: I welcome the Prime Minister of Australia, Anthony Albanese, back to the show. Good morning.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Good morning, Sarah. Good to be with you.
MACDONALD: Good to have you. We were just talking to the CEO of the Western Sydney Airport. There is a little bit of concern about public transport connection. He said the roads are looking good, the M2 and M7, but the metro only goes to St Marys and then you have to get the rail to Sydney. Is there money for better public transport links to our new airport?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we’re examining what further can be done. I think the big thing that could be achieved is extending it south of the airport to Macarthur. It will be important to have those public transport corridors, not just for passengers, but importantly as well, for workers getting to and from the airport. This airport will be a game changer for Sydney because for the first time, a major piece of infrastructure that creates jobs and economic activity will ensure the city is looking west rather than east, and that will have a major impact, just as the Moorebank Intermodal that’s up and running and has been very effective as well, at taking trucks off our inner road system and the roads to the Port has been very successful.
MACDONALD: He did mention Campbelltown, too, and looking at options there for better connection. So, are you looking at some sort of metro or link to the Campbelltown southwest area?
PRIME MINISTER: Yes, we are. How you could extend the existing proposed line that’s under construction from essentially from the north down to the airport and then to go further south to what is the real growth region. If you look at population growth in Sydney, it very much is focused on that southwestern corridor.
MACDONALD: Absolutely, and the new metro line that’s replacing the train line will only go to Bankstown. So, what, will the Federal Government put money into a new metro line? Is that what you’re looking at?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we’re looking at it. And the Government, together with Infrastructure Australia, together with the New South Wales Government, we want to make sure we’ve seen a lot of in the past in New South Wales announcements that weren’t properly examined and properly planned for with proper funding, we want to make sure that occurs.
MACDONALD: When can we expect some sort of announcement on this?
PRIME MINISTER: When you have the planning and everything in place and through our Budget processes.
MACDONALD: Weeks, months, years?
PRIME MINISTER: When we have the planning and processes in place. But what I want to do is to ensure that I lead a Government, that when there’s an announcement, there’s then something that happens. People have experienced around Australia too many media releases that you can’t drive on and media releases that you can’t get on the carriage on, to put it that way. What people need to do is to get the planning right. The extension of the rail line would be a natural thing to just continue, once the rail links are there at the airport. This will be a world class airport. I’ve visited the site and the planning there has been done for a long period of time, it was done prior to 1996, when the change of government meant that there was a stop put on the airport. It would have been up and running for 15 years by now if that hadn’t occurred. So, we want to make sure that this is a game changer and together, as well, that it brings the Aerotropolis, it brings the industrial precinct, the education and tertiary activity precinct, housing, that it really drives that economic activity and the benefits that will come for Western Sydney.
MACDONALD: Look, I have got texts saying, this is exciting. A new airport, 24 hours, it’ll make us an international city. I remember, as you said, it’s gone on for ages. I think I was a cadet journalist seeing Paul Keating turn a sod in about 1996. Should we have perhaps looked then at better connection to the city and the southwest, which seems to be what you’re looking at next?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we should have kept going, but John Howard stopped it. The funding was in the Budget and it got taken out in the first Howard Government Budget. And then we had a long period of searching for another site and all arrows pointed towards Badgerys Creek, is by far the best site for the airport because of the geography and topography, because of the location where it was, you can have flight paths that have minimum disruption. The interaction with the flight paths around Bankstown, which is, of course, Australia’s busiest airport, it was while I was the Aviation Minister.
MACDONALD: We now have much more development in the area. More people will be affected by these flight paths. The Blue Mountains residents are worried. Those in Luddenham and around Penrith.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, Blue Mountains residents are affected by the existing Kingsford Smith Airport, of course.
MACDONALD: But much more so now.
PRIME MINISTER: But what you can have, because of the direction of the runways is to design the air operations to really minimise that disruption with simultaneous takeoffs and landings away from where people live, towards the west, if you like, of the direction of the parallel runways that will be built there. And so I think that it will be a major beneficiary for Sydney and for the nation as well. The planes, of course, have also changed my electorate, of course, and I’ll return to living in Marrickville whenever my period as Prime Minister ends. And I live very close to Kingsford Smith Airport. We did things like ban chapter two aircraft. We banned the noisy aircraft.
MACDONALD: Do you miss the aircraft noise when you’re in The Lodge or at Kirribilli?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I miss living in Marrickville. I very much do. I get back there whenever I can and it is where my heart is and is where it will remain. It’s a very vibrant place to live and The Lodge is obviously very comfortable compared with my home in Marrickville.
MACDONALD: It’s very quiet.
PRIME MINISTER: It is indeed. I miss the buzz that is there in Marrickville, a great multicultural place as well, and fantastic restaurants that I miss just dropping into, or just dropping into the local pub. I can’t just sort of drop into the Henson Park the way that I used to.
MACDONALD: No, indeed you can’t. The Prime Minister of Australia, Anthony Albanese, is here on ABC Radio Sydney. It’s a 9:15. It’s interesting, you talk about Marrickville and the noise in that area of Sydney. There’s a few people texting saying they think there’s a future plan to close Kingsford Smith years down the track once Western Sydney is fully built and humming. Is that right?
PRIME MINISTER: No. Exclamation mark.
MACDONALD: We’re going to need them both right?
PRIME MINISTER: Of course, of course. And the airport brings major economic activity there for the region as well. Sydney Airport is a major employer of people who live in my electorate.
MACDONALD: The other issue, though, with the Blue Mountains that you mentioned is the World Heritage Area and great concern that it will reduce the World Heritage values. If you have these planes landing and lining up over certain parts of the airport and being able to see them from the Three Sisters.
PRIME MINISTER: No, well, those issues will all be dealt with. Blue Mountains, as I said, is affected by, there are flight paths that go over the Blue Mountains now. And if you look at airport noise complaints, indeed, for a while there, I haven’t seen figures for a little while, but for a while there were as many complaints from people in the Blue Mountains as there were from people directly under the flight path very close to the airport there at Marrickville and Sydenham.
MACDONALD: Okay, I want to get to some other issues now. We had Adam Bandt, the Leader of the Greens, on the show yesterday. He wants negative gearing restricted to one property. He wants to negotiate with you on this. What do you think?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we’ll determine our policies. We have a big tax agenda on the table right now that will benefit some 13.6 million taxpayers. Every single taxpayer will get a tax cut. That’s the legislation.
MACDONALD: And that’s going to go through now.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I’m not sure what his position is on that. And the Opposition have had four different positions in the last ten days.
MACDONALD: So, it’s not guaranteed?
PRIME MINISTER: Given the Opposition said they were against it and would fight it, then they said they’d roll it back, now they say they’ll support it, but they still seem to be critical of it. The truth is, it’s good policy that will make a difference where average workers will get double the tax cut. It’s squarely aimed at middle Australia and making a difference for all those nurses and teachers and child care workers and supermarket workers and truck drivers who kept our economy going during the pandemic. They were the heroes of the pandemic. They will be the big beneficiaries of this tax change. And that is the measure that we are focused on right now.
MACDONALD. So, if you have to negotiate with the Greens, would you say, bargain off negative gearing, or is it too much political poison after the 2019 election.
PRIME MINISTER: We don’t have to negotiate with the Greens. What we have to do is to put forward our positive policies, argue the case for them and for the Greens, for example on this, they can decide for example if they like, that they prefer Scott Morrison’s tax cuts that are aimed squarely at the high end, where people earning under $45,000 would not get a single dollar. And frankly, I’m amazed that the Greens Party have not, maybe he did it on your show, but haven’t said that they will support our legislation. Jacqui Lambie has. David Pocock has. The Coalition reluctantly seemed to have done so but we’ll wait and see.
MACDONALD: It looks like they will, but they’re trying to get this through. I mean, we’ve even had Dominic Perrottet, the former New South Wales Leader, Coalition leader, saying he thinks negative gearing needs serious conversation too. Is it up for serious discussion? Because it could have an impact in terms of just rampant rising of costs of living and rents in Sydney.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, what we’re focused on when it comes to housing is the issue of housing supply. And I know that the New South Wales Premier, Chris Minns, in my view, is doing a terrific job showing courage about the need to have better planning, showing courage about the need to have medium density housing where appropriate. Where appropriate, along those public transport corridors. And I personally have supported projects such as the revolution project, which is right next to Marrickville Station, that was controversial, opposed by the Greens on the council at the time, but has made an enormous difference. You don’t have to have a car if you live in those facilities.
MACDONALD: Okay, not a lot of love with the Greens. Look, business has been talking about the right to disconnect. We’ve chatted about this on the show. It’s in the new industrial relations legislation. There’s concern it will have legal ramifications for business. What do you say to that?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, it’s pretty amazing what occurred in the Senate yesterday where the Government sought to remove any possibility of criminal penalties from the right to disconnect element of the legislation that was before the Parliament. And for reasons beyond our comprehension, the Opposition denied leave to move those amendments. Now, it’s quite extraordinary that these provisions are potentially there because of the Liberal Party.
MACDONALD: What will that mean?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, it won’t mean anything. It’ll just mean we fix it up through separate legislation, because this legislation isn’t due to take effect for many months, so it won’t mean anything. But what it does mean, of course, is a sensible provision saying that if you are not on the clock 24 hours a day, if you’re not being paid 24 hours a day, then there should be no penalty if you have reasonable arrangements which do occur in most workplaces.
MACDONALD: But didn’t the bill inadvertently allow criminal penalties for a breach of a stop order by the Fair Work Commission?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, there was an amendment to fix.
MACDONALD: Right, and that was denied by the Coalition.
PRIME MINISTER: Any suggestion of that, that’s right, was denied to even move that on the floor, leave was denied.
MACDONALD. So, you’ll fix that up.
PRIME MINISTER: But the point here is that we need to adjust industrial relations legislation to the modern world. And in the modern world, if we were talking when I was first elected to Parliament, it would have been on a phone with lines into cords, into a hole in the wall. Because of modern technology, the idea that someone who’s being paid eight hours a day should effectively be available and on call and taking calls and doing work and doing emails 24 hours a day is something that needs to recognise in terms of quality of life. We need to adjust the law to deal with the modern world, and that is precisely what we are doing here. A common sense provision that already is there in a range of awards so that the Fair Work Commission can play a role in adopting what is, in my view, common sense, in my view, something that’s in the interests of working people, but also in the interests of good relations with employers.
MACDONALD: Prime Minister, final quick question from Ralph and me. Ralph wants to know if you’re going to see Radio Birdman in July. We had Deniz Tek on the show. Perhaps you’re seeing Pink, Taylor Swift, Paul Weller. What’s your next gig?
PRIME MINISTER: There are a few good gigs coming up, I noticed. Friends sent me a message the other day too. They are coming out again at the end of the year. But I certainly hope to get to one of the Birdman gigs at Sydney uni there. That is the objective. And Deniz did let us know that that was going to, that they were doing their final gig. So, it will be a bit of nostalgia, but always great fun. I mean, they’re such a great live band.
MACDONALD: Book em, Dano. Okay. Thanks for your time this morning.
PRIME MINISTER: Indeed. Ciao.
MACDONALD: There’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. So, Ralph, it looks like you might see him there.
