Radio Interview – Hot Tomato Gold Coast
PAUL GALE, HOST: An exclusive guest this morning, you’ve probably heard of our Prime Minister.
EMILY JADE O’KEEFFE, HOST: Hello. Do we call your Prime Minister? What are we? What do we call you?
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Whatever you like.
GALE: Well, it’s a relaxed show. So, we’ll call you Albo.
PRIME MINISTER: That is fine.
O’KEEFFE: Your Grace. Your Excellency. Your Highness.
GALE: No, he’s from the working class suburbs of Sydney. Let’s keep it real.
O’KEEFE: Well, let’s keep it real. Why isn’t Taylor Swift coming to Queensland? And can you use your Prime Ministerial powers to get her here, like no visa unless she does a gig at Heritage Bank Stadium here on the Gold Coast – that will help tourism.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I’m not sure that threatening to ban Taylor Swift or not granting her a visa would be electorally a smart thing to do. I’m just putting it out there.
O’KEEFFE: Got to be tactical.
GALE: Come on, other great leaders like Putin would have done it.
PRIME MINISTER: Yeah and how’s that working out for him?
O’KEEFFE: Honestly, is there anything you can do? Because surely yesterday you were monitoring the absolute meltdown with this the presale of the expensive seats.
PRIME MINISTER: The Taytay fever is here. It will be here for many months leading up to the gig so I’m just hoping I can get a ticket. I haven’t got one yet.
O’KEEFFE: Surely there’s a box you can get.
GALE: Don’t you have American Express?
PRIME MINISTER: I’m hoping to get an invite somewhere. We’ll wait and see how it goes.
O’KEEFE: What’s your favourite song?
PRIME MINISTER: You can’t go past ‘Shake it Off’ of course. But I do like all the songs on the new album, Midnights was fantastic. And I really got into her when she produced the two albums one after the other, Folklore and Evermore. A bit more relaxed, a bit more chilled, fantastic for listening to on a plane or travelling.
GALE: Brilliantly research there, Albo. Nice work.
O’KEEFFE: I hear that that you are a Swifty, that’s not just a marketing thing, right? You really do.
PRIME MINISTER: No, no, there’s very old footage of me DJing with Taytay. That’s been shown when I was doing one of the morning TVs yesterday, they dug it up from the archives.
O’KEEFE: So, maybe she will give you some tickets?
PRIME MINISTER: I hope so. It’d be great if she came to Queensland. It’d be great if she went everywhere. I’m sure she will. I think she’s so successful, though, that I reckon she kind of figures or her management reckon people will come to her. And I think that will happen.
GALE: We’ll say the Prime Minister said that we can actually get advantages when we’re on the line. We’ll drop your name.
O’KEEFFE: But you’re on the Gold Coast today. You’re here right now already. Where are you? What’s happening? What’s up?
PRIME MINISTER: I’m still in Canberra, which is very, very, very cold this morning. I’ve got to say there’s frost everywhere.
GALE: Hey, listen, I’ve got to ask you a question. How important is the Gold Coast federally? Because we bring so many people in from around the country but also from around the world. We’ve matured as a place now I think and I reckon we need a little bit more attention when every budget comes out every year from the Federal Government. Is that something on your radar?
PRIME MINISTER: Look, the Gold Coast is critical. It plays such a central role in tourism and in our economy. And it’s one of the places that people do come from all over the world to visit. We were just talking about footy before, the stadium there when I was Infrastructure Minister, we put $37 million into that. We put $465 million into the light rail project that was opposed by some at the time, but it’s been a big success. We funded significant upgrades to the M1. And I do think it’s absolutely critical that we get local infrastructure there. There’s over $9 million available to Gold Coast Council this year for community and road infrastructure according to its priorities. And I’ll be talking to tourism operators with the Mayor Tom Tate today again, catching up about what the priorities are. It’s always good to go to places, listen to locals about what their needs are. And I’m looking forward to the discussion today.
GALE: I would imagine there’d be more in the Budget coming because of the Olympic Games in Southeast Queensland. We’ve got to start planning for that now.
PRIME MINISTER: Absolutely. And the great thing about the Olympic Games is that won’t just be the two big centres. It will be right throughout the Gold Coast, particularly throughout Southeast Queensland. Just as the Commonwealth Games was fantastic for the Coast and for Queensland, it brought economic operators and businesses to the Gold Coast. I attended a big business forum while the games were on. And today also, a bit later on, I’ll be launching Letitia Del Fabbro’s campaign for the by-election that that’s taking place in Fadden. In a few weeks time, she’ll be running the flag up the pole for the Labor cause. We’ve never held that seat but we’re going to have a crack and she’s a fantastic candidate. She’s a nurse educator, and what better to bring together in one person Labor’s two great strengths: that we always support health and education.
O’KEEFFE: Well I tell you how you could get her in since it’s a tightly held seat by the Liberals and that is promised to get Taylor Swift.
PRIME MINISTER: With tickets for everyone in the electorate of Fadden.
GALE: And enough money to get a light rail down to Byron.
O’KEEFE: Thank you so much for joining us on the show and taking some time. You’re going to be flying into a balmy 21 degrees.
PRIME MINISTER: Beautiful. I’m so looking forward to it.
O’KEEFFE: Get some sunscreen on.
GALE: Yeah, wear your boardies.
PRIME MINISTER: No one wants to see that.
GALE: Tony Abbott didn’t read the read the room.
PRIME MINISTER: He certainly didn’t, we still haven’t forgotten and that was a decade ago.
O’KEEFFE: We might see you at the Taylor Swift concert.
PRIME MINISTER: See you guys.