Prime Minister, welcome. Welcome back to the ABC Breakfast studio.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Wonderful to be here in Perth. It’s a lot warmer than Canberra, having listened to that weather report there.
GIBSON: No change to the 75-cent floor, no change to WA’s share.
PRIME MINISTER: 75 cents stays. It’s something that I committed to as Opposition Leader and we’ve kept in place. WA is a driver of our national economy and a great strength, and we want to support WA. It’s reasonable that WA get its fair share and that’s what this represents. That means, of course, the Commonwealth has had to step up for other states as well. But it’s important, I think, I’ll convene National Cabinet tomorrow and cooperation between the Commonwealth and states to get things done, to deliver the real change that we’re fighting for across the board. And tomorrow we’ll have a debate about a range of things, artificial intelligence and developing national standards, importantly the work on domestic and family violence. A range of issues will be considered by the National Cabinet that I’ll host tomorrow in Sydney.
GIBSON: On the GST though, do we believe you? So, when you’ve broken promises before, and capital gains tax and negative gearing changes are going to haunt you all the way through to the next election, do we believe you?
PRIME MINISTER: What they’ll do is all the way through to the next election, first home buyers will be getting a fair crack. We’ve explained why we changed our position and we’ve explained it clearly. We put those measures in the Budget and already –
GIBSON: But you could turn around with the GST and say, well, things have changed.
PRIME MINISTER: No, but things won’t change with the GST. I’ve made that very clear. This report was commissioned by the Morrison Government, not commissioned by us. And if you ask the Productivity Commission to do a report, you shouldn’t be surprised that an economically rationalist position pops out the other end.
GIBSON: Should you listen to them, though, if they’re doing a report? And another factor I guess is it’s an interim report. The final report’s at the end of the year.
PRIME MINISTER: There’s a final report at the end of the year. We don’t think it will change that much. But we wanted to make it very clear that I stand up for WA. This is my 45th visit to Western Australia as the Prime Minister. Today the Cabinet meeting will be the seventh time I have convened the Cabinet here in WA. And I think for a long time what people here felt was that the East Coast was that triangle around Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, and didn’t give proper consideration to the West and to the contribution that Western Australia makes to our national economy.
GIBSON: But you run the whole country, so it’s all right to be nice to and look after us for a while over here. You’re going to be in for all sorts of pressure and backlash from the other states, aren’t you?
PRIME MINISTER: No, because they have got their fair share as well. What we did was make sure there was a No Worse Off Guarantee and that has meant it’s the Commonwealth that essentially are footing the bill. But we’ll bear that in mind as well when we’re talking about other funding arrangements with the states, we want acknowledgement that we are doing more than our bit. We now have agreements beyond the next election. We have a Health and Hospitals Agreement delivering record funding. We have a Schools Agreement that’s delivering full and fair funding for every public school, bringing them up to the standard that David Gonski identified way back in 2012. We’ve got an agreement on community services, an agreement on legal aid. All of these things have been put in place and they’re important. And of course, an agreement as part of the Health and Hospitals Agreement on the NDIS. That legislation went through last week. It was a big week in Canberra last week. We did NDIS, we did gambling reform and we did the News Bargaining Incentive that will help all media outlets, including the ABC, to properly fund journalists for their work.
GIBSON: I’ve got a few things I want to get through with you in the next ten minutes or so. You’re listening to the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, live in the ABC Breakfast studio this morning. The Secret Harbour by-election is on this Saturday. Why have you not campaigned with the Labor candidate down there? You were pretty close down there yesterday.
PRIME MINISTER: I don’t go to by-election campaigns.
GIBSON: You’ve campaigned in state seats though before.
PRIME MINISTER: I don’t campaign in by-election campaigns. It’s been pointed out that I went to Rockingham when that was on, that was to open an Urgent Care Clinic. There have been by-elections, including in my home state of New South Wales in Kiama, there was a Nepean by-election in Victoria, there was a recent by-election in Queensland.
GIBSON: It’s pretty important though, like the other leaders of parties, Angus Taylor’s been down there, Pauline Hanson’s been down there.
PRIME MINISTER: Angus Taylor – the Libs are running dead in Secret Harbour. Let’s get real here. The Libs are running dead. One Nation don’t know what they stand for. I don’t know who their candidate is, but I’m sure if he was asked about migration policy, if they can’t get that right, they can’t get anything right at all.
GIBSON: They could very well win the seat.
PRIME MINISTER: If the people of Secret Harbour want a voice in government and want that influence that comes with being a voice in the Cook Labor Government, they should vote for Georgia Tree. She’s a good candidate and she will be a voice in the State Labor Government for the next, it’s while off until their election. Our election will be before theirs. So, I very strongly support Roger. I, in general, have tended not to even be present at state elections. I turned up in South Australia. There was a particular reason why I handed out there. But by-elections are a matter for states. I’ve got a big job.
GIBSON: Of course you do. We’ve discussed that. You’ve got GST, states fighting with each other. But you know, down there yesterday you were mocked by the State Liberal Leader with signs saying, ‘Where’s Wally?’ became ‘Where’s Albo?’ Big signs.
PRIME MINISTER: Who is the State Liberal Leader?
GIBSON: You know who the State Liberal Leader is. He’s an old colleague of mine. His name’s Basil Zempilas.
PRIME MINISTER: Yeah, but he’s not even trying to win the by-election. He’s out there promoting another political party.
GIBSON: He wants Labor to lose.
PRIME MINISTER: I mean, the Liberal, – well, it’s quite far. You know what major serious leaders of major political parties want? They want their party to win. I want my party to win. Does Basil? I don’t think so. And so, I think it’s rather sad that the Liberal Party, the once great Liberal Party, there were two great parties of government in Australia. One of them has essentially folded themselves into One Nation. They want to cut wages, they want to make it easier to sack people, they don’t have a serious policy on health or education or housing or any of the services that state governments provide. Now the Cook Labor Government is doing a fantastic job. Roger Cook’s been a friend of mine for a very long period of time, since we were teenagers. And I wish him all the very best on Saturday.
GIBSON: Prime Minister, one of the things you’ve done here, well not one of the things, two of the things. You’ve had these two fundraising dinners. When people pay $10,000 a person like they did at the first one on Sunday night, to have dinner with you –
PRIME MINISTER: Well, there’s just speculation about that, but anyway.
GIBSON: Well, what do they pay?
PRIME MINISTER: I don’t know. There’s a matter for the organisational wing.
GIBSON: So, it’s reported they spent $10,000 each to turn up. What do they get in return?
PRIME MINISTER: Look, what we get is engagement across the board –
GIBSON: But what do they get for their $10,000?
PRIME MINISTER: Political parties engage in – the biggest donation to any political party that I’ve, that I’m aware of, is a donation to The Greens political party from the bloke –
GIBSON: But I’m asking about this one. $10,000 to sit next to you at a swanky house in Mosman Park. What do they get for that?
PRIME MINISTER: What they get is engagement and they want to contribute to the political process. That’s a part of processes. We have legislation that will cut the amount that people can donate, that will put a cap on how much can be spent in election campaigns. But election campaigns do cost money. We do have to raise money in order to campaign on them. We’ve been transparent. We don’t have a single donor donating a plane worth millions of dollars to us. We don’t have a single benefactor like some other political organisations do. So, we go out there and we engage, whether it’s people selling raffle tickets –
GIBSON: But they weren’t people selling raffles. So, these are big business leaders on Sunday night and then they’ve got your ear and then Monday morning you come out and they’re all made very happy because you say, ‘yep, WA’s GST share is going to stay exactly as it’.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, that didn’t change. That’s something that’s consistent. For goodness sake, I signed a body part one of the times I was here. So, there’s nothing new in any of that. But it is useful, for example, to have discussion with business leaders about what’s the impact of artificial intelligence. I see it very much when I engage with people, whether it be here, whether it be, you know, and I take as I have on this program, on your program, talkback calls. Whether it be engaging as I walk around the streets in Perth, one of the things that I find, you know, around Elizabeth Quay in the last couple of days, is I talk to people and I listen. It’s not just about talking, it’s about listening very much. And over issues like artificial intelligence, which is having a huge impact on businesses and the way that they function. I mean, tonight I’ll be at the Business Council of Australia dinner –
GIBSON: I wanted to ask you about that. Yeah. So, this, and this relates to, you’re using the term artificial intelligence, and we’re talking about data centres specifically, aren’t we?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, as a driver of that.
GIBSON: Yes, and there are concerns around them on their impact on the community, about their locations, about their water and power consumption, all these things. And at the same time, the decision making seems to be taken away from local councils and moving towards state and federal government. So, we’re taking the power away from people to have a say in where these things are popping up?
PRIME MINISTER: One of the things that I say in my speech tonight, to preempt that at the Business Council, is that you need social licence as one thing, so you need to make sure that on energy, that they’re adding to the grid, not just coming along and using energy that can be used for other purposes, that would therefore lift power bills for others. We need to make sure that’s got right, we need to make sure that water is got right, and we need to make sure that location is right as well. Now, one of the big pluses that we have in Australia is that we’re a big country. Other countries don’t have the options that we have. And there’s some exciting options, including here in Western Australia, for investment that will allow us, particularly in frontier investment, that is in the innovation getting ahead of where AI is going to take us, because it will have an impact, it is having an impact on our lives. We can be very much a part of setting our national standards, which help to create international standards as well. I’ll be going to the United Nations next month. It will be a theme of what I take there. Just as we have led the world in social media with the ban that just yesterday, New Zealand joined the ban, I spoke with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon yesterday. They’ve got a very strong ban coming in and they’ve followed our lead. We can lead on AI and seize the opportunities while minimising any downside as well.
GIBSON: All right, there’s just one more I wanted to squeeze in while I’ve got you this morning, really, around migration policy, because we’ve been talking about it a lot and obviously in the context of this discussion around One Nation, One Nation and the Liberal Party Party are throwing around numbers, you haven’t –
PRIME MINISTER: Like confetti, with no plan.
GIBSON: Well, you haven’t, though. I mean –
PRIME MINISTER: We have, it’s in the Budget –
GIBSON: Have you finalised –
PRIME MINISTER: Yeah, we have.
GIBSON: But your policy moving forward, is that something you’re trying to finalise with your Cabinet today?
PRIME MINISTER: No, today we’ll be finalising the arrangements, including on AI national standards that will go to National Cabinet on, tomorrow. So, that is the main agenda. There’s some other things on the Cabinet agenda, of course, that we don’t talk about, but it’s a –
GIBSON: But migration policy’s not in there?
PRIME MINISTER: No, we won’t be finalising that today. Migration policy though, we’ve finalised our numbers. We’re headed to 225,000 in two years’ time –
GIBSON: Yes.
PRIME MINISTER: We have a series of plans in place. There’s more work to do and we’ll work on that and make announcements at appropriate time.
GIBSON: So, that’s a lot more than those other parties. So, the Liberal Party’s saying somewhere significantly lower than 200,000. One Nation saying 130,000 –
PRIME MINISTER: Are they though? One Nation on Sunday pointed out the hypocrisy when they said 130,000 plus an additional more than 100,000 because you need essential workers in aged care, in agriculture, in all of these areas as well. And one of the things that the business community have said to me here in Perth is the importance of skilled migration in construction if we’re going to get houses built. That’s a contradiction in the Liberal position as well, which is really just a fudge because they’re just frightened of One Nation. They need to get serious. Migration numbers we’ve got down by 45 per cent net overseas migration. There was always going to be a spike when COVID ended and people could come back and people could come to Australia. We want to make sure that we get it right and we have got migration policy as front and centre. People said we wouldn’t protect the borders. That has happened. We’re making sure as well that we get the right skills mix, but also that we deal with the issue of ensuring that people who aren’t entitled to be here, leave, which is appropriate.
GIBSON: I tell you what, you’re going to have to take One Nation seriously if they win this by-election on Saturday.
PRIME MINISTER: We take all of the political system seriously. The rise of populist right-wing parties appealing to grievance but not putting up solutions is something that is a global phenomenon. We’ve seen it in the UK, we see it in Europe, we see it in democracies around the world and that is why we have a serious agenda about making more things here. The announcement we made yesterday at Henderson is a really serious one and will create jobs and prosperity here in WA. We need to make sure that the economy works for people, not the other way around.
GIBSON: Prime Minister, thanks for coming into the ABC studio. I appreciate it.
PRIME MINISTER: Thanks so much.
