Radio interview – 2SM Mornings with John Laws
JOHN LAWS, HOST: The Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, has done a lot of travelling again recently, although at the moment he’s very much about domestic politics. With the Federal Parliament sitting, of course, it’s very domestic and very important. But I’m happy to say that our Prime Minister is on the line. Prime Minister, good morning and welcome.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Morning, John. Good to have you back on air.
LAWS: Well, it’s good to be back, particularly as I have an opportunity to talk to one of our favourite interviewees, the Prime Minister of Australia. Are you well and happy?
PRIME MINISTER: Very kind of you. I am very well and happy. This morning, I’ve just flown into Sydney from Canberra, I’ll be at the New South Wales Art Gallery soon at the memorial service that’s taking place for that great artist, John Olsen.
LAWS: Yes. Oh and God, he was a wonderful man. What a character. What a wonderful character.
PRIME MINISTER: And just an extraordinary artist. We get, one of the privileges of being Prime Minister is having art from the National Gallery, from the collection at various places, in our offices in Parliament House and at the PM’s residences in Canberra, at The Lodge and at Kirribilli House. And there is an Olsen work there that is just stunning. He captured light and Australia so well.
LAWS: And what a wonderful character. He was a funny man, had a great sense of humour, but, my God, he was a talent.
PRIME MINISTER: He sure was. And we’re blessed in this country with so many extraordinary artists over such a long period of time, depicting our culture and our natural beauty to the world. I have an absolutely lovely Lloyd Rees up in my office in Parliament House and it’s of the Derwent River, but it just captures the light and it’s serene, it’s really calming. So, after Question Time, I’m in there and I just look at it and it immediately makes a difference.
LAWS: Okay. Isn’t that a lovely thought, though, to have a painting that can make you feel good? And we’ve got some great artists in Australia. You referred to the Prime Minister Modi, as the boss. Isn’t that ignoring India’s rather hardline stance against minorities? You know, it’s supposed to be taking on democracy and its tacit support for Russia against the Ukraine. Aren’t you rather messing that up?
PRIME MINISTER: No, John, Prime Minister Modi was a guest in our country and it is a good thing that he came to Australia, just as he very graciously hosted me in India in March. India will grow to be the third largest economy in the world in just a few years’ time. And it is, of course, the world’s largest democracy. There are issues in India, and there are issues that we raise privately with Prime Minister Modi, as you would expect. Australia has a very strong human rights record and we speak up for our values when we’re engaging with them. But that was a reference to the fact that the last time I was at the stadium there in Homebush was to see Bruce Springsteen, who, of course, was known as ‘The Boss’. And it was a reference to that and the fact that many of the Indian community, who will have very different views of Prime Minister Modi, but they’re proud of what India has done and they are proud of their origins as well as being proud Australians. And the fact that they gathered there some 12 hours in advance of when Prime Minister Modi was addressing them was rather quite extraordinary. No one queues for 12 hours to see an Australian Prime Minister, John. And that was the reference and it was a bit of colour on what was a very colourful night and it was a great celebration of Indian-Australian culture.
LAWS: Okay, how do you think your Prime Ministership is going? Do you think that you’re doing well, or you’re doing in a kind of mediocre performance, or do you feel that you’ve done something that’s worth doing?
PRIME MINISTER: Well John, that’s up for the commentators, of course. My job is to wake up every morning and do my best to serve the Australian people in the national interest. But if you look at what we’ve achieved in our first twelve months, we have had more jobs created on our watch than any previous new government in history. We have delivered a massive turnaround in the Budget from the projected $78 billion deficit to a $4.2 billion surplus. And that will assist on putting downward pressure on inflation, which is, of course, a global phenomenon arising from the Russian illegal invasion of Ukraine. And we’re seeing that pressure globally. We are advancing cheaper medicines, came in on January 1, there’ll be a further reduction in price from September. We have cheaper child care coming in (on July 1). We’re seeing increased investment in our energy sector and we’re putting the energy grid into the 21st century. And we’ve repaired our relations with the world, including with our neighbours in the ASEAN region, but also with France and with the Pacific Island Forum nations that are so important to us.
LAWS: That’s good if you believe that. Obviously you believe it or you wouldn’t say it, but have we repaired those relations satisfactorily?
PRIME MINISTER: I think they’ve gone exceptionally well. We have a security agreement now with Vanuatu. We’re progressing one with Papua New Guinea. We’ve appointed a fellow called Nicholas Moore, is working on our ASEAN economic strategy on behalf of Australia, the former CEO of Macquarie Bank. We have had two meetings, two of the three meetings, face to face of Quad Leaders, with the United States, Japan and India have occurred on my watch as Prime Minister. And we have advanced the AUKUS arrangements from a concept into a concrete plan and proposal going forward. The relationship with France and Europe has been advanced. We’re seeing some of the impediments to trade with China being withdrawn and real progress there, and better cooperation with our major trading partner. So, on all of these fronts, including putting together, again, the Pacific Island Forum was in danger of breaking up. That’s the body made up of countries in our region, and we’d had at least one departure from it, another flagged. We’ve put that back together, and I think Penny Wong has done an amazing job.
LAWS: Well, I was just about to ask you how you felt about, you’d have to be very, very impressed with Penny Wong, wouldn’t you?
PRIME MINISTER: She’s outstanding and she is someone who’s diligent. She’s visited every single country in the Pacific Island Forum, and every single country in ASEAN, in Southeast Asia, to our north. And she’s someone who is widely respected, she’s authoritative and she’s made an enormous difference. And on Friday, John, I’ll be in Singapore addressing the Shangri-La Dialogue, giving the keynote speech. This is the most significant defence and security conference that’s held in our region, and that is a great honour for Australia. And it says something about the standing in which we’re now held.
LAWS: Why is it impossible to split the referendum into a couple of questions, one about constitutional recognition and the other one about the Voice? Why can’t it be split, would that complicate the issue?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, John, First Nations people had a constitutional convention way back in 2017. You might recall, as well, that John Howard went to the 2007 election, promised that he would hold a referendum on constitutional recognition.
LAWS: True.
PRIME MINISTER: What happened over a long period of time was that Indigenous people were consulted, they came together and they said “yes, we want constitutional recognition, but we want one that has some meaning as well and this is the form that we want that constitutional recognition in”. So, to me, to just reject that would be to discount the views of the very people we’re saying we want to respect by putting their recognition in our nation’s Constitution. You know John, we’re the only country in the developed world that has a history as a colony that does not have any recognition of our First Peoples in our Constitution, in our nation’s birth certificate.
LAWS: And why is that so?
PRIME MINISTER: Well it just hasn’t happened, John. It wasn’t thought of in 1901. Of course, it took ’till 1967 ’till we allowed Aboriginal people to be even counted as people. And you will recall, John, that when Mabo happened, when Native Title happened, when the Apology to the Stolen Generations happened under Kevin Rudd way back in 2008, on all of those occasions, there was a comment that this would lead to the sky falling in and would lead to all these problems. And on none of those occasions did that occur. On every single time, what it led to was a more united Australia and an Australia going forward. And that’s what this referendum will do as well. All it’s about is recognising Aboriginal people in our Constitution, and secondly, saying that where matters affect them, we should listen to them. And that’s just common courtesy, that’s just good manners to do that. There’s no right of veto, there’s no funding coming from the Voice structures. It simply is a body to provide advice on matters that affect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
LAWS: Why can’t we all sit down and talk about it together? Why has it got to be a separation? Why have we got to talk about black people in one breath and white people in another breath? And, you know, I just don’t get it, why aren’t we all sitting down at the one table and discussing it, with intelligent people, and there are plenty of intelligent black people and plenty of intelligent white people?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, John, that’s precisely what the Voice will enable to happen, is a body made up through local people, representation from remote Australia as well as from regional Australia and urban Australia, being able to come together and speak to the Parliament about what the views of Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander people are. And it’s a matter of giving them respect. And I’m very confident that if this is successful, if the Australian people vote for this referendum, as they did overwhelmingly in 1967.
LAWS: Yes, they did.
PRIME MINISTER: People will wonder why it didn’t happen beforehand, and we’ll be stronger and more united for it.
LAWS: Do you think that the names of all the partners at PwC who had access to confidential tax information should be publicly released?
PRIME MINISTER: I think all of this should become public at the appropriate time. Of course, there are investigations underway, and I don’t want to say anything to interfere with those processes. But quite clearly what went on there is completely unacceptable. It’s something that has come to light, of course. It’s something that occurred under the former government that’s now come to light. And quite clearly no one in the former government, I’m sure, knew about it, and people in the Treasury didn’t know about it either. But it is a terrible indictment, action is required, and it’s appropriate that the authorities now undertake those tasks.
LAWS: Yeah, it’s hardly fair to blame the former government for something that PwC did.
PRIME MINISTER: Oh absolutely. Absolutely, this is the fault of PwC. As soon as it has come to light, there are now appropriate investigations taking place.
LAWS: And should those names be publicly released? I asked you that question before but didn’t get an answer. Do you think the names of all the partners at PwC who had access to confidential tax information should be publicly released?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, of course the AFP are undertaking their investigation. I don’t want to preempt any of those processes. I think in the fullness of time, of course, there needs to be proper transparency about all of this.
LAWS: Do you think that PwC should be barred from any government work for at least a period of time?
PRIME MINISTER: Well certainly what we have said is that they need to, any government department undertaking work needs to bear in mind the ethical considerations that come from this PwC behaviour. And to me too, as well, John, it draws a bigger question. And it’s one that we took to the last election, which is that over a period of time, the public service being shrinked, allegedly to save money, has not only not saved money in many cases with consultants, some of whom used to be, you find, former public servants who’ve left the public service, they’re then being paid more for doing exactly the same work, and the taxpayer’s being billed for it. Now, what we need to do is to recognise the issues. There are some plusses with some contracting out of services, but there’s also been, over a period of time, a loss in the capacity of the federal public service to provide that internal advice that avoids all of these risks, all of these for-profit motives. And so that is something that my government has been working on. It’s something we spoke about in the lead-up to the election and we’ve been implementing.
LAWS: Okay, with the latest power bill projections from the energy regulator pointing to further hikes in electricity prices, have you got to acknowledge a broken election promise that you would bring down household power bills? It is a broken promise.
PRIME MINISTER: What we said, John, was that we produced a policy of support for a transition going forward and we produced costings for it. We were an opposition that produced costings, unlike the former government, now-Opposition that had a Budget Reply that had no costings. We produced those costings from RepuTex, they’re Australia’s leading energy economists. And what, though, has occurred, of course, is that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has led to global energy prices spiking, and we’re not immune from what happens in the globe, John. And that has led to inflation running at double digits in the United Kingdom, has led to energy prices globally going up. But what we did was put a cap on gas and coal prices. What we did, as well, was to provide in the Budget $3 billion of energy price relief for people and for businesses to make a difference. So, we are doing our best to keep those costs down. It was acknowledged last week by the energy regulator that our interventions have made a significant difference.
LAWS: Okay, that’s apart from the Ukraine situation, isn’t it?
PRIME MINISTER: Yeah, exactly. And it’s led to prices in Europe, in North America, in the entire world going up. And that’s led to a global inflation pressure, the like of which we haven’t seen for some years. And that’s placed pressure on the economy.
LAWS: Why is a country as rich as Australia in the resources that are needed for power, why are we paying these prices?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, that’s a very good point, John. It’s only in Western Australia, for example, that had a reservation on its gas, led by Alan Carpenter when he was the state Premier. It was criticised at the time, but, boy, hasn’t it served Western Australia well. Here in Australia wide, and particularly the East Coast, we didn’t do that. We didn’t do that, and that was a problem that’s created that link to global energy prices, which has created real pressure, together with a failure to have investment in new energy supply. That’s also occurred in the former government, who had 22 energy policies and didn’t land one. So we, for example, are making sure that the energy grid is built for the 21st century, so that renewables and other forms of energy are plugged into the grid, so that you put that downward pressure on prices.
LAWS: I believe that you’re going to Adelaide today. Are you staying for the State of Origin on Wednesday night? How dare you.
PRIME MINISTER: No, I’m not. I’ll be back in Canberra tonight, and I’m doing the Lowitja O’Donoghue lecture tonight at one of the universities in Adelaide, and then flying back to Canberra. Parliament’s sitting this week, so I’ll be watching the Origin game on television from Canberra. But go the Blues.
LAWS: Yeah, okay, I’m with you on that. I saw a bloke walking around Alaska with a Rabbitohs hat on.
PRIME MINISTER: They’ve everywhere. There’s always a random Souths guy, John.
LAWS: It was, they do get to wander a little bit. This bloke’s in Alaska walking around with a Rabbitohs hat on. I wanted to speak to him, but I thought better of it when I looked at his size.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, lucky you for being in Alaska. It’s supposed to be a beautiful place.
LAWS: You’ve been to Alaska?
PRIME MINISTER: No, I haven’t, John.
LAWS: Okay. Next holiday, make a point of spending at least two weeks in Alaska. You will love it.
PRIME MINISTER: Okay, I will take that tip.
LAWS: And you love the people. We had such a wonderful time, really. Just lovely, warm, believe it or not, people in that freezing environment. But it was great. And the views are extraordinary. The landscape is quite extraordinary. And it’s like something that, I’ve travelled the world, it’s like something I’ve never seen before. And that’s a nice thing to be able to discover at my age.
PRIME MINISTER: They should get you to do their ads, John.
LAWS: Yeah, well, I’d happily do them. I’d do them for nothing.
PRIME MINISTER: That’s great. Well, have a fantastic day, John.
LAWS: Okay. And you, too, Prime Minister. And I hope we get to talk to each other again very soon. Thank you very much for your time.
PRIME MINISTER: Good morning.
LAWS: Bye. Our Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese.