Radio interview – ABC Sydney Breakfast with James Valentine
JAMES VALENTINE, HOST: Anthony Albanese will be speaking at the Committee for Economic Development for Australia in just a few minutes’ time, giving a sort of, you know, State of the Nation address to CEDA. Parliament starts today as well, and there’s quite a few issues that he’s going to face this afternoon there when he, when he returns, when Parliament starts. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, good morning.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Good morning, James. Good to be with you.
VALENTINE: Yeah, thanks so much for coming on. And it’s worth noting, I mean, it’s only, we’re still 24 hours after the horrific bus crash, and you and Premier Minns were both very emotional yesterday about that, and I think we’re all still feeling the depth of that pain.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, it’s just such a horrific incident to occur. People associate weddings with love and lifelong commitments and celebrations with family and friends. And for it to end in this horrific tragedy, with so many deaths, so many injuries, but of course, the scars will last for such a long, long period of time. It is going to be very difficult for the communities involved, the two sporting teams involved as well. It is just a tragedy beyond belief.
VALENTINE: Yeah. Prime Minister, your housing bill will go into Parliament today. The Greens are saying, ‘look, we’ll go for it, but we want a rent freeze.’ Are you going to compromise?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we can’t do things that we aren’t in control of, James. And the truth is that the Federal Government has no control over rents. And so the Greens are being quite difficult here. The truth is that this is a $10 billion fund that will boost housing supply for people in social and affordable housing. It will also boost supply for women and children escaping domestic violence, for veterans, for people in remote communities. And you can’t say that you support additional funding for housing, and then reject a $10 billion fund that’s going to provide just that. The Greens and the Liberals are combining at the moment to just say no. We know that the Liberals under Peter Dutton say no to everything, and it’s a pity that the Greens are joining them on this. We need to deal with housing supply, that’s the key.
VALENTINE: Yeah, other nations have rent control, have rent freezes, have rent, you know, do this. Is it just not in federal capacity, is that what you’re saying?
PRIME MINISTER: It’s not in federal capacity. It’s in the control of the state and territory governments, and there are eight of them, and each of them will determine their own policies. We want a renters’ rights accord at the federal level, but that basically requires the state and territory governments to come to an agreement on that. It’s something I raised at the last National Cabinet meeting, and it was agreed that officials would talk that through. But in our eight different jurisdictions, there are eight different policies. The idea that that can just be ticked off, and of course, there is a question as well about what the impact of that would be on supply. All of the experts tell us that the key is additional supply. Now, we’ve already got $1.6 billion we’re putting into social housing just in the coming year. We have provided the largest increase in rent assistance in 30 years in the Budget. We have our National Housing Accord with industry and unions and community housing groups and others, that comes in from next year, that will build a million additional houses. We had tax incentives in the Budget for build to rent schemes that the Property Council says will result in between 150,000 and 250,000 additional dwellings. So, this is on top of all of that, is this Housing Australia Future Fund. And it seems to me that at this point, Greens are saying, ‘no, we don’t want $10 billion, we want more than that, so we’ll vote against the $10 billion’. That makes no sense.
VALENTINE: But if they do vote against it, it’s not going to get through, it’s done.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, that’s right.
VALENTINE: Is that what you expect, then? Is that the likely outcome now?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, that’s the Parliament that we have with the Senate. If the Liberals or the Greens don’t vote for any particular initiative, then you can’t get to a majority. We have crossbenchers, including Jacqui Lambie Network and David Pocock are all voting for the legislation. We’ve worked through in good faith, including producing an amendment that will ensure there’s a floor of at least half a billion dollars of this additional spending every year going forward. So, it is up to the Senate.
VALENTINE: You’re hearing from the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, ahead of his CEDA speech in a few minutes’ time. Are you standing by your Finance Minister, Katy Gallagher, over when she knew what about the Higgins affair? I mean, if you were still in opposition, this was a Liberal Minister, and when you were in opposition and this Liberal Ministers, you’d be going hard on this, you’d be demanding full transparency on this, right?
PRIME MINISTER: Oh, this is absurd. Katy Gallagher has been transparent. We’re talking about here an alleged incident, an alleged rape that occurred in 2019, in a Liberal Minister’s office, of one Liberal staff member, by another Liberal staff member, and somehow Katy Gallagher is responsible for –
VALENTINE: I don’t think it’s that, but the question is being put. At one point it was like, what did you know when? And there’s been two different answers to that.
PRIME MINISTER: No, that’s not right. Go and have a look at the footage. Linda Reynolds in that speaks about ‘you knew weeks ago’, and she says that she was told that two weeks ago or weeks ago, she was told that there would be a conspiracy, that Labor was planning this. And that’s just not true. It’s a bizarre conspiracy theory that suggests that Labor somehow is at the centre of all of this. And indeed, according to Senator Reynolds herself, in the discussion that took place at that time, on the Monday night, Katy Gallagher said, ‘Yes, I was made aware in broad terms that there was an incident in the days beforehand’. So this has been known by Senator Reynolds since that time, since 2021, and now in 2023, somehow, this is this concocted issue by what is a desperate Liberal Opposition looking for any issue. I mean, one would have thought that just weeks after we handed down a Budget, they would be concentrating on the economy and on issues that affect average Australians. We’ll continue to do our job and we won’t be distracted by these sort of campaigns.
VALENTINE: All right, so you’re talking at CEDA in a few minutes time. What are you telling them?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I’m telling them that we need to continue to approach the challenges which are there in the economy by dealing with the pressing challenges which are here and now, cost of living pressures, whilst also creating an agenda for the future. So, I’ll be talking about the cost of living relief we had in the Budget, the Medicare bulk-billing incentive, tripling that, the cutting of the cost of medicines, energy bill relief, the increases to JobSeeker and rent assistance and the single parenting payment. I’ll be talking about the impact that they will have, as well as our productivity agenda which includes cheaper child care, which commences on July 1, our fee-free TAFE to deal with some of the issues in the labour market which are there, our National Reconstruction Fund to support new industries as well, and to deal with supply chain issues. And I’ll be talking about our record in government, which is something I’m most proud of, is the fact that the most jobs that have been created in the first year of any government in Australian history was created in our first year.
VALENTINE: Prime Minister, thanks for some time, and it’s going to be probably a tough few weeks in Canberra, but thanks for talking to us today.
PRIME MINISTER: Thanks very much, James.
VALENTINE: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.