My guest this afternoon is Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Welcome to what is usually sunny Queensland, but not this summer. It has been wet, wet, wet.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Indeed, it sure has. And we’ve just been at the State Disaster Coordination Centre with the Premier, Steven Miles, and our local member there, Anika Wells, and my Minister, Murray Watt. And getting a briefing about the impact here in the South East, as you were just talking about the impact, particularly in the Moreton Bay region, but other parts as well, and other parts of South East Queensland, but also the impact in Western Queensland that is expected to last for some weeks as the waters then flow, even if there’s not further rain, if the waters flow further south down to Birdsville, that’s expected to take weeks. We saw a pub at Kynuna is, I think it’s called the Blue Cattle Hotel.
HIGGINS-DEVINE: Sounds about right.
PRIME MINISTER: It is a very wet Blue Cattle Dog at the moment. And the concern, of course, here in the South East as well, is that with just a little bit of rain, because the ground is so soaked that it has nowhere to go, so you can have flash flooding. So, the big message that the Police Commissioner and others asked to convey, and that I’ll repeat, is – if it’s flooded, forget it. Don’t risk it.
HIGGINS-DEVINE: We saw some flooding and rescues overnight, Prime Minister. It’s messy.
PRIME MINISTER: It is now up to 39 rescues. And just at times like this, though, it does give you a great deal of pride in our country. The police and emergency services, the SES, the Australian Defence Force personnel were there, some of the Commonwealth personnel, just people really going out of their way to help their fellow Queenslanders. And earlier today, I’ve been in Rocky and Townsville. In Townsville, of course, was impacted by the cyclone.
HIGGINS-DEVINE: Cyclone Kirrily.
PRIME MINISTER: And there, we were able to thank the volunteers as well as the emergency services personnel that have done such an extraordinary job there. Power was expected to be back on everywhere in Townsville today, which is a remarkable effort, given how many homes and businesses were impacted by the very strong winds and the impact of that cyclone.
HIGGINS-DEVINE: This is a situation where in summer around Australia, it’s just disaster after disaster, be it bushfires and then it’s floods and then it’s cyclones and then it’s more floods. And one of the problems that we’re seeing is people unable to get insurance, or if they can, it’s just impossible to pay the amounts that are being quoted. How are we going to help those people who cannot afford to insure their homes?
PRIME MINISTER: What’s clear is that the former Government had an insurance plan that hasn’t really had the impact that it hoped. And so, we want to work with the insurance industry, I know it’s something that Murray Watt is really focused on. The first thing is to say that those people who have insurance are entitled to be paid out, are entitled to get that support. And we want to see companies do the right thing in the quickest possible way. We have seen, unfortunately, we’re still in January. I’ve been to Far North Queensland now, twice, up to the Cairns region, to Wujal Wujal and to Holloways Beach, and seen the devastation in various areas there. I’ve been to the Gold Coast Coordination Centre as well, with the impact that we saw in the Lockyer Valley and other places in the Gold Coast Hinterland over Christmas. And now today, back at the State Disaster Coordination Centre, the Police Commissioner said to me that previously there’s only been one visit by a Prime Minister. I’ve been twice this year. And that says something about tragically, we were warned, and continue to be warned about the science of climate change, that there would be more frequent extreme weather events and they’d be more intense. And unfortunately, that is playing out.
HIGGINS-DEVINE: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, my guest this afternoon on ABC Radio Brisbane. You’re with Kelly Higgins-Devine. And it’s 5:16pm. So, did you watch Nemesis last night on ABC TV?
PRIME MINISTER: I certainly did watch Nemesis on ABC TV. And it was a reminder I was, of course, in Parliament during that term. And of course, I’d forgotten about some of the events, though.
HIGGINS-DEVINE: How could you forget, Mr Albanese?
PRIME MINISTER: Within two years, there’d been an empty chair challenge which got 39 people voted essentially for an empty chair when there was no challenger to the leadership of Tony Abbott. But it was a reminder as well of the chaos, frankly, and the dysfunction that continued throughout the period in which the Coalition were in government and they just don’t like each other.
HIGGINS-DEVINE: But then there was Killing Season. You got your show on. They were not yours particularly, but the Labor Party version of that.
PRIME MINISTER: Absolutely. And the Labor Party did ourselves damage at that time. I made that very clear. And the difference is that we are an orderly Government now. It’s about time that Australia got one. We’re considered. We actually like each other. That helps. When you sit around the Cabinet table, you don’t have the blatant undermining and the chaos that went on. It’s quite extraordinary that Tony Abbott, having secured 90 seats in the House of Representatives, didn’t make it to the two-year mark.
HIGGINS-DEVINE: I need to ask you about that Cabinet table and not sticking with that promise to deliver the stage three tax cuts. You were determined to do so prior to the election. You said you would and then you’ve changed your mind. Why would you do something that you knew was only going to give you massive blowback from the electorate and from the Opposition?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, it’s not the easy decision, but it’s the right decision done for the right reasons. What we know is that the cost of living pressures that are on low and middle income earners mean that so many people are doing it tough. Now, we’ve had a range of measures, cost of living support, we’ve had cheaper child care, cheaper medicines. The energy price relief plan we did with the Queensland Government here, we’ve got fee-free TAFE that’s made a difference as well. But there’s a whole lot of, particularly middle income working families who are doing it really tough, who are under pressure, because what wasn’t envisaged in 2022 during that election campaign, was that there would be so many interest rate increases, such ongoing inflationary pressure that has had an impact on people. Now, I have a responsibility to act. I can’t just wring my hands and say, ‘I’m not in a position to do anything’. And we need to look to how do you address cost of living pressures whilst continuing to tackle the fight against inflation. So, you can’t just throw more money at it. And we had, of course, over the forward estimates, $106 billion of tax cuts were scheduled. Our revised plan has in it a cost of living bonus, if you like, $107 billion. So, it’s revenue neutral. It won’t have a negative impact on inflation, but it will make an enormous difference. It means that your listeners who are on the average wage will get double the tax cut. It means that all those people who earn under $45,000 will get a tax cut. We want a tax cut for everyone, not just for some people. And it’s the right thing to do. And we’re arguing our case for it.
HIGGINS-DEVINE: Anthony Albanese, my guest this afternoon on ABC Radio Brisbane. You’re with Kelly Higgins-Devine. It’s 5:20pm. Were you prepared for that decision to possibly cost you the next election, though, that the criticism that you lied, that we cannot trust you when you say you’re going to do something, is going to be so strong in the lead-up to 2025 and whenever that election is called, that it could still be costing you by then, this particular decision?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we knew this would be contentious, but we also knew that it was the right thing to do. And people can trust me to be prepared to make a tough decision in the interests of working families. That’s what I was elected to do. And that is what I’ve been prepared to do. Not just do the easy thing and just occupy the space and be obsessed, as we saw last night in the Nemesis show by internals and by what was happening inside the Canberra Parliament House. I’m concerned about putting people before politics. And that’s what we’ve done here, doing the right thing. We’ll argue our case. And it’s very clear, the idea that you would bring in, with the current economic circumstances as they are, you would bring in a tax cut regime worth over $100 billion and a whole section, the lowest paid workers would get not a single cent out of it and the average worker wouldn’t get what they need either. And so, this is the right thing to do for the same reason why we committed to lift wages. That’s the other part of the family budget, is incomings and then outgoings. Now, on incomings, what we’ve had is real wages increase for two quarters in a row. We want people to earn more. And we want people to keep more of what they earn.
HIGGINS-DEVINE: Wouldn’t that put more pressure on inflation?
PRIME MINISTER: No. The Reserve bank have indicated that they agree with Treasury analysis that because it’s revenue neutral of what we are doing, there’s not additional spending being put into the economy. And it is true that the lower your income, the more likely you are to consume, to spend, because you don’t have the luxury of savings. So, the marginal propensity to consume is the economic term. But that’s balanced out by the fact that this will boost labour supply. Because if people are thinking about when they’ll go back into the workforce, maybe part time after having a child or due to circumstances changing, there will be literally hundreds of thousands of hours added to labour supply at a time when we need workers. There are so many businesses out there who aren’t able to get the staff that they need. So, that is what balances it out. And that’s what makes this good economic policy as well. Because people will spend the money that will help your small businesses, it will help working families, but it will also help businesses to get the workers that they need. This is good for families, good for the economy. And I think it should receive the support across the Parliament to say, ‘Yes, we need to do the right thing’. And this is very different from when we saw last night, didn’t get a mention in Nemesis.
HIGGINS-DEVINE: Might in two or three. Two more episodes to go.
PRIME MINISTER: But the former Government got elected, put on a deficit levy, a levy on high income earners. There was nothing mentioned before their election about that. They did that. The Labor Party voted for it as well in the Parliament, it must be said, but they did that. Here in Queensland and throughout the country, as a result of the energy price changes that were occurring, we introduced a price cap on coal and gas. Now, that was something that wasn’t envisaged that we would do prior to the election, or that anyone had suggested would have seemed to be a radical proposition. But we responded to the need at the time.
HIGGINS-DEVINE: Cost of living, of course, is the only thing people are talking about and housing. And it’s a crisis. It’s an absolute crisis. And even though people are talking about building thousands, tens of thousands of houses, tens of thousands of units, they’re not coming for years. What do we do about people who are living in tents, in places, who are living in caravans, who are living in their cars? How are we going to even begin to address what is a situation that should never have happened in Australia?
PRIME MINISTER: That’s right. And that’s why we have a whole-of-governments as well as the private sector response, whether it be our Social Housing Accelerator, where we advanced, essentially, $2 billion for additional spending on social housing.
HIGGINS-DEVINE: Do we have the people to build those houses? Do we have the land to actually build those houses on? Do we have the materials to be able to build them?
PRIME MINISTER: That’s one of the reasons why we’re doing things like fee-free TAFE, particularly concentrating on construction, so that we’re getting those workers trained to be able to deliver. That’s why we’re targeting, in terms of skilled migration, areas of skill shortage as well, to be able to make that contribution. That’s why we have, in terms of the private sector, we had one of our major Budget initiatives last year was our Build to Rent incentives, so tax arrangements to encourage a build, which will result in, according to the Property Council, between 150 and 250,000 additional dwellings being built. So, we’re working really hard on all of those measures to make sure that we can increase supply, because there’s no magic solution. The key here is supply. That’s what will make a difference in terms of the market, because we know that this is one of the challenges that Australia has to overcome.
HIGGINS-DEVINE: On the weekend you went to the tennis, Prime Minister. Now you got booed. Not the first Prime Minister to be booed, to be fair. But you weren’t booed the year before.
PRIME MINISTER: It’s an Australian tradition.
HIGGINS-DEVINE: It is not.
PRIME MINISTER: It’s an Australian tradition. I wasn’t introduced the year before. The year before, someone yelled out, ‘Hey, Albo, give us a wave’. And I did, and they gave a cheer. And last night, on Sunday night as well, there were lots of people cheering out in response to that afterwards. It hasn’t got as much of a run, expressing their love for me. It’s an Australian tradition to have a crack at politicians from time to time. That’s fine.
HIGGINS-DEVINE: Before the last election, you ran pretty much on a unity ticket that was about uniting Australia. We’ve had the Voice, which was terribly divisive. We’ve got Australia Day debates, which have been going on now for quite a while. Very divisive. Neo Nazis marching in the street, which I quite frankly thought we decided we didn’t like them back in 1945, but they’re rearing their ugly heads, too. We’ve got the war in Gaza, which is another issue that people are divided on. How do you begin to divide a country that has so many areas in which we disagree?
PRIME MINISTER: Look, we do need to look for what unites us. And one of the things that happened in the lead-up to Australia Day, and people have different views on Australia Day and when it should be commemorated.
HIGGINS-DEVINE: Are you going to change that date?
PRIME MINISTER: No. And I understand that because there’s no agreement on that. But one of the things that occurs every year, it’s almost like there are some sections of the media and politics that look for reasons to be outraged. They look for the sort of outrage that we saw where my opponent called for the boycotting of Woolworths. Woolworths employs 200,000 people. Now, if everyone boycotts it, then those 200,000 people, Australia’s largest employer, they lose their jobs. And people looking for outrage, I think we need to take a bit of a step back, turn the heat down whenever we can on these issues in order to avoid the sort of division that we do see in some western countries, unfortunately, and I think that leads to less cohesiveness. I’ve been determined on the Middle East issues to very clearly state a principle that every innocent life matters, whether it’s Israeli or Palestinian. Now, I don’t think that’s a controversial statement, but for some that is controversial. I really think that, in part, our society with social media that pushes people into polarising positions is of concern. It’s something I’ve spoken about many times. I do think people have conflict fatigue. And I think that over an issue such as the Voice that you raised, people could have different views about that. I respect the outcome. But the truth is that some of the campaign that was done, that people would lose their private property, would lose their homes, that some of the suggestions that were made wasn’t the case. You could have different views on that, but it was about recognition and a non-binding advisory committee. That was what it was about. But people, I think, went into debates, some of which my concern about some politicians is they’re prepared to say things that they know is just not the case.
HIGGINS-DEVINE: Finally, negative gearing. Is it on the table?
PRIME MINISTER: Look, we’re focused on addressing housing through housing supply and through the measures that we’ve put. And what we’ve been focused on tax policy is cost of living measures. That’s been our focus. And you fix cost of living measures by putting more dollars in people’s pockets. What we have put forward is the plan that will see average workers get double the tax cut and see every Australian get us a tax cut.
HIGGINS-DEVINE: Sorry to interrupt, when I asked you previously, you gave a very, not to that question, but you gave a very quick no to a change of Australia Day. Can you give me a very quick no to any changes to negative gearing?
PRIME MINISTER: We haven’t considered any changes to negative gearing. What we have considered is how we provide cost of living relief in the immediate sense. That’s what we’ve been doing. And that is what we are focused on.
HIGGINS-DEVINE: Not really a no. Is it a no?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we’re not focused on it at all. There’s been no discussion whatsoever ever. And what we’ve been focused on is cost of living pressures.
HIGGINS-DEVINE: Anthony Albanese, thank you so much for coming in this afternoon.
PRIME MINISTER: Wonderful to be on your program for the first time. And I look forward to coming back.
