SUBJECTS: Manufacturing; Federal Budget 2021; vaccine rollout; quarantine; Aussies stranded overseas; India repatriation flights; borders; renewable energy; violence in Israel, Gaza & Jerusalem; coal. 

LUKE BONA, HOST: Tell me this. How many people wish or believe we can still manufacture cars here in Australia and have a competitive car market? I wonder how many people listening to me used to work at Holden, or Ford, or at Mitsubishi or at Toyota? Did we have to close down our car manufacturing industry all together? Very hard to compete against countries that are importing cars, where they're paying two and a half dollars an hour for labour. But just getting back to COVID, should we close and keep our international borders closed? Or do you go along with, say, Virgin CEO, Jayne Hrdlicka? She's warned that Australia cannot keep COVID out forever. And she says we need to consider another plan to reopen our borders. Of course, she's got a vested interest in all of this. She's CEO of an airline and she wants her planes back into the air. But are you willing to compromise the health of other Australians? Just let me remind Virgin CEO, Jayne Hrdlicka, that Queensland and Western Australia this year won very, very convincing elections on tough border closure policy. But anyway, Ms Hrdlicka has argued that Australia needs to discuss opening the borders. She says that we can't keep COVID out forever. Yes, it'll make us sick. Yes, some people will die. But it will be smaller than the amount of people dying because of the flu. Is that a bit harsh? Or is she right? There's a lot I want to talk to Anthony Albanese about. He's on the phone right now. The Leader of the Opposition, Anthony Albanese. Good morning and welcome back to the Night Shift on Triple M.

ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: G'day. How are you going? You can call me Albo.

BONA: Can I? I don't want to be presumptuous. 

ALBANESE: You can. We've had a few chats now.

BONA: All right, Albo. Look, there's a lot to talk about this morning and only a very little amount of time. I've got to ask you about our borders. How long do you think they should be shut? Do you go along with the Virgin CEO, Jayne Hrdlicka, who says we can't keep COVID out forever, we need to consider a plan to reopen the borders, some people may die, but it's the way to go forward with herd immunity? It was a little insensitive. But do you think she's right?

ALBANESE: No, I don't. I think that she got her language completely wrong. I understand there is a need to open up our borders, because in terms of our economy, relies upon interaction with the world. We live in a global economy. But we need to make sure that Australians are kept safe. And you can do both. We need to do two simple things that shouldn't be that hard. And the Government's had a year to prepare. One is roll out the vaccine. And the second is get appropriate quarantine facilities in place. 

BONA: Now, we saw the cricketers come back this week. And they're going into quarantine. They're paying for it. I thought that hotel quarantine didn't work. And I also thought that we didn't have enough places to bring the 9,000 Australians who were still living in India. Did the cricketers jump the queue, do you think?

ALBANESE: Well, I think Australians stuck overseas who are stranded will be very frustrated that they haven't been able to get home and others have been. I think it's fair enough to bring Australians home so I'm not critical of bringing cricketers home and I'm not critical of them for coming home. Of course, they want to get here. But why isn't every Australian being kept safe and being treated appropriately? The Australian passport means something. And we should be able to bring people home. What this shows is that it's possible. Why isn't it possible for more? Why don't we have appropriate quarantine facilities in place? It's just beyond belief.

BONA: There was nothing in the Budget, I noticed, for building quarantine stations. Now, we've got Howard Springs in Darwin. And it can house I believe about 2,000 people. Do we need to build more?

ALBANESE: We do. But we should have expanded Howard Springs earlier. It's been at less than half capacity for most of the time. There's been no sense of urgency from this Government. Scott Morrison said that Australians would be brought home by Christmas. There's more than 30,000 who are stranded overseas. We're a better country than that. There's no advanced country in the world that has its citizens in this predicament. Americans aren't in this predicament. Citizens in the UK aren't in this situation. And remember, at the beginning of the outbreak, we brought Australians home from Wuhan. If we can do that, why haven't we been able to bring Australians home?

BONA: Is it fair enough, though, to say, 'Let's bring Australians home but you must test negative before you get on the plane’? Is that a reasonable ask?

ALBANESE: Well, they would have done that, of course. Of course, that's reasonable. But they would have done that, they would have been home by now, they wouldn't be put at risk as they have been. And that's why we were saying, it has now been almost a year since I said we should use the aviation assets at our disposal, including the Air Force jets. If it's good enough for people applying for jobs in Europe connected with the Government, the former Senate Leader, to fly around, and we supported his bid for the position at the OECD, that is another example of the use of the aviation assets at our disposal. We should have been using those to bring Australians home. But also, those jets that are just parked in the middle of the desert. They've got to start up the engine. The thing about a plane is that you've got to actually run the plane because it then doesn't operate properly. So there are all these assets that have been available. 

BONA: So you're suggesting we use the Air Force to bring back Aussies? 

ALBANESE: The Air Force as well as the commercial airlines who would be quite happy to cooperate. They brought people home from Wuhan. The flight occurred from India at a different date from what the Government first suggested. But this Government has to accept responsibility for something. I was stunned, frankly, when yesterday, speaking about those Australian citizens who had done a false positive test, they tested positive, but they actually didn't have COVID.

BONA: That's right. It was a false positive reading.

ALBANESE: It was a false positive. And the Prime Minister said, 'Well, it's up the Qantas to put these measures in place'. For goodness sake, since when was Qantas responsible for testing people's health?

BONA: Do we need to build more quarantine stations? Getting back to that question, we've got Howard Springs, there was talk of building one near Toowoomba, or utilising a facility near Toowoomba, should every state have a huge quarantine station and get people out of metropolitan areas.

ALBANESE: Well, read between the lines about what the Prime Minister has said about the Victorian proposal. Clearly, they're getting ready to support that. But he was up in Queensland and dismissed the proposal at Wellcamp. It's actually right next to the airport, which does have international capacity, where we could bring in people right now at the airport, house them with appropriate facilities, and of course, it's right near health facilities if they're needed in a major city like Toowoomba. 

BONA: I'm talking with the Leader of the Opposition, Anthony Albanese, across Australia here on the Night Shift on the Triple M Network. I've got to talk to you about the dreadful situation in the Middle East. And it's not a new situation. However, it is escalating. This has been there since the end of World War Two. If you were Prime Minister, how would you go about maybe resolving this or at least mediating and getting people to talk? The thing is innocent people are being killed. Your thoughts? 

ALBANESE: Well, there needs to be a ceasefire. That's the first thing. And the Australian Government should support a ceasefire immediately. People are getting hurt. Hamas have rockets but the other side have a significant military armoury. And most of the deaths overwhelmingly have been on one side. We need a two-state-solution to the Middle East. Israel allowed to live in peace and security. And Palestine allowed to live in peace and security. That's what the solution should be. That is what it should have been since 1948. And it requires good will on both sides, a recognition that there is actually a mutual interest in peace. I've been to the Middle East and been to both Gaza and West Bank and to Israel. And the fact that people live under circumstances whereby they can't possibly feel secure is not in the interests of either Israelis or Palestinians. We need to recognise that there is that mutual interest there. And countries that can play a constructive role, including the United States, including, of course, Australia has a role to play as well, not a major role, but we need to speak out and speak out in favour of human rights and in favour of the long-term solution, which shouldn't be undermined by measures like the building of settlements in the West Bank in Gaza.

BONA: I'm talking with Anthony Albanese, the Leader of the Opposition. There's something else I wanted to talk about. We may need to talk about it next time we chat. Because a lot of my listeners are very, very keen to know why we can't manufacture stuff in Australia. A lot of my listeners are very, very sad that we no longer manufacture motor cars. Is there a possible future for us to be manufacturing cars again, even if it's electric cars?

ALBANESE: You bet there is. And that's why we've set up the National Reconstruction Fund, a $15 billion fund to support the private sector with the Australian Government support to build things here. We need to build back stronger from the pandemic, not just try and get back to what was there before, but recognise that some weaknesses in our economy have been exposed. And one of those weaknesses is the fact that we don't make enough things here. 

BONA: Exactly. 

ALBANESE: We're not self-reliant.

BONA: But are we competitive? We enjoy a certain standard of living because of our wages here in Australia. How do we compete against countries that pay $2 an hour?

ALBANESE: Look, we certainly can compete on the basis of how smart we are and our natural advantages. Take a battery that goes in an electric car and the products that go into it. What's it made of? Lithium, nickel, copper are major components of an electric vehicle. All of those are here. As manufacturing is automated, as happens around the world, and as therefore labour, as a proportion of the costs of production, is less important and transport as a proportion of production becomes more, it makes much more sense for us to rather than import our resources overseas, see the value added overseas and then import it back at much higher costs.

BONA: The other thing that we have a lot of, and that's uranium, the second highest deposits of uranium in the world. We export it to countries who are using it for power, but we don't. Do we need to look at nuclear power?

ALBANESE: It doesn't stack up commercially here in Australia. The thing about energy is overwhelmingly the cheapest form of new energy is renewables. Solar, hydro, wind, wave, together with battery storage. That is where the market is going. And the Australian Energy Market Operator makes that very clear in all of the examination that they've done.

BONA: Green power has got to be three things. It's got to be cheap. It's got to be dependable. And it has to be actually green. It isn't all three. It costs a lot of money to make solar panels, takes a lot of carbon expenditure to make wind turbines. And if the wind doesn't blow, and if the sun doesn't shine, they don't work. And it's expensive.

ALBANESE: The cheapest form of new energy in Australia is renewables and that's why you haven't seen a coal-fired power station built, a new one built, in Australia for well over a decade. So the market is making these decisions. 

BONA: You know, I have a lot of listeners listening now who are working in coal mines, Albo.

ALBANESE: Absolutely. And that will continue and will continue to export, including a majority of Queensland's exports, for example, is not thermal coal, it's coking coal, which goes into making steel. Overwhelmingly, that will be required into the future. And as well, thermal coal has a role in terms of powering our power plants that are existing now, but also in terms of export. But the truth is, coal miners know this, I spoke at the Mining Union conference, national conference, on the 2nd of March, I remember it because it was my birthday. They know that there hasn't been a new coal-fired power station built in Australia. And what they want is people to be honest about that. But they continue to have their jobs and we respect them for the work that they're doing.

BONA: I will leave it there. There's a lot that you and I need to talk about. And we might do that over the coming weeks, coming months. Shall we do that?

ALBANESE: We will do, absolutely. Good to talk with you again.

BONA: Anthony Albanese, thanks for your time.

ALBANESE: Thanks, mate.

ENDS