SUBJECTS: Labor’s policy agenda; Labor’s plans for childcare and aged care; Labor’s policy costings.
 
KARL STEFANOVIC, HOST: Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese joins us now from Sydney. Albo, good morning to you, just looking at those prices there, and the warning that they're only going to go even higher. Will you stick to that fuel excise or are you going to bring it back?

ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: We will Karl, because if we're successful on Saturday, we'll inherit a trillion dollars of debt with not much to show for it, I've got to say. So we're being very responsible, fiscally, during this campaign, we're making sure that the commitments that we're making to expenditure in areas like childcare, infrastructure and the NBN, a Future Made Here in Australia, they're things that will boost the economy, boost productivity, because that's what we need to do. We know people are going backwards, yesterday people went backwards by 2.7 per cent, their real wage cut, that's a cut for people on the average wage of in excess of $2,000 in their standard of living.

STEFANOVIC: Okay, you're saying you going to be fiscally responsible, you're releasing your costings today, just how loose is your bottom line?

ALBANESE: Our bottom line is absolutely responsible. We're making sure that we invest in childcare, we are going to invest more money in aged care, Karl, because we can't afford to not do that. The Royal Commission makes that very clear that we need to fix the aged care crisis. The other thing we won't do is do the fiddle that this government have done with their announcement a couple of days ago, further cuts to the public service. We know what happens when you take humans out of Human Services. Robodebt had a devastating impact, ended up costing more, over a billion dollars taxpayers had to hand out as a result of that debacle that devastated too many lives.

STEFANOVIC: You have been brutally critical in the past of political sides not releasing information before the electronic blackout. This is what you said in 2013, "here's a prediction for you, after the advertising campaign blackout kicks in, the coalition will produce a whole lot of paper without time for anyone to analyse it. People have every right to expect transparency. It's about time they got it". You are calling for transparency, why aren't you walking the walk?

ALBANESE: We have been transparent, Karl, every single one of our policies and commitments we have put out the costings over the forward estimates every single day. Yesterday, I stood up at the National Press Club, I made myself available at the National Press Club. The Prime Minister is the first Prime Minister for 50 years to duck the National Press Club in the lead up to the election. At that Press Club, I announced $750 million of savings, a tough decision. But one to put money away from the slush funds the government have established, back into the budget bottom line.

STEFANOVIC: You are taking 750 million in savings, but haven't you already spent 800?

ALBANESE: What we've done, Karl, is where we have invested, is in areas like child care. Now, childcare is a cost to the bottom line of $5.4 billion over the forward estimates. But what that doesn't take into account because of the way the costings work is the growth in the economy that will come from that. If women can work a fourth or a fifth day, they'll have much greater participation in the economy, greater workforce participation, greater productivity for companies, which is why it's been welcomed by businesses across the board, we've made sure that that has been our priority, our commitments that we are making are to things that will grow the economy. And in addition to that, they are in areas like aged care where quite frankly, Australia can afford to make sure that our older Australians live with a bit of dignity and respect in their later years.

STEFANOVIC: Okay. Early in the campaign, you said you wanted to govern in the mold of John Howard. He said yesterday, there's a growing sense - 

ALBANESE: I didn't say that, actually, I didn't say that at all. Don't believe everything you read in headlines in the paper. What I said was that John Howard was someone who even if I didn't agree with everything he did, past Liberal governments had economic reform. This government don't have an economic reform agenda. They don't have a social policy reform agenda, they don't have an agenda for the future.

STEFANOVIC: So you would govern in a way that in respect to those reforms, economic reforms?

ALBANESE: I'd do things, is what I would do. I have a plan for the future. This government don't have a plan for the future. They don't have a plan for now. They didn't have a plan for the third term, let alone one for the fourth term, which is why they bumbled along just putting funds into their slush funds looking after themselves. I want to govern for the Australian people. They want to govern for themselves. 

STEFANOVIC: He said yesterday, there's a growing sense in the community that you are not quite up to it. Did that hurt coming from this legend of politics?

ALBANESE: What, John Howard supports the Liberal Party? You know what would be bizarre, Karl? If John Howard endorsed the Labor Party.

STEFANOVIC: No, but that was very personal was it not though? 

ALBANESE: That would be really weird, Karl. Guess what, Paul Keating is supporting the Labor Party. Julia Gillard is supporting the Labor Party, Kevin Rudd is supporting the Labor Party, and Bob Hawke, I gotta say, up there is looking down. And he supports Labor too.

STEFANOVIC: Are you sure he's looking down? He was a bit of a rascal.

ALBANESE: Hawkie was an absolute legend. He was a mentor of mine. And my model for governing is Bob Hawke's cabinet. It was a good government, a long term Labor government, they put in place Medicare and superannuation, all those big reforms. I want to add childcare and aged care to those lists. 

STEFANOVIC: Look, you've got a couple of days left to go. Thanks for making yourself available during this campaign. I really appreciate it and best of luck. Thanks, Albo.

ENDS