Radio interview – Fox FM – Fifi, Fev, and Nick’s World Record show
FIFI BOX, HOST: Right now, this is very exciting. There has been one man that believed in us when we first came up with the idea to do this marathon. It is our very own Prime Minister and he’s joining us now, Anthony Albanese.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Thanks Fifi. I backed you in you in, and what good judgement that was. That was beautiful singing, I love Barbara Streisand.
BOX: Oh, you heard me? How embarrassing.
PRIME MINISTER: It was awesome.
NICK CODY, HOST: You’re like Marilyn Monroe and JFK.
PRIME MINISTER: That was fantastic, The Way We Were, one of the greats. It’s a tear jerking movie, it’s sad.
BRENDAN FEVOLA, HOST: Why don’t you two sing it together like a duet?
BOX: Robert Redford, Barbara Streisand.
PRIME MINISTER: No one wants to hear me sing. In order to pass the test here of this thousand hours or whatever it is that you’re doing, people have got to be listening, and if I sing, the sounds of radios changing channels will be heard around the nation
BOX: Now, Prime Minister we love that you’ve checked. You said to us, and you’re a man of your word, you said to us when you, when we told you about this, ‘I will check in on you.’ And here you are checking in on us. Whereabouts are you, we heard you might be in Singapore?
PRIME MINISTER: I am in Canberra. I have just left Parliament House, on the way to the airport to fly to Singapore.
FEVOLA: By the time you land, we’ll probably still be on air.
PRIME MINISTER: You will be. I can ring in, why don’t I ring in and check in? It’ll be, I think it’s about 10 hours.
BOX: Can you?
CODY: What’s the Australian Air Force One? Do you have a phone on it? Can you give us a buzz?
PRIME MINISTER: We do have a phone, there’s a few things on it. It can do that. There’s a meeting room.
CODY: Please call us from the sky, PM.
BOX: So you don’t have to do that thing that we do on airlines, where we’ve got to pay for Wi-Fi when we’re in the air, you just get it?
PRIME MINISTER: Yeah, indeed. Well, we have to, we often, and this time will be no different, we have to work. It’s where we do a whole lot of briefings on the way to a meeting. In this case to Singapore, to meet with the Singaporean Prime Minister and leadership and we have a big conference there tomorrow night, the Shangri-La Dialogue it’s called.
FEVOLA: That sounds amazing.
PRIME MINISTER: It’s a big regional, defence and security, and all of those issues. All the defence ministers and foreign ministers. And I have been given the honour by Prime Minister Lee of giving the keynote address in front of the ASEAN, all the, particularly south-east Asian nations, but others as well. The US Defence Secretary and others will all be there. So I’m looking forward to it.
FEVOLA: That’s awesome.
PRIME MINISTER: And a bit warmer than Canberra too.
CODY: Oh, yeah. Definitely.
BOX: We forgot to tell you one of the rules of this world record, Prime Minister. And we have the official adjudicator from Guinness outside watching everything we do, Pete. We can’t let our guests speak for longer than one minute, and there were lots of anxious producers with stop watches and thinking, who’s going to ask the Prime Minister to stop talking. But anyway –
CODY: Albo will just send the AFP. Pete’s in trouble.
PRIME MINISTER: Give the bloke from Guinness a Guinness, that will settle him down.
FEVOLA: I reckon he hasn’t heard that one before.
PRIME MINISTER: Oh come on Fev, give me a break.
FEVOLA: Mate I’m 10 hours in, I’m just really –
PRIME MINISTER: I’m ringing up backing you in.
FEVOLA: Yeah I know you’re backing us in, brother.
CODY: PM, I’ve got a question for you. Our anchor Josiah here, he’s the king of conspiracy theories. I would not normally ask you this on our show, but Josiah believes that Joe Biden is a robot. You’ve met him, can you confirm if he’s a real human or is he a robot?
JOSIAH, ANCHOR: Or a clone?
PRIME MINISTER: President Biden is a great man and he’s a friend of mine and he is doing, I think, a pretty amazing job.
FEVOLA: Wonderful job.
JOSIAH: But is he real?
PRIME MINISTER: He is very, very real. And so is Dr Jill Biden, his other half. I spent a bit of time with them a week ago in Japan at the G7.
CODY: God you’re busy.
FEVOLA: Geez, you’re getting around.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we have to in today’s world. You’ve got to keep engaged. In between time, I’ve dropped into your studio.
FEVOLA: Yeah you did. Any tips to stay awake? We’ve got 17 hours left.
PRIME MINISTER: I have to do that sort of thing from time to time, I’ve got to say. I’m not going to say that you need more assistance. But you just talk to each other.
FEVOLA: Well, the Prime Minister said we can.
CODY: There we go.
PRIME MINISTER: Just talk.
CODY: When the dad’s away, the kids can play. The PM’s not here.
PRIME MINISTER: How could you go to sleep with Fifi singing?
BOX: Thank you. I so love that we shared that moment. You can be my Robert Redford to my Barbra Streisand anytime.
PRIME MINISTER: Oh, there you go.
BOX: Now we know you are so busy, thank you much. You’re hanging out with world leaders, and you’re off to Singapore, and we hope we do hear from you in the morning when you land. Please give us a bell, we just love to, love you to check in on us one more time.
PRIME MINISTER: Well done and best of luck for the next, how many hours to go? Seventeen?
BOX: How many is it?
CODY: Yeah, seventeen. And PM, just quickly. While we’re breaking a record, can you attempt to break David Boon’s on your flight to Singapore?
PRIME MINISTER: I don’t think you want the Australian people represented by someone who’s broken Boonie’s record somehow, when they get there.
CODY: Good on you, Prime Minister.
BOX: Thank you.