SUBJECTS: Scott Morrison’s responsibility for quarantine; problems with hotel quarantine; National Cabinet; the need for fit-for-purpose quarantine facilities in each state; help for Australians stranded in India; inconsistencies in the Government’s advice on passenger flights to and from India; meeting with Brittany Higgins; Parliament House culture; ASIO Director-General’s comments on the threat from violent extremism.
 
ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: Good morning. When Australia’s COVID response relied upon Australians doing the right thing, we led the world. Now Australia’s COVID response is relying upon Scott Morrison as Prime Minister to do the right thing, to take responsibility for quarantine and the vaccination rollout. The fact is that the hard work that Australians put in during 2020 is being put at risk. Hotels are built for tourism, not for medical quarantine. That is just a fact. Today’s National Cabinet is an opportunity for Scott Morrison to finally take responsibility for quarantine, a responsibility that no lesser document than the Australian Constitution gives him. He needs to stand up after National Cabinet and say that he has a national plan for quarantine. Scott Morrison needs to stand up and say that in every state and territory there will be a fit-for-purpose quarantine facility established. Enough is enough. We know that every time there has been an issue with regard to hotel quarantine, it has had consequences not just for people’s health but for our economy, with shutdowns of state borders, shutdowns of particular regions such as most recently that we saw with Perth and the Peel region. It is time for the Prime Minister to commit to national standards for hotel quarantine. That, in terms of the commitment that could be made immediately, was something that Jane Halton called for so many months ago. I don’t know why it is that this Prime Minister continually asks for reviews and then ignores it when he receives them, or sometimes keeps those reviews secret, so-called Cabinet-in-confidence as a strategy. So today Labor is calling for a clear outcome. We also say that Australia has responsibility to our citizens who are stranded in India. There’s about 10,000 of them. And India is going through a difficult time. We should be offering whatever assistance we can give to India as our friend and our neighbour. But we should also be offering support to Australian citizens who are there, for those who are unable to get home, making sure that they can get access to vaccines, making sure that we provide them with support. Because whilst there’s some very high profile people in India who are getting some publicity, there’s also Australian citizens who are doing it really tough, whose names we don’t know in the media, who will need that support during this difficult time. The crisis in India requires more than the same old day-to-day political management which dominates this Government’s approach to every issue, as does quarantine here today, and I hope that the meeting today comes up with real solutions and national leadership from the Prime Minister. Not just a press conference announcing what state premiers have told each other they’ll be doing, but national leadership. Happy to take questions.
 
JOURNALIST: You said that you want a fit-for-purpose quarantine facility established in each state and territory. Would that somehow (inaudible) what’s going on up in the Northern Territory, perhaps?
 
ALBANESE: Well in terms of the facility in the Northern Territory at Howard Springs, it’s been very successful. It is one that is able to, because of the nature of it, people are able to go outside, for example. In terms of ventilation, each person in that facility is able to have self-contained, if you like, facilities and areas of things like ventilation. The way that food is served there. Food is served, three meals, delivered once, at one time, a hot meal and two cold meals, every day. There are no complaints coming out of people who’ve stayed in that facility. That’s a facility that should have been upgraded and should have had more people in it, as the Northern Territory Government offered six months before that offer was properly taken up by the Commonwealth. But there are other offers on the table as well that we know have been on the table for a long period of time, in Queensland, in Victoria, in Western Australia. Some of them put forward by state governments, some of them put forward by private sector organisations, some of them put forward in the Government’s own review, in the Jane Halton report that was forwarded to the Government. This Government can’t continue to be complacent about these issues because we know that the two keys to return to our economic and life as usual are one, getting quarantine right and getting the vaccination rollout right as well.
 
JOURNALIST: The Government has said that it has closed all indirect travel (inaudible) from India. But it has emerged that until Wednesday night it was possible to travel from India through Doha. Are you concerned by the inconsistencies around that advice?
 
ALBANESE: Well I’m concerned that the Government needs to get its announcements right and Australians deserve accurate information about that. And any inconsistency is of concern.
 
JOURNALIST: What more should the Government be doing to help these 10,000 stranded Australians? What could they be offered?
 
ALBANESE: Well, they could be offered vaccines. They could be offered some financial support for those who need it. We need to also have a plan to bring Australians home. They can’t just be left in a state whereby they’re unable to get home indefinitely. Scott Morrison promised, remember, to have every Australian home by Christmas. We know that there’s more than 30,000 Australians who are stranded overseas. And, depending on where they are, there’s been different rules put in place. But we know that if the Government had have got the quarantine system right, if it had have expanded Howard Springs earlier, if it had have taken up offers that were on the table, such as Avalon and Toowoomba, if it had have used facilities like Exmouth or Rottnest Island, that were put forward by Mark McGowan and the WA Government, if it had have got on the front foot on these issues, if it had have dealt with hotel ventilation systems appropriately, then we would have been better off. What it’s had from Scott Morrison, even this week, is still saying that he's satisfied with the hotel system. Well, hotels, including ones very close to the building where this press conference is taking place, there's two within a couple of hundred metres of here, hotels are built for tourists. They're not built for medical quarantine. And it's not surprising that there have been issues associated with it because they're not built for purpose.
 
JOURNALIST: I understand you've already met with Brittany Higgins today and the Prime Minister has also. What came out of that meeting?
 
ALBANESE: Well, I have met with Brittany Higgins. The Prime Minister hasn't at this point in time, my understanding is. It was a very constructive discussion. Brittany Higgins is a very impressive woman. She has shown extraordinary courage in coming forward to be a voice, to be a voice standing up for women, standing up for issues that need real solutions. Brittany Higgins will be putting forward to the Prime Minister a range of reforms that are necessary, that she had a discussion with me of. But the first thing that I'd say about today's meeting was that it was an opportunity for me to listen. We need to listen to women and to listen to their concerns, to listen to the experience that they've gone through and to listen to their views about solutions. Brittany Higgins has been through an extraordinarily difficult period in her life. She has shown incredible courage to speak out on behalf of not just herself but other women. And I think the fact that, I said this in the Parliament on the day of the March 4 Justice, it gives me great hope for this country that people like Grace Tame and Brittany Higgins have emerged as courageous women.
 
JOURNALIST: You’ve said there are cultural issues for the Prime Minister to address. But what assurances did you offer Ms Higgins that cultural issues within Labor are also being addressed?
 
ALBANESE: Look, we won’t go into all of the details of what was a private discussion. Brittany Higgins, the centre of her asks is a modest and reasonable one. Which is, just as IPEA, the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority, has been established to look at parliamentary expenses in a transparent and independent way, the Parliamentary Budget Office has been established to look at those issues in an independent and transparent way and to build confidence in the system, there's a need for an independent body so that any woman or any staff member faced with the issues which Brittany was faced with, with the reported sexual assault, or people with other issues related to staffing, relating to culture in Parliament House or in parliamentary offices, are able to go forward and get independent advice. And also so that Members and Senators can get advice and Chiefs of Staff if they need to handle issues as well. At the moment, the way that the Parliamentary Services Act operates is to really give no power for members of staff to be able to raise issues. It's not clear how that can occur because there are provisions there for employers, Members and Senators, Ministers, which are different from other workplaces. And so Brittany Higgins will put forward, Ms Higgins will put forward those issues. I hope that the Prime Minister listens to Ms Higgins. She is a courageous woman who is trying to get some reform and some outcome to change the culture in the future. We in the Labor Party, of course, have established independent processes that we’ve established and that have been well documented. We did that process before the issues related to Ms Higgins became public, before we were aware of it. That’s a process that we established in 2018 and a process we improved in a process we established last year. And that was finalised by the ALP organisation earlier this year.

JOURNALIST: The ASIO Director-General, Mike Burgess, told a parliamentary inquiry the threat of extremist movements and radicalism is on the rise. Were you concerned by that evidence? And what do you think needs to be done?

ALBANESE: I am concerned about that evidence. And I have had briefings with Mr Burgess. I had a briefing with the head of the Australian Signals Directorate this morning as well about security issues and I’m briefed regularly by the national security agencies. I think it's appropriate that they be allowed to speak on these issues. And I think that Mr Burgess is doing a very good job and that yesterday his evidence was transparent. And I think that's a good thing, that Australian should be informed about the threats which are there. Thank you.
 
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