Actually, you can't hear these things idle, and when you put your foot down, they go like the clappers! We're seeing Australian electric vehicle manufacturing, technology that allows you to track and optimise your energy use. Australia sits on the cleanest and cheapest electricity anywhere in the world. Now if we can't capitalize on that as a nation, we simply don't have an imagination. So it's with great pleasure that I'd like to now introduce Anthony Albanese to say a few words.

ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: Well thanks very much, John, and thanks for having me at the Smart Energy Expo. This is exciting. The future is here right now. What we need to do in Australia though, is to learn to commercialise our scientific breakthroughs. There isn't a PV panel in the world that doesn't have some intellectual property that came from Australia, from the Australian National University, from the University of New South Wales. What we haven't always done though, is commercialise those opportunities, maximise the jobs and economic growth that can come from Australian scientific breakthroughs. Australia is at the moment suffering from a cost of living crisis under Scott Morrison. Australians know that the cost of everything is going up, but their wages aren't. And families are under real pressure. Scott Morrison has a plan for the election, Labor has a plan for a better future. And part of that is here right now. Our Powering Australia plan will create 604,000 new jobs by 2030. It will reduce emissions by 43 per cent. It will result in our national electricity grid being 82 per cent renewables by 2030. Of those 604,000 new jobs, five out of every six of them will be in regional Australia. We will have, in addition to that, some $52 billion of private sector investment. 

What we see here behind us is a truck. Guess what? It can tow your boat, and it can tow your trailer, and it can operate on the weekend. At the last election campaign, we saw an absurd campaign by the Government. What that means that government intransigence, and that bizarre campaign against electric vehicles, was a campaign against the future. And there's a real cost of that, because that means another three years lost. We can't afford to lose another three years. 

This is a government though that never learned from their mistakes of the past, that struggle with the present, and have no plan for the future. Labor does have a plan. Labor does have a plan to work with the private sector and work with business. It's a plan that I'll be talking more about today at the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. And there's no accident that our plan, that was released last December has been welcomed by the Business Council of Australia, by ACCI, by the Australian Industry Group, by the National Farmers Federation and by the ACTU. Only Labor can end the climate wars. And what we need is to do just that. So business can have the certainty to invest confidently going forward. Bring electricity transmission and the grid into the 21st century. These are all massive opportunities for Australia. The challenge of climate change represents a jobs and economic growth opportunity for Australia. And at a time where we're looking for ‘how do you grow the economy, how do you grow jobs? How do you increase prosperity without putting upward pressure on inflation?’ it is areas like our Powering Australia plan, our fixing of the National Broadband Network, our Cheaper Childcare Plan to drive productivity, our cheaper medicines. These are all plans aimed at boosting productivity, getting economic growth and doing it in a way which doesn't put pressure on inflation. I'd ask Chris to make some comments.

CHRIS BOWEN, SHADOW MINISTER FOR CLIMATE CHANGE AND ENERGY: Thanks Albo. Well, the nearly 10 years of delay and denial under the Coalition has come at a great economic cost for Australia, missed opportunities. Only a Labor government understands that the world's climate emergency is Australia's jobs opportunity. That's why the policy we announced on December 3, our climate change policy, Powering Australia, is written as economic policy. As I'm sure Albo will be saying later today, it's a core of our economic agenda to seize those economic opportunities that are the renewable energy transformation. This is a great exhibition here today. It's a trade exhibition. It shows Australia's wares. I'll tell you what would be an even better trade exhibition - a Conference of the Parties meeting, a COP meeting here in Australia, which an Albanese Labor Government will bid to host here in Australia, to send the message to the world that Australia is under new management when it comes to climate, but also to sell Australia's economic opportunities as a renewable energy powerhouse. That's a key part of our bid to host the Conference of the Parties with our Pacific Island neighbours if they choose to do so. 

So there's a fork in the road for Australia on May 21. And nowhere is that fork clearer than climate change. Nearly a decade of delay and denial on one side, a government still arguing with itself in the middle of an election campaign about whether they're committed to net zero or not - the very fundamental basic starting point. A government of chaos, that doesn't agree on the fundamentals, or an opposition or alternative government, which is going to the people with a comprehensive economic plan for our Powering Australia policy, which seizes the jobs opportunities that are the world's climate emergency.

JOURNALIST: [inaudible]

ALBANESE: I am very confident about the position that we're putting forward. It's comprehensive, it's fully costed. We've outlined it. We outlined it on December 3 from memory, December 3 last year. So it's been out there for six months. What I'm also confident of is that the Government are incapable of dealing with the present, let alone moving Australia forward into the future. We saw that absurd front page splash a couple of weeks ago now during the campaign from Angus Taylor, where when he was asked, you know, 'what was the basis of that?' It was nothing. It was nothing. And the idea that electric vehicles are not part of our future is just so absurd now. So you've had the Government creep towards reality, but they're incapable of landing it. They've had 22 different energy policies and haven't landed one. We have one policy, we will land it, it will create jobs, it will make a difference.

JOURNALIST: You've talked about the legacy of Labor leaders, one of those legacies is the NDIS. Yesterday you talked about Labor's six-point plan, what are the six points?

ALBANESE: The six points are what we will do, was outlined by Bill Shorten-

JOURNALIST: What were the six points? What were the six points, Mr Albanese?

ALBANESE: Well, if you let me answer the question. What that's about is making sure that we take pressure off people who are, at the moment, having their programs cut. We will make sure that there's administrative efficiency. So much has been wasted. So much is being wasted by the claims that are going forward with legal battles for individuals. What we will do is put people at the centre of the NDIS. 

JOURNALIST: What are the other five points?

ALBANESE: It is all around the theme of putting people at the centre of the NDIS.

JOURNALIST: What are the six points? 

ALBANESE: We will put people at the centre of the NDIS. All of our programs are based upon that.

JOURNALIST: Has Labor dumped its long-standing pledge to pay superannuation on top of government-funded parental leave?

ALBANESE: We announce our policies during the campaign. We haven't announced that as a policy. We support paid parental leave. We can't commit to everything that we committed to during the last campaign.

JOURNALIST: Mr Albanese, on the Solomons, you were asked about this yesterday, what your first action would be to try and repair that relationship, you gave a very brief answer. Given the situation has escalated overnight again with Prime Minister Sogavare suggesting that Australia was treating the Solomons like children with guns. Can you detail now what you would do to repair that relationship?

ALBANESE: Well, what we would do to repair the relationship isn't simple. This is a complex relationship. But the fact that the Prime Minister hasn't picked up the phone to Prime Minister Sogavare says an enormous amount about what is needed in terms of that relationship. So we've outlined a comprehensive Pacific plan. It's about increased aid. It's about dealing with climate change, including hosting a COP along with the Pacific island nations. It's about people-to-people relations, including parliamentary visits. It's about making sure that we have a migration program that allows people from the Pacific to settle here. What they will do is make remittances back to the Solomons, and back to other Pacific island nations. 

JOURNALIST: How does this differ to what the Coalition is doing now?

ALBANESE: Well, the Government has dropped the ball on the Pacific right now. And during this period, we haven't even had serious visits from the Foreign Minister or the Defence Minister to the Solomons.

JOURNALIST: The [inaudible] has been reported saying that extra spending, obviously, during the election campaign from both sides of politics is adding to inflation pressures, and that the federal Budget - the Government's federal Budget -  was the cause of the interest rate hikes this week. Will you guarantee that under (a) Labor government you will not be over-spending to help with cost of living pressures?

ALBANESE: Look, one of the big issues of this election campaign is the quality of the spend. What we will do is cut back on the waste and the rorts of this Government. And today at ACCI I'll be outlining our plan for expenditure that will grow productivity. Our plan to grow productivity by having better industrial relations, our plan to grow productivity through programs like this here, our program to grow productivity through child care that produces a return - all of the economists will say that for every dollar invested, you get $2 back.

JOURNALIST: [inaudible]

ALBANESE: Our policy's for 43 per cent by 2030. And what I'm interested in is the implementation of our policy. We don't have the same policy as the independents, or the Greens, or the Liberal Party. What we have is policy that will actually deliver. 

BOWEN: Absolutely. And our policy of 43 per cent is more than a target, it's the modelled results of our policies announced. We've taken our policy, Rewiring the Nation, safeguards mechanism, electric vehicles, community batteries, solar banks, Commonwealth Government being net zero by 2030, and the rest, and had them modelled, and they show a 43 per cent emissions reduction. No other party can say that - the Government can't, the Greens can't, and with due respect the independents can't. We are the only party going to this election with a comprehensive plan and with the evidence to show which levers we will pull to achieve our emissions reductions.

JOURNALIST: Just to clarify, do you not know what the six points of the NDIS plan are? Is this a sign that you don't know your own policies?

ALBANESE: That’s not right. 

JOURNALIST: [inaudible]

ALBANESE: Our policy on the NDIS is to defend and fix the NDIS, lifting the NDIA staffing cap, doubling existing funding for advocacy, fixing regional access and stopping waste. 

JOURNALIST: You did not know your own policy-

ALBANESE: No we did, it’s to put people at the centre of the NDIS.

JOURNALIST: On the NDIS, you've accused the Government of cutting funding to the NDIS. The Government says it's put in record spending. How much has the Government cut, and where can you point to this in the Budget?

ALBANESE: What the Government has done, if you look at the underspends that were there in the Budget - in the Budget last time, and the time before - those underspends were there, the Government produced savings there.

JOURNALIST: Mr Albanese, you've acknowledged that power prices are rising, but your Rewiring the Nation policy won't deliver savings until 2025. What short-term incentives will you provide families who are struggling with the power increases now?

ALBANESE: Well on that, of course, you can't fix transmission overnight, there's a time in terms of construction. We'll bring transmission into the 21st century. What this Government has done is wasted a decade on energy transmission. They've wasted a decade when it comes to fixing the grid, because they've had a view that renewables, they've campaigned against, they've actually said that renewables will increase costs, the truth is that renewables will lower costs.

BOWEN: Anthony has just provided the correct answer, a comprehensive answer. Our policies are designed over time to reduce power prices. Yes, of course, this is a massive task, $20 billion worth of investment in Rewiring the Nation, implementing the ISP, nobody has suggested, we’ve never suggested that would happen overnight. Of course, it sits alongside our other policies in relation to child care and the other things that Anthony will be talking about later today, which also impact cost of living.

ALBANESE: Last one Trudy, oh then last one for Jen.

JOURNALIST: We've seen this in the last week of the campaign that when you're stumbling on an answer you bring in the shadow minister, defer to them immediately, is that part of the strategy in order to not see the sort of gaffe like we saw on day one?

ALBANESE: No, that's not right. I do know that there have been some rather bizarre articles, which suggest that it's inappropriate for the Treasurer - or the Shadow Treasurer - to want to comment on Treasury issues, or that Jason Clare as the housing spokesperson might want to comment on housing policy, or that Chris Bowen might want to comment on climate change and energy. I find that extraordinary. I'm captain of a team. I'm very proud of the team that we have. What we had yesterday, for example, was the Education Shadow, Tanya Plibersek, with me, the Education Shadow, answering questions on education as well as myself. Scott Morrison doesn't have a team. He doesn't have a team. He's one out. He is one out when it comes to policies and when it comes to appearances. Alan Tudge is in witness protection. So many of the government ministers are in witness protection.

JOURNALIST: What is your five-point plan for aged care? 

ALBANESE: Our five-point plan for aged care is nurses 24/7. Is making sure 215 minutes of care are given. Is making sure that there's better accountability in terms of every dollar that's spent. Is making sure as well that there's better food nutrition, and we'll have Maggie Beer help with that. And the last part, but important part as well, is better wages for people in aged care. 

ENDS