SUBJECTS: Midnight Oil; Clive Palmer; Budget Reply 2021; Meghan Markle. 

HOST: When the Leader of the Opposition is in town, or even when he's not in town, he chooses the Triple M Breakfast Show to have his say.

HOST: He loves Triple M. He is a Triple M sort of guy. 

HOST: Absolutely.

HOST: May not automatically look like a Triple M guy, but sometimes it's how you feel on the inside.

HOST: He owns his own beer. That's very Triple M. 

HOST: You can't be any more Triple M than that. Anthony Albanese, Opposition Leader, good morning, and welcome back to Triple M Perth.

ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: Thank you. And it's always good to follow an Oils song. It was always a bit strange when you come into my office when I was the Government Leader in the House of Reps and he would come in, sometimes you'd be sitting there and he would stand up, and he's a very, very big man, and he would be doing the hand movements like he does on stage while talking to you. And you would get these flashbacks to Selina's or a seedy pub in the 1980s. And it was always difficult. 

HOST: Did you ever ask him like, if there was ever like a quiet little Christmas party, did you ever say, 'Hey, Pete, give us a bit of Beds are Burning'?

ALBANESE: I had a function at a pub just last month for my local branch members. And I had the guest speaker, I always prefer to have someone who is not a politician to talk about things, I had Sacha Horler, the great Australian actor, talking about the impact of COVID on the arts and entertainment sector. And Peter Garrett is a constituent of mine now. He's moved in. So he turned up to this event just as a local branch member, which of course, the other local branch members were very excited. He still gets people excited, particularly of our generation.

HOST: Speaking of getting people excited, probably not for the right things, specifically here in WA, Albo, is Clive Palmer. But there was some news out yesterday that the High Court now has ordered him to pay all of the court costs towards the WA Government for his abandoned contempt case. What are your thoughts on Clive?

ALBANESE: Isn't that a good thing that he had to cough up? He was taking the Western Australian people to court is what happened. The fact that Scott Morrison joined with him on the major court case, which was, of course, about the right of Western Australia to control its borders was, I think, pretty sad. I am on Mark McGowan's side, not Clive Palmer's. And I think that his actions are outrageous and is an abuse of the economic power he has. He is a great beneficiary of investment from China. And using that to take Western Australians' support at a time where the whole country was pulling together, let's face it, Australians all making sacrifices. And this bloke was just thinking about himself.

HOST: Page 14 of The West today, he's depicted as a piggy bank. He looks like a little pig with some spots to put your coins in.

ALBANESE: All he's doing is paying back the money that Mark McGowan's Government had to put in WA to protect WA taxpayers. So it is a good decision that he has to pay back the costs. I noticed he hasn't had anything to say about that. Of course, he ran in the Queensland election, spent a whole lot of money, spent a whole lot of money in the Federal election against the Labor Party as well. But I think people will see any future campaigns for what they are, about being about him, not about the people of the West or the people of Australia.

HOST: Albo, we have a little tip that you may be visiting the stylist. I want to ask about that in just a moment. We are with Anthony Albanese, Opposition Leader.

HOST: Anthony Albanese, Opposition Leader, is with us. Last week, of course, we saw the Budget Reply.

HOST: Great speech, Albo. I am really a big fan.

HOST: Very strong performance. 

ALBANESE: Thank you.

HOST: There was a little whisper that perhaps a little bit of styling has taken place? Maybe just from the kids, maybe from someone in the office. First things first, Mr Albanese, are they new spectacles that you're wearing at the moment?

ALBANESE: No, I bought them about a year ago. People with private health insurance will know you can claim once a year. I buy spectacles once a year, either sunnies that are prescription, because I'm a bit of a tennis player, I try to be anyway, or just normal glasses. I need them for distance. As I have gotten older, my eyes have gotten a bit better.

HOST: Speaking of sharpening things up, it looks like everyone is sort of going into an election campaign right at the moment. You and the Prime Minister have been in Queensland a lot, which is known as a battleground state. How are you feeling when you look west, though? Where are you seeing our Premier, Mark McGowan, who is, of course, team red, your team. He has very close relationship with the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison. How are you going to combat that when we actually kick off an election?

ALBANESE: Well, I'm not sure you're right about that closeness, given Scott Morrison backing Clive Palmer in court didn't really help that relationship. I think Mark McGowan has done a great job. And the last time, I was there just a few weeks ago, of course. We had many, many hundreds of people turn up there for an event, a celebration of his win, but also almost a de facto campaign launch in the West for my campaign, the next step. I really look forward to campaigning with Mark and with our Federal candidates over there. We have a great bunch of ALP members who come across to Canberra, but we don't have enough of them. So I'm really very positive and optimistic about our prospects in the West. I think that the Liberal Party have taken the West for granted, they've lost a whole lot of their talent, two big guns in Julie Bishop and Mathias Cormann have gone and I think that will really hurt them. So expect to see a lot of me in the West.

HOST: There's nothing wrong with that. 

HOST: Come and visit. 

HOST: Albo, we have a game we like to play with our guests from the east coast. We randomly turned to a page of the West Australian and we ask them for a comment on a story they may or may not know anything about. So we randomly flip the paper today. And we land on a photo of Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex. So we ask you for your thoughts on Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex.

ALBANESE: I like her. She's got a bit of oomph about her. She has trod on some toes and all of that, but how hard must it have been to go into those circumstances? So I say good luck to her, she's made decisions about going back to the US with Harry and I just wish them well.

HOST: You have got to make the hard calls because that reaps the rewards.

HOST: Well said, Jenna.

ALBANESE: Well, she certainly made a hard call. It is a big thing to walk away from. But I think it's pretty difficult to live life in the spotlight for all of them. I'm a Republican, of course. I want an Aussie as our head of state, but I do think it is a pretty difficult life, having people comment on what you have for breakfast every day. 

HOST: Question without notice and you handled it beautifully. Anthony Albanese, Opposition Leader, make sure you visit again when you're across in Perth. Appreciated the chat this morning. 

ALBANESE: Thanks very much, team. I look forward to joining you in the studio there.

ENDS