Radio interview – ABC Melbourne Drive with Raf Epstein
RAFAEL EPSTEIN, HOST: The Prime Minister was there, he’s lucky. Thank you for coming into the studio.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Good to be here, Raf.
EPSTEIN: Very seriously, and also jokingly, like isn’t it insane to talk about a public holiday and you’re jinxing them before it happens?
PRIME MINISTER: I got asked about it on radio. So Raf as you know, I do a fair bit of radio –
EPSTEIN: You do a fair bit of choosing not to answer things when you want to, when you think it’s the right thing to do.
PRIME MINISTER: Never Raf, that’s someone else you’re thinking of. But it was weeks ago, before the round of sixteen I got asked, if they win the whole thing would you support giving them a public holiday? And I said it’s up to the states and territories but –
EPSTEIN: You’re keen for it, you said you’re going to follow all the attempts –
PRIME MINISTER: Not a bad idea. Chris Minns, I will point out has today announced that if they win there will be a public holiday in New South Wales with a ticker-tape parade.
EPSTEIN: Very seriously, if the nation’s leaders are talking about this in the morning, and they are taking to the field in the evening that’s, isn’t that too much pressure?
PRIME MINISTER: Raf, there’s a there’s an old saying in AFL and NRL, I know your listeners will be familiar with, ‘keep a lid on it’. The lid got blown off this a long time ago, Raf. The idea that Australia is not completely captivated by the Matildas, and how good is it? Because you’ve got young girls and young women, as well as young boys it must be said being inspired here. I’ve had the privilege of going to three of the games – Ireland, Nigeria and then the quarter, the magnificent quarter last Saturday night and just seeing the kids at the grounds and outside of the live sites.
EPSTEIN: It’s beautiful, it’s wonderful.
PRIME MINISTER: It is inspirational and it will have a lasting impact on Australia. We’re a great sporting nation, but you will see next year a lot more young girls in particular, but young boys too, playing football, playing different codes. It’s a team sport, and the idea 20 years ago that you would have full grounds watching women’s team sport was just unheard of. Indeed, when the Matildas played Brazil a few years ago in Queensland they shut one of the games because the first one, 2000 people turned up.
EPSTEIN: Can I just get back to, I guess, where the rubber hits the road. One of the former Matildas, I think Melissa Barbieri, was basically saying what is the point of the public holiday when we don’t have the public funding? Some of the women running around the A-League get about twenty-five grand a year, playing thirty-five weeks of football. Wouldn’t it be better to put public money into the sport rather than a public holiday?
PRIME MINISTER: We do, you can of course do both. Is there enough funding that has gone into women’s sport? No. There is a need to do more, to be very conscious about it.
EPSTEIN: Will there be more because of this?
PRIME MINISTER: In my local, we’re in Melbourne so I can certainly talk about this. My local ground is Henson Park in Marrickville, and we committed before the last election, it is going to happen, for women’s change rooms there. It was built for the Empire Games as they were called back in 1938. And the AFLW both the Giants and the Swans are going to be playing there.
EPSTEIN: I will get to more questions about Voice. If you just pop those headphones on, there’s a call or two about public holiday. Daryl is in Pakenham, Daryl, the PM’s listening, what to query?
DARYL, LISTENER: First of all Prime Minister, Albanese, what a marvellous job that you’re doing. The second thing is, taking into consideration you’re promoting a public holiday, any chance that I can get a day’s rebate on my taxes and a day’s rebate on my interest rate because I know that you’re good at spending other people’s money but I’ve got to pay my own bills.
PRIME MINISTER: Well Daryl, I certainly agree with, thank you for your first comment. Look, this will be up to the States, Premiers and Territory leaders of course if it happens. But of course here in Victoria, I’m very aware, I’ve been here the day before a Grand Final, and you have a day off for the Grand Final every single year. When we’re talking about the world game, it is actually the round ball game is much bigger than either any of the three – rugby league, rugby union or AFL. And the achievement of the Matildas in getting as far as they have is quite extraordinary.
EPSTEIN: Do you feel any of his pain?
PRIME MINISTER: Look, a whole lot of people out there are doing it doing it tough, there’s no doubt about that. But one of the things that are Matildas have done is to lift up the whole country as well, the spirits of the country and I think that’s incredibly positive. And when we had a day off for the Queen’s Memorial, the day of mourning, there was a bit of opposition to that too, you might recall, Raf. That was agreed and it happened, and guess what? There was a lot of economic activity in the cafes and pubs and theatres and everywhere else around the country at this time.
EPSTEIN: Just one more text, I do want to ask you, there’s a few other things going around. Just one text, maybe you want to respond to this. I have a family owned construction company, it will cost me twenty grand to pay my staff for the day. What is the figure the government will pay to public servants for the day, including penalty rates? Would this money be better spent on supporting community sport? It’s a ridiculous waste of money. Anything to add?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, of course, it hasn’t happened yet. It has not happened, we need to get through the semi-final and then to get through the final. But of course, New South Wales have said that they’ll go ahead and have a big parade. There’s a parade in Melbourne for the Grand Final every year.
EPSTEIN: Has Dan Andrews texted you that he’s on board as well?
PRIME MINISTER: I haven’t discussed it with Dan. So I’ll see Dan and the other Premiers on Wednesday.
EPSTEIN: The Voice referendum, you haven’t said when the referendum will be. Everyone thinks it’s going to be in the middle of October. If you delay telling us when it will be how much of an advantage does that give the Yes case?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I’m not delaying it. I’ve said last year, I indicated what the timeframe would be. That it would be in the last quarter.
EPSTEIN: You were delaying it by definition aren’t you?
PRIME MINISTER: The same as you know when an election will be, but you get to announce the date when you’re the Prime Minister, that is a prerogative that you have. But I’m working through with Indigenous communities, but also working with the Australian Electoral Commission on just some –
EPSTEIN: It’s an advantage for the Yes case to delay the calling of the date isn’t it? It means you’re allowed, you can focus on other things as a Government. It’s an advantage to the Yes case or no?
PRIME MINISTER: We are focusing on other things as well which is one of the reasons why I don’t want, once the dates announced then obviously there will be a major focus on that. We’ve got a lot to do, I’ve got National Cabinet this week where we’re focusing on housing issues, but there are other issues we’ll be dealing with there as well. And an election campaign is normally thirty-three days, the same provision is allowed for in the referendum. We know what the question is, that was determined by the Parliament overwhelmingly in June.
EPSTEIN: Isn’t it an advantage for the Yes case? Because you mentioned all of the focus will be on the referendum once you name the date. My implicit judgment in saying the Yes case has an advantage when the date is named, is that you’re not going well. Do you think it’s going well?
PRIME MINISTER: PRIME MINISTER: I think that when Australians focus on what the question is about, which is just four things. The first bit just says, in recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as Australia’s first peoples – that’s the recognition bit. Second bit says there shall be a body called the Voice. Third bit is what the Voice will do, it may make representations on issues affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. And the last bit is the primacy of the Parliament. The Parliament shall make laws about the function, procedures, composition of the Voice. So it’s a very simple proposition. At the moment there’s been a lot of noise about things it’s not about. To me that sends me a message that the No campaign isn’t confident of its case for voting No.
EPSTEIN: It’s working isn’t it, the No case?
PRIME MINISTER: Because it talks about everything else. It’s always easier to put up fear than it is to focus on what it is about. This is just a very simple proposition for recognition and listening in order to get a better result.
EPSTEIN: You underestimated the No case didn’t you?
PRIME MINISTER: No, not at all. Not at all.
EPSTEIN: It feels like whenever you get hit with hard questions, it takes us, sort of, a week or two to come up with a good line in response.
PRIME MINISTER: No, because some of the stuff is just so absurd. Like the idea that Indigenous Australians, with an eight year life expectancy gap, with infant mortality rates worse than non-Indigenous Australians, with a young Indigenous male more likely to go to jail than university, that they’re worried about where subs might be located. Or that they’ll issue or be concerned about parking fines, or these issues is just complete nonsense.
EPSTEIN: When you didn’t respond strongly, when Patricia Karvelas was asking you, for example, about whether or not the Commonwealth would be involved in treaties. It felt very much to me that it took about a week to come up with a good response. Sometimes there’s been a response from you and your Indigenous Affairs Minister. You haven’t just said calmly, ‘look, that is not what is at issue here, treaty comes after Voice, here is the response’. Some of your answers have appeared to me to be that you haven’t worked out your tactics.
PRIME MINISTER: No, that’s not right. What occurred there, of course, was that I pointed out, if you actually look at the transcript there. I pointed out that that is not what this vote is about. And people can then ask the question four times and then they go ‘Oh, but we didn’t get the answer’. That’s because that’s not the question. The question here is very simple, ‘Do we recognise Indigenous Australians? And do we give them a voice so that we get better results?’ That is the simple question. So for people who say, ‘There hasn’t been enough detail out there’, what they’re really saying is, we want more detail about something that doesn’t exist. This is a really clear and simple proposition that was worked out by Indigenous Australians at Uluru in 2017 after literally hundreds of meetings involving more than a thousand people. And the most absurd debate began last week as well about how long is the Uluru Statement?
EPSTEIN: I didn’t ask you about that.
PRIME MINISTER: It’s one page, everyone knows it’s one page. The documentation that was so called secret has been on the website since 2017.
EPSTEIN: I deliberately didn’t ask about that. There is a very good story on the ABC website. I think that has a very simple understanding of what the statement is. Just before I get some traffic, you did say something that I really am very curious about with James Valentine this morning, my very good colleague who does breakfast in Sydney. You said this morning, ‘There are some media outlets pretty determined to promote the No campaign and that is the way it is’. Can you name those outlets? Which ones do you reckon that are determined to say No?
PRIME MINISTER: Have a look at the commentary that is in some of the newspapers and how often –
EPSTEIN: Which ones?
PRIME MINISTER: And how often, well it’s not up to me to do that. People can make up their own minds.
EPSTEIN: Just because you brought it up with James this morning.
PRIME MINISTER: People know that the columnists that consistently, well I’ll name one. It’s Peta Credlin for example, has been peddling the line about the Uluru Statement from the Heart. That Peta Credlin is a smart person, she must know that that’s not true.
EPSTEIN: So she’s saying things that are lies?
PRIME MINISTER: She’s saying things that she knows is not true. As is Peter Dutton allowing questions to be asked in Parliament about that. No serious person thinks that that’s the case. And it’s disingenuous, it’s a tactic to try to just raise issues that are not part of this reference and are not part of the debate.
EPSTEIN: Do those media companies have sway? Like if there is a strong opinion column say in the News Limited tabloids on the weekend. I think, I’m pretty sure Peta Credlin for example, is published in the Sundays around the country. Do you think it makes a difference to the way the vote will go?
PRIME MINISTER: I think people discount it. And to be fair, the Australian, The Weekend Australian put an extensive excerpt from my speech to the Garma festival very prominently. And they have also had substantial coverage of the Yes campaign as well as the No campaign. And I think that some of the journalists as well, Paige Taylor is an outstanding Indigenous journalist. So you do get that, but you have the fact of the columns –
EPSTEIN: You were careful there to say outlets, not companies, I guess.
PRIME MINISTER: Yeah. That’s right.
EPSTEIN: Pointing that out. If we can, I’ll get to some housing issues in a moment. The Prime Minister is going to be meeting the Premiers and Chief Ministers about that for National Cabinet on Wednesday.
EPSTEIN: I’ll get to more questions for the Prime Minister in a moment. Prime Minister, I really wanted to mention there’s a big housing site, potential housing site, in Maribyrnong, maybe three thousand homes. It’s an old defence site, it’s been spoken about for years. It is prime real estate, it’s close to the city, it’s close to infrastructure. One of your Ministers said on the weekend the Commonwealth could, it’s possible the Commonwealth will pay for the remediation. Is the Commonwealth Government going to pay to clean up that old defence site?
PRIME MINISTER: Look, we’re examining it. There’s currently, five potential proponents have put in, I guess, a preliminary expression of interest, and we’re engaging. Clearly there does have to be some clean-up of the site, but we’re engaging with the proponents.
EPSTEIN: Are you willing to write a cheque?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we’re waiting to see that, we want to defend the Commonwealth’s fiscal interests, including on this show, so that therefore we have a better fiscal position for the ABC and for everything else that we want to do as well.
EPSTEIN: That’s very kind of you. However, maybe let me try and broaden that question. It’s very clear, even if your Housing Future Fund went through, it’s not enough. Even if all of the things your government has spoken about happened today, it’s not enough. Would it be helpful if the Commonwealth said, ‘Yep, here’s both land that’s owned by both State Governments and Commonwealth Governments, here’s money, or at least here’s fifty per cent of the money to get it into housing faster.’ Don’t you have to consider things like that?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, what we have to consider is the way in which we can use Australian Government assets to promote housing. Yes, we do, and that includes defence land. But we’ll give appropriate consideration, we won’t give necessarily a leg up to developers if it is not needed. And that’s why we’re going through this process.
EPSTEIN: Just whack your headphones on for me again. We had a fair bit of chat last week about housing. Someone really struck me, Caroline called in – long term renter, single woman, adult children, because rents are going up she is really stuck. Her rent is going up $75 a week. This is what she told me.
CAROLINE, LISTENER: So $75 a week means finding an extra $163 per pay. And I live pay to pay now. I don’t know what to do with it.
EPSTEIN: Where will you go?
CAROLINE, LISTENER: Well, I can’t afford to move out either, so I can’t afford to move out, I can’t afford to stay. What the hell do I do? And I’m 58, so I’m the right demographic to become a homeless single woman in the car.
EPSTEIN: What can you say to someone like Caroline?
PRIME MINISTER: I think that Caroline and so many others are doing it tough. We recognise that. That’s why we’re trying to address the housing supply issue, which is the key. There isn’t, you’re right that the Housing Australia Future Fund can’t fix everything by itself. But that’s one of the measures along with –
EPSTEIN: With that’s, the fight with the Greens, the Future Fund.
PRIME MINISTER: That’s right. Along with the other measures that we are putting in place. The $2 billion we announced in June, I think when I was here on your program, perhaps the last time in the studio was a $2 billion bring forward on top of the $1.6 billion we had to extend the Public Housing Agreement out for another year while we negotiate with the states and territories. There’s the changes that we put in for the private rental, for build to rent scheme, that will make a difference as well. There’s the increase in rental assistance, the largest increase in 30 years that we put in our budget.
EPSTEIN: How do you feel, though, as a Prime Minister? You can’t, we cannot, we’re not doing more than scraping the sides of the problem without a we need a big bang reform, though. We need something like a change to the tax incentives or a change to the planning. There’s only so much we can do with the current policy framework, isn’t there?
PRIME MINISTER: We do need changes to planning and all of the State and Territory Governments, including Victoria, are coming in on that and we’ll be having further discussions about that on Wednesday. We have our Housing Accord that was done between State and Territory Governments, the Commonwealth, Unions –
EPSTEIN: Itsy bitsy, slowly, slowly, isn’t it?
PRIME MINISTER: No, but you can’t make an announcement today and have the housing crisis that’s built up over a decade fixed tomorrow.
EPSTEIN: No, I understand that, but when I say we need a big bang reform, the sort of thing that was speculated in on the weekend was essentially that maybe Daniel Andrews is thinking about councils don’t get to object if developers promise, I don’t know, ten, twenty per cent social housing or affordable housing. We need a big change to make a big difference don’t we?
PRIME MINISTER: They are the sort of things that you need, I agree. And it can work. My local council in Sydney has allowed for programs which are essentially for an increase in density, if it’s for affordable housing, that’s the sort of measures that we need. We need to mobilise super funds into housing as well. There’s not one big thing. There are a range of things that we need to do, and I’m up for doing all of the above, if you like. It’s one of those things where you don’t have a single solution because it’s been built up over a long period of time. And then, of course, there’s the issue of skill shortages and in some cases too, supply chain issues. We have a shortage of timber in this country as well. There are real constraints that we have.
EPSTEIN: If I can get another question, I think Murray has called from Mount Eliza. Just back to the issues around the Voice. Murray, what do you want to say or ask?
MURRAY, LISTENER: Oh, good afternoon, hi Raf. Prime Minister, thanks for taking my call. I’m involved in the door knocking campaign for the Yes campaign on the Mornington Peninsula, and just let me kind of give two anecdotes. Firstly, the first meeting that I attended for those that wanted to find out more about the Yes campaign, there were probably 150 people in my age bracket, early seventies, that were interested. And a lot of us are doing door knocking. And to my amazement, I would say that the ratio is eighty-twenty in favour of a voting Yes.
EPSTEIN: That’s not what the polls say, Murray, can you turn that into a question?
MURRAY, LISTENER: Well, the question is the validity of the polls. Because my experience, I expected hostility, I expected a lot of people to say, we’re not interested, voting No. The experience I’m having is the absolute reverse.
EPSTEIN: Okay, Murray, let me turn that into a question, if I can. Are the polls valid?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, the polls, that depends on the questions being asked.
EPSTEIN: It’s pretty broad across all of the major pollsters. Yes case going down, No going up.
PRIME MINISTER: But, down off a very high figure, and in almost all of the published polls, essentially have both Yes and No with a four in front, essentially is where it’s at the moment.
EPSTEIN: It needs a five in front.
PRIME MINISTER: That means, well that’s correct. But both sides having a four in front, not one. And can I say this, that our internal polls that we are doing, and we do regular tracks, are much more positive than that. And the feedback that I get, as well from people, is that when people are engaged with about what the question is, when people look at what the question is, they wonder what the fuss was about. Remember the debate on marriage equality?
EPSTEIN: Yeah, sure.
PRIME MINISTER: Where marriage equality was going to ruin heterosexual marriages everywhere. Guess what? It didn’t. It’s happened. Where’s the fuss now? Where are the people ringing in saying, I’m worried about my relationship has been undermined by marriage equality? No one’s doing that. The Voice will be the same as the apology to Stolen Generations was as well. There were going to be all these consequences which weren’t true. This is a simple, clear proposition. Recognition, listening, better results. That’s what it’s about.
EPSTEIN: Two quick questions. Tony, you’re in Springvale, make it fast if you can. What’s your query? My fault didn’t fade you up. What’s your question?
TONY, LISTENER: My question is, with this housing conundrum going on, are the stage three tax cuts still affordable?
EPSTEIN: Still affordable?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, they’re legislated and they’re there and they begin, of course, at $45,000. We haven’t changed our position.
EPSTEIN: Are they still affordable, though?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we haven’t changed our position.
EPSTEIN: But just a judgement, value judgement. Are they affordable?
PRIME MINISTER: They’re factored into the budget. They’re there in the budget papers.
EPSTEIN:: Maybe I’ll get a different answer to this question. I know he’s the British Prime Minister and we are playing England. Have you communicated with Rishi Sunak yet about Wednesday night?
PRIME MINISTER: I haven’t yet. I did communicate with President Macron and he’s backing Australia, the Matildas.
EPSTEIN: Backing us yes. Not just because we’re buying the subs, because we’ve beaten them on the field.
PRIME MINISTER: As a result of that, but Rishi Sunak and I have a good relationship and I’m sure there will be some contact between us. He was talking about coming out for the game.
EPSTEIN: For the game? Maybe if they make a final.
PRIME MINISTER: To see the Lionesses.
EPSTEIN: How are you feeling for Wednesday night? Do you think we’re going to win?
PRIME MINISTER: I’m always positive. I always think we’re going to win. Raf, I was on the South Sydney board when we barely won a game and I always thought we’d win the Premiership every March, and we didn’t for 43 years. I’m an optimist.
EPSTEIN: Don’t say that. That’s like a curse.
PRIME MINISTER: I’m an optimist. But I think that the Matildas the other night were absolutely brilliant.
EPSTEIN: Have you heard a crowd that loud before, by the way?
PRIME MINISTER: I have never been at a game with more atmosphere of any sort in my entire life, and I don’t believe I ever will. Because twenty spot kicks, you could feel it wasn’t just the noise, it was the non-noise, was I think, more demonstrable. You felt the whole of the stadium there fifty thousand people stop breathing in between every time our ten women had their spot kicks, and it was just an extraordinary exhilarating atmosphere.
EPSTEIN: Thank you very much for coming in.
PRIME MINISTER: Thanks very much, Raf.