SUBJECTS: National plan to reopen during the COVID pandemic; Doherty modelling; COVID outbreaks around Australia; lockdowns; vaccine rollout; need for national quarantine facilities; Labor’s $300 COVID vaccination incentive.

ANGELA BISHOP, HOST: After weeks of wavering on support of the Doherty Institute plan to reopen Australia, Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese finally backed the strategy this week. But can he convince his Labor colleagues in Queensland and Western Australia to get behind it? Or is Australia destined to remain a divided nation? Anthony Albanese joins us now from Canberra. Good morning.

ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: G'day, Ange. How are you?

BISHOP: Not too bad, thanks. Just this past Monday, you tweeted, ‘The wheels are falling off Scott Morrison’s latest plan. Australians deserve clear answers about the pathway out of this mess, not just more spin and blame shifting’. Why did you then decide to get behind it?

ALBANESE: This is a national plan. And Scott Morrison has been having an argument with an imaginary friend. It is a national plan that has been backed in by every state premier and every territory leader. What Scott Morrison has tried to do this week is to reset, and for reasons beyond my comprehension, have an argument with the West Australian and Queensland premiers and to call West Australians and Queenslanders cave people and tell them to come out of their cave. Well, it's not their fault that there wasn't enough vaccines. And it is not their fault that there wasn't appropriate quarantine systems. Annastacia Palaszczuk has had to go on her own on the quarantine system at Wellcamp Airport near Toowoomba. We have been calling for that for a year. We were calling for people to be vaccinated, to get more vaccines earlier last year. When the Prime Minister said it wasn't a race, we were saying it was a race. It is a race to get people vaccinated. And we've been consistent the whole way through.

SARAH HARRIS, HOST: However, sorry, Mr Albanese, WA and Queensland, though, they seem to be going their own way. The Labor premiers. Here is what WA Premier Mark McGowan said recently.

MARK MCGOWAN, PREMIER OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA: The states and territories that want to eliminate the virus, I think, have the right approach. The idea that you tick along with the virus, and somehow that is a better model, is wrong.

HARRIS: That doesn't sound like it's part of the plan. In fact, it is completely at odds with the Doherty Institute's advice. Queensland has slammed its borders as well. What's the game plan for these states? Shut the borders and wait until the pandemic is over?

ALBANESE: No, it's actually in line with the national plan. And Mark McGowan signed up to the national plan. But at the moment there are restrictions. I'm in Canberra. If you're in Canberra, you can't go to any state, even NSW, without quarantining. In NSW, people, if you're in Sydney there, you can't today go to any state in the country without quarantining.

HARRIS: But once we get to the 70-80 per cent vaccinations, things will change, right?

ALBANESE: That's right, but we are not there yet. We need to get those vaccination numbers up. That's why it has always been a race, Sarah. We have been arguing that from the very beginning. We have been arguing to end the complacency, to get more vaccines. We should have had more supply earlier. We were arguing that this time last year, including, I was arguing on this program that we needed to get more access to more vaccines sooner. We need to get it into people's arms. No-one wants these restrictions. WA certainly doesn't. I have spoken regularly with Mark and Annastacia. They are doing a good job of keeping the people in their states safe. And that is what they have a mandate for. But they don't want the restrictions any longer than necessary.

HARRIS: But at what cost, Mr Albanese? Even Qantas is threatening to pull out of Perth as a departure point for international flights because of their conservative border policies?

ALBANESE: Well, the fact is that Scott Morrison went on Perth radio this week and said that there wasn't really a disagreement between himself and WA. There is one message there and another message somewhere else. What we actually need today in the National Cabinet is the Prime Minister to actually lead the entire nation, to bring people together, to go forward, not to try to look for arguments which aren't there. The borders of South Australia are shut. The borders of Tasmania are shut to Sydney people as well. They are conservative governments in place there. The fact is there are restrictions right around the country and there are restrictions because Scott Morrison didn't do his job of setting up purpose-built quarantine to stop these outbreaks and to get enough vaccines earlier. I just heard the news there in Victoria that a million people tried to log on in Victoria alone to get vaccines when it became open, when the supply was increased of the vaccines for 20- to 39-year-olds. People do want to get vaccinated. I proposed, of course, a $300 incentive and reward as a sign of how much we want people to get vaccinated. And at this time, a program like that would help stimulate the economy and create jobs.

BISHOP: We go back to WA and Queensland here when we talk about vaccinations. They are lagging behind in the vaccination rates.

HARRIS: Less than a third.

ALBANESE: Because they don't have the supply. They don't have the supply.

BISHOP: But they also have a Chief Health Officer in Queensland giving a very different message to the rest of the country.

HARRIS: Actually, let's have a listen to that. It's not there.

ALBANESE: You could have played Scott Morrison's.

HARRIS: We could have. Jeanette Young said she didn't want young people getting blood clots from AZ. I think we've got the grab now. Let's listen.

JEANNETTE YOUNG, QUEENSLAND CHIEF HEALTH OFFICER: No, I do not want under-40s to get AstraZeneca. I don't want an 18-year-old in Queensland dying from a clotting illness who, if they got COVID, probably wouldn't die.

BISHOP: So, we could end up with great chunks of the nation at that 70-80 per cent mark and a much bigger part of the nation nowhere near it. What is going to happen then? Really, what could the Prime Minister do about it?

ALBANESE: Well, the Prime Minister is a part of the national plan. And the national plan suggests that under phase B and phase C - people should actually read it - it says 70 per cent for each of the states and territories and 70 per cent overall and then 80 per cent becomes phase C. Of course, you could have shown a grab of the Prime Minister late at night with the press conference changing the advice on AstraZeneca, telling people under a certain age to not get it. That's what occurred as well. You could have shown a grab of Greg Hunt saying wait for the next vaccine if you don't want this one, which he did also. The fact is that there has been competing health advice which has been communicated not by the Queensland Health Officer, but by the Prime Minister in a late-night press conference. That's what occurred earlier this year. The fact is that the reason why Queensland and WA rates are slightly lower than those in other states is because when you have an outbreak, people go out there and get vaccinated sooner. There are queues to get vaccinated. That's what's happened in Victoria. That's what's happened in NSW over the last nine weeks that this outbreak has been going for. WA hasn't had the same number of outbreaks, the same number of deaths, the same number of impact on hospitals in NSW.

HARRIS: They've been closed, Albo.

ALBANESE: No, we had over 1000 cases in NSW yesterday. Over 1000. To blame somehow WA when WA has been a success in terms of keeping West Australians safe, but we need to go forward with the plan at a national level. That needs to be done. But it needs to be done on the basis of what the plan actually is, rather than the Prime Minister having a meeting saying all the states have agreed on this and then going out and attacking a couple of the Labor states. South Australia is closed too. Tasmania is closed too. Tasmania was the first state to close off for a long period of time. Last year they shut down for three months. That is having a massive impact on the Tasmanian economy.

BISHOP: Albo, currently we live in a really bizarre situation. Neither the Prime Minister nor the Leader of the Opposition of Australia can travel around Australia. You can't even go to any part of the country which you two in essence are running.

ALBANESE: Correct.

BISHOP: Are you willing to give me a date when you think you might be able to again?

ALBANESE: Well, I hope I can at 9:30 this morning. That's my hope. I haven't been home since June, and that's really tough. But Australians are doing it tough at the moment. And a whole lot of people are doing it a lot tougher than myself and the Prime Minister. We've still got our jobs. There are Australians who are really doing it difficult. There are families of five people in my electorate who have lost their lives in the last few weeks. Five people. And two of those, elderly couple, the Ibrahims, had their vaccine appointments the week after they died. They just couldn't get in early enough to get vaccinated because of supply issues. Others in Summer Hill nursing home caught COVID because an aged-care worker who wasn’t vaccinated worked in multiple facilities and that's what led to the outbreak in Summer Hill. There are tragedies right around the country. We need to deal with the health crisis first and then we, of course, need people to get vaccinated with whatever vaccines are available and we do need to return to normal. This is really tough for people. I feel so sorry for the parents who are home-schooling today, for the people who aren't able to go to work. Parts of my electorate are in curfew and across the road in a suburban street isn't in curfew. I think some of the rules are so confusing for people.

HARRIS: It is a very divided country at the moment.

ALBANESE: It sure is. What we need from our national leaders is not trying to divide the country. I've been supportive of all of the actions that premiers have taken when they've taken action to support people's health, whether that be in Labor or Liberal states. We actually need some consistency. What we don't need is just more spin. We actually need some outcomes. And outcomes will come when we get more people vaccinated. And outcomes will come when we have purpose-built quarantine facilities. Twenty-seven of these outbreaks have occurred because we put people in hotels in the middle of CBDs with shared ventilation systems. And we are still doing it 18 months into the pandemic. And we know that isn't as safe as somewhere like Howard Springs near Darwin or the facility that Annastacia Palaszczuk is going to build near Toowoomba. There should be those types of facilities right around the country.

HARRIS: Opposition Leader, Anthony Albanese, we really appreciate your time. Thanks for today.

ALBANESE: Great to be with you. Stay safe, everyone.

HARRIS: You, too.

ENDS