SUBJECTS: 2022 Federal Budget; election; Labor’s policy agenda.
 
DAVID KOCH, HOST: More, now, on the Federal Budget. And Opposition Leader, Anthony Albanese, joins me now. Morning to you. Cost of living relief is front and centre on the Budget. Do you think the measures announced will help Australian households meet this higher inflation?
 
ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: Good morning, Kochie. Well, they will help the short-term, Kochie. They may as well have stapled cash to how-to-votes as they go into polling booths, because it all disappears once the election is over and done with. That's the problem with this Budget. It's a cynical ploy to get the Government through an election, not a plan for a better future for Australia.
 
KOCH: Okay. I did put that to the Treasurer and also the Prime Minister earlier. And they pointed to the massive spending on infrastructure, on defence, that there's a lot in there.
 
ALBANESE: Well, it is off in the never-never, Kochie. You look at the details that they had on infrastructure. They got these big splashes on the front page of papers. You look at the details and the figures for Queensland, $1.8 billion for the City Deal for Southeast Queensland. You look at the figures, and there's hardly anything there before this election and there's nothing before the next election. There is a tiny little amount. This is a cynical Government that only have a plan for themselves, not a plan for the country. And Australians will see through this. This is a Government that have been in office for almost a decade. We had petrol at almost $2 a litre before the invasion of Ukraine. We've seen spiralling costs of child care, spiralling costs of meat and vegetable, spiralling costs of housing. And now, just days before they have an election, they say, 'Oh, there's these cost of living pressures, we should do something about it, but we'll only do it in the very short-term'. Australians know that their wages will decrease this year by $1,355 on average. And that follows a cut last year. Australians are going backwards. This Government have no plan in this Budget to lift wages. They have no plan to alleviate the spiralling costs of child care. They have no plan for housing. They have no plan for new industries to grow. They don't have a plan for the future. Only Labor will do that. This is a tired Government, Kochie. And they deserve time to get their act together, not just play politics.
 
KOCH: Okay. But the economy, to be fair, is in pretty good shape after what it's gone through with the pandemic. The Treasurer says it's not the time to change course by changing Government. How do you convince people that you could do better with the economy?
 
ALBANESE: Well, if people think this is as good as it gets, that's essentially the Government's mantra here. We can be better. We can have a plan to grow wages. We can have a plan to take pressure off child care costs. We have a plan when it comes to skills, for example. We'll create, three years ago, I announced Jobs and Skills Australia to plan for what the jobs are that we will need in a year, five years, 10 years' time, do it in partnership with the private sector, make sure we put in place the training opportunities to skill up Australians, not just rely upon temporary labour coming in. We have a plan to deal with issues like low wages. This Government can't even say that they support people being paid the minimum wage. We've seen a massive growth in insecure work. And the Government has no plan for that. On infrastructure, it is all off on the never-never. And the truth is, Kochie, that for this Government, it's always about short-term politics, never about actually planning for the future. And even when you look at aged care, they have a couple of cash payments to aged care workers timed, funnily enough, before the election. But they can't even make a submission that aged care workers deserve a wage increase.
 
KOCH: Okay. Anthony Albanese, terrific points. Thanks very much for your time.
 
ENDS