Radio interview – 6PR with Oliver Peterson
OLIVER PETERSON, HOST: Prime Minister, welcome back to Perth.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Good to be back here
PETERSON: How was NATO?
PRIME MINISTER: NATO was absolutely fascinating. It comes at a time of a land war in Europe, we were just about 40 kilometres from the Belarus border, so you really felt it in Lithuania there. But the democratic world is united in opposing the Russian aggression in Ukraine. We understand that in today’s globalised world as well, an impact, a war in Europe has had an impact here. It’s one of the major factors in the rise in global inflation, global supply chain shortages as a result of this, and that’s just a reminder that we need to be engaged. And one of the really positive things for me was participating in the Indo-Pacific Four, along with Japan, South Korea and New Zealand. We had a separate meeting very early yesterday morning and then we participated with the full NATO membership. So, it was also an opportunity to talk to people like President Biden and Prime Minister Sunak of the UK. I had a very successful visit to Germany as well, where we signed a deal to supply some heavy vehicles there that are produced through Rheinmetall here in Australia. That’s a defence export deal worth more than a billion dollars. We need to make more things here, you’ve heard me say that before Ollie, and this is a great example of doing just that.
PETERSON: You said before the world’s united with Ukraine. Picking up on that, another 30 Bushmasters. Are there any left?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, they’re continuing to be made, they’re in Bendigo in regional Victoria producing jobs. They are also, it must be said, we’re exporting them commercially as well to places like Indonesia. They are a product that is the world’s best. It’s a pretty simple design. I went to the factory there and saw for myself, the shell essentially has if you like, a V shape at the bottom. So, if a vehicle is hit by a mine or something like that, the blast goes out rather than up into the vehicle, and that saves people’s lives literally on the front line.
PETERSON: Australia’s support now totals almost $900 million with Ukraine. How much more can we give? And I ask that because the UK Defence Minister, Ben Wallace, has been critical now of President Zelenskyy arguing he cannot continue making an Amazon list of military items that he wants. So, it strikes me that some countries, US making a few murmurs as well, are worried they cannot keep up with the equipment demands that Ukraine is making.
PRIME MINISTER: Well what we’ve done, and you might have noticed, Ollie, for example, there were comments about various things that we should provide, frankly, from armchair critics saying, why aren’t we providing Hawkeis, for example. Well, there’s a range of reasons why with supply chain issues there as well. We’ll provide the support that we’re best able to. We are helping to train Ukrainian soldiers in the United Kingdom, we’re providing a Wedgetail aircraft to Germany that will be placed there for six months with 100 personnel placed in Germany. What that will do is to help with surveillance and help with access of aid and other goods into and out of Ukraine. And so it’s essentially a high level surveillance aircraft, but there are benefits for Australia in doing that as well. Look, this is a struggle that does require international support and it is there, but there will always be more demands. I’m not critical of the Ukrainians for that, they would always like more, they’re in a war for their survival as a sovereign state. But we are providing support that we think is appropriate and that is needed.
PETERSON: It’s been a successful week or so for you travelling. Are you sick of it? Do you travel too much, Prime Minister?
PRIME MINISTER: I would love to never get on a plane again, Ollie, except I couldn’t get here to Perth. Look, it’s part of the job. I attend those international forums because Australia’s interests are to have a seat at the table.
PETERSON: And you said to me before to get a seat back at that table was about committing to climate targets as an example. Was there any discussion here this week about carbon taxes again? Are any of your fellow leaders of foreign nations saying to you, ‘Hey, Prime Minister Albanese, think about a carbon tax in Australia?’
PRIME MINISTER: No, not at all, I think Australia is seen as taking climate change seriously. One of the things that we did in Germany, for example, was to sign up to an arrangement of something called the Climate Club that doesn’t require any duties on Australia, there are no demands. But it’s just a commitment of people to discuss ways in which the transition to greater use of clean energy and reducing emissions can grow jobs and grow our economy as well. And there was certainly discussion in Germany, I had an event at the Australian Embassy where more than 50 very senior business people in Germany attended. Germany is the fourth largest economy in the world, it’s by far the largest economy in Europe. They want access to our critical minerals, they want access to green hydrogen that we can produce here. Here in the west in particular, could be an enormous benefit from that engagement with our friends in Europe and in other parts of the world as well. And I know Andrew Forrest has been over there talking green hydrogen as well with businesses and it is an opportunity. It should be seen not as a cost, it’s something that is happening and we can get enormous benefit. We can be a renewable energy superpower which will lead to jobs and economic activity here.
PETERSON: Speaking of Andrew Forrest, he has just announced overnight that he and Nicola, his wife, are splitting. You’re worried what that might do to the future of green energy and FMG and the like?
PRIME MINISTER: No, I’m sure that those issues will be worked through. It’s always sad when news comes out about a breakup of a long term relationship, but I wish both Andrew and Nicola well, they’re both very good people. They are great contributors to the West Australian economy and the national economy and I’m sure they’ll continue to do that. As well as being very great philanthropists as well, who always put their hand up to make a difference.
PETERSON: Federal member for Perth and your Labor colleague, Patrick Gorman has this week said the Voice is more important for WA than the GST. Do you agree with him?
PRIME MINISTER: I think you can do a range of things at the same time. The GST is very important for WA, I think what Patrick was probably talking about was as well, that The Voice goes back a lot longer than the debate about the GST. Recognising Indigenous Australians in our constitution is unfinished business since 1901 and other countries have done that last century, or in New Zealand’s case, the century before, in the 19th century. It’s time that we got it done and I sincerely hope that Western Australians vote Yes in the referendum in the last quarter of this year.
PETERSON: Did you ask WA Premier Roger Cook to delay issuing fines for twelve months under the state’s new Aboriginal Heritage Act?
PRIME MINISTER: No.
PETERSON: Are you worried, though, that the Aboriginal Heritage Act might be derailing the Voice?
PRIME MINISTER: No, I think that these issues are all very separate. The Voice is a very simple proposition. It’s two things. It’s recognising Indigenous Australians in our constitution and it’s saying that we should listen to them on matters that affect them and that’s a means to an end. The end is, how do you get better results? How do you get better outcomes? How do you close the gap that’s there in health and housing and education and incarceration rates, social justice issues? You get that by listening to people and engaging with them, that is all that the Voice is and I hope that Western Australians, as well as the rest of Australia, votes Yes when they have that opportunity.
PETERSON: When will that opportunity be? Have you set the date yet?
PRIME MINISTER: No, we haven’t, it will be in the last quarter. So I set out a timetable very early on, a year ago now, of when things would happen. And I’ve said it will be, it has to be now that the legislation was carried in June as well, which was on the timetable we established. It needs to be within six months, before six months after that passes so, that’s December, and no sooner than two months and 33 days. So, that means the end of September, but it won’t be on AFL Grand final day, Ollie.
PETERSON: Well, there won’t be any Dockers or Eagles there. But you might not be aware there was a tree planning event in Geraldton shut down last weekend to commemorate the late Queen Elizabeth. Now there has been some confusion around the state’s new Heritage Laws. Are you worried, though, that this muddies the waters for the Voice votes?
PRIME MINISTER: No,I think that people will have a debate, have a look at what the question that’s being asked. It’s a simple and clear proposition that’s being asked, there’s a whole range of issues being raised in order to try to cloud what these issues are but it’s simple – recognition and listening, and that’s about getting better outcomes.
PETERSON: How does it work? I think that’s what we get a lot of feedback around the Voice at the moment, Prime Minister, is how it will actually work?
PRIME MINISTER: How it will work, there’s eight principles have been established and spoken about, so an elected body of representatives of Indigenous Australians with every state and territory represented. And it will be able, the wording is there, it may make representations on matters affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. So it might make representations about housing or education or health. It will concentrate, no doubt, on the matters that are of most concern.
PETERSON: Won’t it make representations on everything?
PRIME MINISTER: No, because it’s like, well anyone can, Ollie. You can make representations to me about a tree in your next door neighbour’s yard or what have you, and whether council regs have been have been complied with. But guess what, I’d say to you, ‘mate, that’s a local government issue’.
PETERSON: You don’t want the phone calls about the Dividing Fence Act, Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER: Why don’t you ring your local council? Australians can make representations about anything, it’s called emails and everything else. What Indigenous people are concerned about, when you have an eight-year gap in life expectancy, when you have more chance of going to jail than going to university if you’re a young Indigenous male. When you have all of those issues which are out there, when you have four out of the nineteen objectives of Closing the Gap being met, which means fifteen aren’t, that is the concern that people will be concentrating on, not some of the issues that have been raised. And anyone can make representations about anything.
PETERSON: Do you plan on spending a bit of time in the regions, in regional communities as well, in the lead up to The Voice?
PRIME MINISTER: I do, and I already have, Ollie. As you know as Prime Minister, I’ve been to Albany, I’ve been to Kalgoorlie, I’ve been to Port Headland, I’ve been around the regions right around the country, including here in Western Australia. I’ll be bringing the entire Cabinet back to Perth next month as I promised to do. And that will be an opportunity during that visit, I’m hoping to get up to Karratha as well, I’ll be spending a few days here in the West. And that from my experience, as you know, I’ve done that regularly and then I’ll be back again for Telethon that’ll take place a bit later on, that’s always a big event here as well.
PETERSON: Are you holding a special Cabinet meeting tomorrow?
PRIME MINISTER: We have meetings all the time.
PETERSON: Are you announcing the Reserve Bank Governor tomorrow?
PRIME MINISTER: We have meetings all the time, and we will have meetings in the usual way. I’ve been away, so it’s not unusual for us to have meetings when I return. And we will go through issues, we have not made a decision on the Governor’s position. It needs to be done before September, but we obviously are giving it proper consideration.
PETERSON: Philip Lowe, is he any chance of continuing?
PRIME MINISTER: Look, we will make that decision as a Cabinet. One of the things about my government is that it’s an orderly government, it has proper processes, we have co-ord comments from the different departments, we are trusting of our public service and are engaging with them as well. We don’t have any secret ministries, I’m just the Prime Minister, I’m not the Health Minister or the Industry Minister or the Resources Minister – those days are gone. What Australia wants is an orderly, considered government that meets the challenges which are there, and there are challenges there at the moment over cost of living. We’re giving on an ongoing basis, doing what we can there. But making sure as will that we don’t put further pressure on inflation.
PETERSON: And that is the number one issue I think, of our listeners, Prime Minister, is cost of living. Are you doing enough?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we will always do what we can. We are doing measures including fee free TAFE here in WA, those 18,000 places got snapped up and we have another 300,000 on top of the 180,000 nationally going forward – that’s a big difference for cost of living. Cheaper Child Care came in on July 1, making a difference for cost of living. Cheaper medicines came in on January 1, and then there’ll be further measures to literally halve the costs of people who get regular medicines so they can get a script for 60 days, not 30, cutting that cost in half and also cutting the costs of having to go to the doctor. I was here on Saturday opening Medicare Urgent Care Clinic there in Rockingham with the new Premier Roger Cook and Madeleine King down there, and then had a bit of a street walk with Mark McGowan as well. What that does will give 11 million Australians access to a doctor when they need it for urgent care, if their kid falls off a skateboard or we spoke to a woman there who’d cut a finger making a cake and instead of having to go to Emergency Department, well she did, she got referred straight there and got it fixed. And guess what? All she needed was her Medicare card, not her credit card. They’re the sort of measures that we’re putting in place as well. Our Energy Price Relief Plan of $3 billion in partnership with the states making a difference. We’ll always look at doing more, but we’ve been very careful that we needed to take pressure off the cost of living whilst not putting pressure on inflation. So our energy plan, for example, according to the Reserve Bank and the Treasury, took three quarters of a percent off inflation, that’s one measure alone.
PETERSON: Prime Minister, we appreciate you coming to the studios today. We’ll see you in Perth again very soon.
PRIME MINISTER: Thanks very much, look forward to catching up. And it’s really nice weather out there, too.
PETERSON: It’s good to be here.