ABC Radio Melbourne Drive with Raf Epstein
RAF EPSTEIN, HOST: Anthony Albanese is the Labor Member for the seat of Grayndler in Sydney. He’s the Prime Minister of Australia. Thanks for coming in.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Good to be here.
EPSTEIN: Child care, there will be more subsidies flowing through to a ton of parents. But the costs aren’t dropping, the cost parents actually pay. Why not?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, the cost for a whole lot of parents will certainly drop. There’ll be 1.2 million families benefit from these changes, 300,000 families in Victoria alone. And the truth is that for some, there will be an increase in July because they’re tied to inflation. But the subsidies, if they hadn’t have been increased, that increase still would have occurred. And for many families that I’ve spoken to directly, I did a roundtable just on Saturday in my own electorate with The Parenthood, a wonderful organisation. And Georgie hosted the event. And there’s only one of the families who were there are going to see an increase. And the increase isn’t as much as the increase in their subsidy. Everyone else, there was no increase.
EPSTEIN: Isn’t that your problem? So, we did a quick survey. Erin is one of the producers, they contacted a few people. Sydney and Melbourne, daily prices going up $5 a day in one, these are all just separate child care centres. South Yarra going up $19 a day. Kilmore going up $14 a day. Ballarat going up $10 a day. There’s a child care centre in East Bentleigh whose charges are going up almost $24 a day. If people don’t notice, let’s accept, for the sake of this question, everything you’re doing on child care is great, right, for the premise of this question. If you don’t notice it, you are still stuck, aren’t you? A. They don’t notice your effort. And B. they’re still out of pocket.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, they won’t be out of pocket. These changes will make a substantial difference to them. And they’re just the first tranche. What I’ve said is that we’re having a Productivity Commission review already, an inquiry that’s looking at a move towards more universal provision of affordable child care. We think that the circumstance where if a young kid, so many families, talk about anecdotes, so many families will say, ‘Oh, when little Johnny or little Mary turned five, we were all of a sudden so much better off’. Why is it that we accept as a society that the state will provide schooling for every child, no matter the income of their parents, they’re eligible to go to the local public school. But that’s not the case for child care when 90 per cent of human brain development occurs in the first five years? Our policies are already seeing a difference with increased workforce participation of women. There are more women in full-time work than ever before. And I think that in part is the response to the changes that we have brought in and that commence, of course, in July. But in anticipation of that, our families and businesses are changing. Because this is good for productivity, good for workforce participation, and good for families.
EPSTEIN: Let me ask you that same question maybe in a different way. You’ll be able to hear this. We had a call from Rebecca. She called from Coburg. And she was waiting. She knew that the subsidy was going to increase in July. But her actual child care costs will not be going down. This is what Rebecca told us the other day.
CALLER: We don’t make any savings. And it feels like I’ve been, or particularly our family in particular, has been hanging in there waiting for this July 10 to roll around to like, you know, the cost of living is so high, and just hanging out for child care to drop a little bit. And now, it’s just like it’s not going to at all. It just feels scary, basically.
EPSTEIN: What would you say to someone like that?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, Rebecca will benefit from the increased subsidy. And if the child care centre where her child or children are going is behaving in a way that is not fair, good practice, we have tasked the ACCC, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, with making sure that child care businesses don’t take up the opportunity of the increased subsidies to see it go towards their businesses. We want families to benefit. And the ACCC will be on the case.
EPSTEIN: I suppose it is the same with electricity and child care. So again, not for the sake of this question, saying your policy is right or wrong, but no one’s sitting at home going, ‘Whoopee, my electricity bill only went up 18 per cent. It didn’t go up 25 per cent thanks to Anthony Albanese’. No one says that, no one experiences that. So, does that worry you that people aren’t noticing your work?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, Raf, we have global inflation. We have it for two big reasons. One is supply chain issues arising out of COVID meant that there would have been a portion of inflation impacting the global economy. And secondly, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has led to this massive spike in energy costs. What the Government can do, though, our response has to be to take pressure off the cost of living, off families, without putting pressure on families. So, on Energy Price Relief, a $3 billion plan in conjunction with states and territories. We put a cap on coal and gas prices. We have the Energy Price Relief Plan taking money off people’s bills. If we’d have sent out cash, people would have noticed it but what it would have inflationary.
EPSTEIN: What if no one notices?
PRIME MINISTER: Our job is to do good policy, Raf. That’s our job. And our job is then to talk to people on programs like this about what we’re doing. But we’ve already, people will have noticed that the price of the medicines went down from $42.50 to $30 on January 1. People know we’re in a bit of an argy-bargy at the moment over 60 day dispensing. That’s about literally halving the costs. So, instead of once every 30 days, you get once every 60 days. Literally halving the cost meaning you also save on not having to go to the doctor to get the scripts as much. You take pressure off the public health system. We are putting in place across those measures. Child care, pharmaceuticals, healthcare costs. We’re tripling the bulk billing incentive which will lead to 11 million Australians getting access to bulk billing, making sure they can see GP for free. Urgent Care Clinics are being established around the country, almost 60 of them, from July as well.
EPSTEIN: I don’t want to go through too many of the lists.
PRIME MINISTER: We’re doing what we can is the point. And it is having an impact. Because inflation, the figures that came down this week, show that inflation is heading in the right direction. We know that employment, we have created more jobs on our watch than any new government in history. And that’s a good thing. And the triple bottom line, the surplus is going to be even stronger than the $4 billion we projected.
EPSTEIN: I guess I’m asking those questions about price rises and child care with something else in mind. That is, okay, maybe people like the idea of what you say when they hear it. But they’re not noticing you doing those things because their bills are going up. Then they see you’re prioritising the Voice. They see you talking and promoting the Yes case on the Voice. Are you worried people actually go, ‘Oh, he’s not doing anything for my cost of living. And there he is off being distracted by the Voice’? Is that a fear you have?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, you can walk and chew gum.
EPSTEIN: Do you think voters think you can?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I think they are very sensible. And they get that. I noticed that Peter Dutton has given that sort of line in recent days after having spent last week in the Parliament asking almost every question about the Voice. We weren’t doing that.
EPSTEIN: Maybe he’s asking that because he thinks it’s effective and he thinks that people think you are distracted by the Voice.
PRIME MINISTER: But we were talking about cost of living. We were talking about our management of the economy. We were talking about the National Reconstruction Fund. We were talking about the Housing Australia Future Fund. Just a couple of weeks ago, was here in Victoria announcing $2 billion additional investment for social housing. We’re getting on with the full spectrum of policies. But if you look at just those three figures, inflation being reduced from where it was, the Budget surplus getting bigger than it was and a record number of jobs, they are three key economic indicators. They haven’t happened by accident. Our Energy Price Relief Plan did take three quarters of a per cent off the inflation figure by itself, just that one measure.
EPSTEIN: Anthony Albanese is with you. He is, of course, the Prime Minister of Australia. I’ll get to some traffic details a little later than normal. I want to go through a few of these issues with the Prime Minister. You mentioned two things there that I want to try and tie together. The social housing, the extra $2 billion that you announced, these immediate spending, you’re having a fight at the moment with the Greens. The Coalition have also said no to social housing. So, I’m presuming the Greens are more likely to say yes.
PRIME MINISTER: The Greens, Liberals, Nationals and One Nation are all saying no.
EPSTEIN: Let me get the question out. If the Greens had said yes, maybe we wouldn’t have this immediate $2 billion, maybe the extra $2 billion, maybe that came from the surplus. Maybe that only came about because the Greens stood up to you. You’ve got immediate spending on social housing. Doesn’t that vindicate their tactic?
PRIME MINISTER: No, it certainly doesn’t. It came in spite of them. It would be more if they just put their hand up and stopped voting with One Nation, the Liberals and the Nationals.
EPSTEIN: But where did the $2 billion come from?
PRIME MINISTER: It came from the surplus, quite clearly, Raf.
EPSTEIN: So, you would have spent that anyway even without the Greens.
PRIME MINISTER: I have said very clearly that we need to address housing supply is the big issue. And I’ve said, we’ve been talking for many years now, Raf. And if you had have asked me in any one of the probably 30 interviews we’ve done, ‘Would you like to put more into public housing when you can’? The answer to that would have been, ‘Yes’. And that is what we did, precisely. It had nothing to do with the minor parties and their intransigence. It is just bizarre that you can say that you support affordable and social housing but vote against it. It makes no sense whatsoever. We need to get on with it. We had separate negotiations with the Greens. They weren’t really interested. Clearly, their spokesperson put it in writing in an article that this is all about.
EPSTEIN: Does he remind you of you, Max Chandler-Mather? There’s a lot of people saying he’s the version of the younger radical Anthony Albanese.
PRIME MINISTER: Not at all. I would never have voted ever against public housing.
EPSTEIN: He’s not getting under your skin? He doesn’t upset you?
PRIME MINISTER: No, no. It is what it is.
EPSTEIN: There’s a photo of you sharing a moment, a video, in the Chamber. Mike Bowers took it. It looked like you were sending him a message.
PRIME MINISTER: No, he had something to say. I had something to say back. That’s fine. But I get frustrated when people say they’re progressive, and then vote with Pauline Hanson and the Liberals who’ve never supported social housing. They basically sneer at people in public housing. And you have the Greens voting with them with this absurd argument that we’ve put forward very clearly that supply doesn’t matter, you can just have a rent freeze, which doesn’t work. We don’t have power to do it, even if we wanted to. And no state and territory government is about to do it.
EPSTEIN: Just on Ukraine, I want to ask a specific question about equipment that is going to them. But Peter Dutton’s very much sharpened his rhetoric on this. On Tuesday, he was basically lambasting the latest package of weapons that you’ve sent through. This is what he said.
PETER DUTTON: You can’t just clear out the garage from Defence of old vehicles that you don’t want anymore and dump them into Ukraine. That’s not the response of a developed nation like ours. It’s frankly embarrassing.
EPSTEIN: They didn’t get all the new vehicles they wanted. Is he right, Peter Dutton?
PRIME MINISTER: What was embarrassing was his comments. We are the largest non NATO contributor to the war effort in Ukraine, except for Sweden, which, of course, has applied to join NATO. The largest. We are doing our bit since we came into Government. They did the right thing, the former Government, in providing support for the people of Ukraine. We’ve provided more than double what they provided in terms of the support which is there. Part of the program that we announced on Monday was $10 million additional humanitarian assistance. The rest was about military equipment. And it was on the basis of the advice from Defence. We’re doing our bit to help the people of Ukraine. And we’ll continue to do so.
EPSTEIN: There was a report in the Financial Review that there are some old F/A-18s. So, they’re a little bit old. I think they were actually built in Melbourne in the ’80s. But they got thousands of flying hours left. The Financial review said that your Government has been talking to America about sending some of those older planes to Ukraine. Have those talks happened?
PRIME MINISTER: Yes, they do happen. But the problem here is, Raf, you’ve had a bunch of people sitting around offices, not talking to people in Defence about what equipment should go. Now, it’s no good sending a plane, someone’s got to fly the plane. And the planes got to actually be able to function properly.
EPSTEIN: Is it a prospect of being used by them, do you think?
PRIME MINISTER: The decision that has been made by the allies, and the advice and discussions we’ve had with the United States is that they want the one type of plane to go, which is the most effective for them. Now, Australia has provided, I think the numbers something like 90 Bushmasters, that have been incredibly effective for them. I’ve seen comments as well about providing Hawkeis. Well, there are issues that mean that they would not be effective if we sent them. The Bushmasters, we’re sending parts and everything else as well. It’s no good sending equipment that is not going to be able to be used on the frontline, that will just create a hindrance rather than a help. And that’s the advice that we’ve got. And I find it astonishing that Peter Dutton’s obsession with saying no to everything, trying to play politics with this issue, I find very disappointing.
EPSTEIN: Two very non-political questions. Do you have Taylor Swift tickets?
PRIME MINISTER: No, not yet.
EPSTEIN: Not yet? Okay.
PRIME MINISTER: Not yet. I’m hoping to get an invite. So, we’ll see how that goes.
EPSTEIN: Do you get on the browser yourself? No, I won’t ask that question. Separate question. Unofficial history of New Delhi. Have you been to New Delhi? Can you tell me about the first time you went to New Delhi?
PRIME MINISTER: I have been in New Delhi many times. The first time was in 1991, backpacking. And on the way over, we arrived at, I think, 2am in the morning, something like that. And we stayed in. I think it’s Connaught Square, or Place.
EPSTEIN: Connaught Place.
PRIME MINISTER: It is the main area. And we’d booked somewhere for a couple of nights, a very cheap joint, 1991 backpacking. And we read the guidebook on the way over, as you do, the Lonely Planet. It said, it began at the time, ‘India is an attack on the senses, the sight, the smell, the sound’. And it was like, ‘Oh, it was pretty quiet at 3am in the morning’. The next morning, we went out onto the street. And after a couple of hours, we just went back again. And we were just exhausted because it was just such an extraordinary place. And I was there, of course, in March again with Prime Minister Modi hosted a lunch in New Delhi for members of his Government and Australian business leaders who I had taken over there. And I must say, something that really touched me, he went to such enormous effort. It was a couple of hundred people at lunch. And he’s sitting next to me, Prime Minister Modi, and he starts smiling. They had a three-piece Indian band equivalent, I guess, with a sitar and traditional instruments playing music for the lunch. And he just had this huge smile on him. And I said, ‘Is that what I think it is?’ And had gone to the effort of looking at my, someone had gone to the effort, looking at my DJ list. And here it was on traditional Indian instruments playing Wide Open Road by The Triffids.
EPSTEIN: You’re kidding.
PRIME MINISTER: And then they went on to play. It is on my Instagram, I think we put the video up. It was extraordinary. And then they did The Go-Betweens’ Streets of Your Town. And it was such a warm gesture of friendship that they had gone to that effort to make Australia and to make myself feel welcome. But New Delhi has changed. In ’91, there wasn’t that much there. When I went back in 2018, I horrified the people from the High Commission by going to see Akshardham, a Hindu temple, which is out of town, I guess. The equivalent of going, I don’t know, to Frankston in terms of distance. So, I got on the metro because I hadn’t been on the metro. And I went by myself. And they were like, ‘You can’t do that’. And I did and then did the walk. And it’s such a friendly, amazing place. And the hospitality of the Indian people is just great.
EPSTEIN: Thank you so much for coming in.
PRIME MINISTER: Good to be here.