The Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese is on the line. Good morning.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Good morning, Raf. Good to be with you.
EPSTEIN: Can I start with sad news. A member of your team, Linda White, ALP Victorian Senator, has died. My condolences. What did you want to say about her?
PRIME MINISTER: Thanks, Raf. It is just tragic news that Linda White, after an illness taken from us, from the Labor family, but taken from the people of Victoria, far too soon due to cancer. I visited Linda just a few weeks ago in hospital. She was very much like Peta Murphy, someone who never thought of herself, was really, asking me about the Dunkley by-election was her focus. But she was such a champion. She was someone who was a major contributor to the union movement. As the Assistant National Secretary of the Australian Services Union, she dealt with the ANSETT collapse, she dealt with the increase in the social and community services award that made such a difference for particularly the feminised workforce there when that award led to a more than 20 per cent wage increase, and dealt with as well, she was a champion of JobKeeper and looking after people during the pandemic. So, it is just far too soon she’s been taken from us. She was making an enormous contribution in the Senate. She had legal training, she was a lawyer and she chaired the committee into the National Anti-Corruption Commission legislation and was a real mentor for younger women in particular coming through our ranks as a member of the National Executive for over 20 years. She was the longest ever serving woman on our national executive. She championed affirmative action and can take a lot of credit for the fact that a majority of my government’s caucus are women and that we have that equal representation is so important. So, this is very sad news. People will be doing it tough coming on so soon after Peta Murphy’s loss. I didn’t think that as Prime Minister and Labor leader, I would, within three months of each other, have to make two public announcements about two relatively young women losing their lives to cancer. It is just so sad.
EPSTEIN: Look, thanks for paying tribute to her. And I know when prominent people, when we hear about the passing and prominent people, I know that brings up a lot for everyone else. Cancer’s a story we’re way too familiar with. Prime Minister if I can move on to some of the issues just before we get onto the Dunkley by-election. The politician who was mentioned by the ASIO director general, over the last few years there have been whistleblowers who are sources for journalists, there have been journalists themselves who’ve been the target of police activity. They’ve faced sort of the full weight from security agencies. This politician has faced no sanction that we know of. Do you think that’s fair?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, what I won’t do is try to second guess the operations of our national security agencies. And the Director General of ASIO has made a very clear statement and then in his speech a couple of nights ago and then made a clear statement last night as well about his reasoning. It is important that he has said that he’s put out this information so as to make it clear things that he has said for a long period of time, which is that foreign incident in our political system is something that is tried by various governments, it’s tried to influence the political spectrum to try to engage and have that influence, which is undue and of course, unwelcome. He has said this is a former politician and that it was dealt with at the time. And certainly my job as Prime Minister is to back in and have confidence in our national security agencies, and that’s what I do.
EPSTEIN: But is it fair that there’s no sanction?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, these are all decisions, and what he says is that there wasn’t laws broken at the time. I’m not privy to all of the responses of the ASIO Director General, and obviously, he’s talking about a time well before I was elected, had the privilege of being elected Prime Minister. But the Director General of ASIO, I think it’s important that he speak for himself and that people, regardless of where we are in the political spectrum, not try to second guess his responses, but essentially back our agencies. And that’s what I do. They have my confidence to undertake the work that they’re doing. And certainly Mike Burgess has my full confidence.
EPSTEIN: Peter Dutton was basically hinting that he thinks it’s a Labor politician.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, that’s another cheap shot from a guy who’s always got a grab but never got a solution for anything.
EPSTEIN: But isn’t the speculation inevitable?
PRIME MINISTER: Always got a negative. Well, it’s irresponsible is what it is. What the Director General of ASIO has said very clearly, very clearly, is that the targeting isn’t at a political party. The targeting is across the spectrum. And I think if you look at the comments that have been made by the Director General, they are very clear. And Peter Dutton made other incredibly irresponsible comments yesterday. But nothing seems to stop a fear campaign or speculation in order to try and secure a short-term political advantage. When it comes to national security, we shouldn’t play politics with it. What we should do is listen to the experts and engage in the national interest, and that’s what I’ll do.
EPSTEIN: Immigration detention was back in the news this week. We spoke to Victoria Police, actually, this morning. They arrested the wrong person. They said they made a mistake. They did arrest someone who was an immigration detainee. I just wanted to play one of the questions yesterday put to your government by the Coalition Senator Michaelia Cash. Here she is.
MICHAELIA CASH: How can they have been continuously monitored if this individual was able to commit the further sexual offences he has now been charged with?
EPSTEIN: They are still legitimate questions in some way, aren’t they, Prime Minister? Like, is there anything wrong with asking what’s happened to people who’ve been released from immigration detention?
PRIME MINISTER: That’s not what happened yesterday, Raf. What happened yesterday was an entire Question Time, nothing about cost of living, nothing about health, nothing about education, nothing about the issues that actually Australian working families are dealing with, nothing about foreign policy. Just a scare campaign based upon what we know now as complete misinformation and accusations being made. Not a single other issue raised by the Opposition yesterday. And again, just that short term focus on politics, not focused on the national interest at all. And we have in Australia a separation of powers. Thank goodness. It’s the basis of our system, the courts acting independently of politics. If you don’t have that, there are regimes where that’s not the case. Putin’s Russia, other authoritarian regimes. We do not have that in this country. The High Court –
EPSTEIN: But if I can come back, I guess to –
PRIME MINISTER: The High Court made a decision. The High Court made a decision, no government is above the law and law enforcement agencies should be allowed to do their job free of the attempts for short term political soundbites.
EPSTEIN: But community safety, community concern about crime, they are legitimate things for a Coalition to be talking about, aren’t they? You can’t dismiss those concerns as irrelevant.
PRIME MINISTER: That’s not what happened yesterday, Raf. What happened yesterday was an attempt to whip up fear based upon something that was a complete falsehood. Crime is, of course, an issue largely that’s dealt with at the state and territory level in terms of our police forces. It’s legitimate to raise issues. What’s not legitimate is to try to pretend that we don’t have a legal system, we don’t have courts, we don’t have police and law enforcement and to play politics with those issues. And I think people will see this scare campaign for what it is. Peter Dutton has a scare campaign for everything and a solution for nothing. And you can’t change a country for the better based upon fear. What you need to do is serious policies like our tax cuts, like our fee free TAFE, like our cheaper child care, like the measures across the board that we’re putting in place to strengthen Medicare. That’s what Australia needs. And on all of those issues, Peter Dutton has just negativity, nothing to say except no, and nothing but a fear campaign.
EPSTEIN: Are you going to win in Dunkley?
PRIME MINISTER: That’s a matter for the voters of Dunkley.
EPSTEIN: What do you think is going to happen?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, on the Carrum Downs booth where I was this morning with Jodie Belyea, it was very positive, I’ve got to say, in Jodie, someone who was recruited by Peta Murphy to the Labor party in order to be the candidate in this by-election, tragically says a lot about Peta Murphy that she thought about a time when she tragically wouldn’t be here.
EPSTEIN: Yes, she chose her didn’t she?
PRIME MINISTER: Yeah, she recruited Jodie. She recruited her to the Labor party and encouraged her to run if the worst happened.
EPSTEIN: But I wonder if you’re spending a lot of time in Dunkley. Does that tell us that you’re worried about losing it?
PRIME MINISTER: It tells us that there’s a by-election campaign on, like there was in Aston, and that by-elections are tough for governments. I think it will be close tomorrow. The average swing against government is 7.1 per cent. This is a 6.3 per cent margin. But in Jodie Belyea we have a great candidate in the policies we’ve put forward. The people of Dunkley, of course, like every other one of your listeners who’s a taxpayer will benefit from our tax cuts. They’re benefiting from the Urgent Care Clinic that’s up and running and they have the opportunity tomorrow to vote for someone who will carry on Peta Murphy’s legacy and will be a voice in government, not just someone, being another bloke, with all the other blokes, sitting behind Peter Dutton saying no to everything.
EPSTEIN: Are you disappointed, maybe that the stage three tax cuts, as you say, more people get to keep more of what they earn. If the race is tightening, which is what I hear from the Labor camp, does that mean people aren’t, the tax cuts actually haven’t made a difference to your political prospects?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, it wasn’t about that, it’s about good economic policy and taking pressure off people on the cost of living. That’s what it’s about, doing the right policy and that is what we were focused on. We’d already done a range of measures to take pressure off people, but when there was a substantial money had been allocated for tax cuts, we knew, your listeners of course have been affected by cost of living pressures and this was a way of delivering for them without putting pressure on inflation. And the inflation news again this week was positive. Lower than market expectations. We saw real wages increase 2023. And this shows that the government’s plan for people to earn more and keep more of what they earn is working.
EPSTEIN: I just wanted to end on the situation in Gaza, Prime Minister. There’s more than 100 people, I think it’s in the north of Gaza, killed amidst Israeli gunfire. They were queuing up for food. I think there’s dispute about how they died, whether or not how many died in a stampede, how many died because they were shot. But what do you make of what’s going on there and how much do you think is the responsibility of Israeli forces?
PRIME MINISTER: I’ve said very clearly that every loss of innocent life, whether it be Israeli or Palestinian, is a tragedy. I’ve issued joint statements twice now with the Prime Ministers of Canada and New Zealand, calling for a humanitarian ceasefire, calling for the release of all hostages held by Hamas, calling for a political solution that is required whereby there’ll be justice for Palestinians with their own state, but with the right of Israel to exist within secure borders as well. This tragedy is playing out. The October 7 terrorist attacks on people having a concert, essentially going to a rave there in Israel, were an outrage and we have condemned them unequivocally. We’ve also said that how Israel defends itself matters, as a democracy it matters, and the international rule of law matters. And we know that there’s been far too many innocent lives lost. And that is a tragedy that is destabilising the region.
EPSTEIN: If I can just try one more on that issue, Prime Minister. Australia gave an Israeli arms company a billion dollar arms contract this week. I realised that’s for them to arm our infantry vehicles. But Belgium, Italy, Spain, Holland, they’ve stopped doing those sort of deals with Israel since October. Should Australia stop signing those sort of deals? We did sign one this week.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, that’s about Australia’s defence interests. There’s a lot of information, misinformation out there, some of which you’d be very conscious of. Australia, when it comes to-
EPSTEIN: I’m just asking about whether or not we should be signing deals if you’re trying to reach a middle ground.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we are playing no role in providing any support for the conflict there in terms of military, whether it be Israeli defence force. Obviously, we find Hamas as a designated terrorist organisation abhorrent and their ideology abhorrent. I think that what we need in Australia is to make sure that we don’t bring conflict here. I’m very concerned about social disharmony – a rise in anti-Semitism, a rise in Islamophobia, people engaging in misinformation across the board, the sort of rhetoric that we’ve seen. We are not major players in the Middle East. We have put our voice to both voting for United Nations resolutions, but also with clear statements calling for humanitarian ceasefire, calling for aid and support, to be able to get through to the people of Gaza, calling for a release of the hostages. We want to see people in the region be able to live with peace, security and stability. And we want to make sure as well that we just tone down some of the rhetorical positions that are being put in Australia, trying to draw Australia into the conflict when that is not based upon what is actually occurring.
EPSTEIN: Thanks for your time this morning. I appreciate it.
PRIME MINISTER: Thanks very much, Raf.
