RICHARD GLOVER, HOST: Well, yesterday the Prime Minister marked 100 days in office by appearing at the National Press Club. Today, he marks 101 days in office by appearing here on Drive. Prime Minister, welcome.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: G'day, good to be with you.
GLOVER: What's surprised you about being the boss, finally?
PRIME MINISTER: I think the workload is what I expected. But I think we got hit with a range of things that weren't on the horizon, the energy price increase, and then the well, it wasn't the horizon, we just didn't get told about it. And then, of course, we had some energy shortages that we had to deal with, and that was dealt with by Chris Bowen. We had another wave of the pandemic. So these things get thrown at you, the objective is to deal with immediate challenges, but continue to keep your eye on the long game.
GLOVER: And as you mentioned Chris Bowen, you're determined this is going to be a Bob Hawke-style outfit, isn't it? It's going to be a collegiate government, is that fair enough?
PRIME MINISTER: I want to proper process of Cabinet Government, I want to maximise the talents which are there. I'm very lucky to have such a fantastic ministerial team and caucus team. And I think that government works better at the national level when you encourage not just ministers, but our public servants I want to value as well and have frank and fearless advice from them. And the Summit that we're holding on Thursday and Friday on jobs and skills is an attempt as well to bring in business, unions, civil society, into how we can look for common interests and common purpose, and drive the national economy - fix productivity, lift wages, all the challenges which are there. I think that government works better when it's collegiate, when it's collaborative, and I'm determined to do that.
GLOVER: You said right at the beginning, you're going to reach across the aisle and there was a good moment, actually, today with the Victorian and New South Wales Premiers standing together in a joint press conference. Is that idea of reaching across the aisle, is that is that working out in practice? Or is Question Time going to be as raucous and difficult on both sides, as it always was?
PRIME MINISTER: Look Question Time will continue to be, I think, a little bit combative, but that's fine. What matters, I think is whether there is that search for common purpose. I'm pleased that crossbenchers and the Leader of the National Party at least, David Littleproud, will attend the Jobs and Skills Summit. You can't force people to be collaborative. Peter Dutton has chosen to exclude himself and the Liberal Party from that process. Well, that's a matter for them. But if you look at the debate that took place on our climate policy, what we said was we had a clear policy of 43% reduction by 2030, 82% renewables, we had our framework there. But we were happy to discuss improvements in the legislation if people had them. So we voted for a range of crossbench amendments when it was before the House of Representatives, even though we have an absolute majority of 77 on the floor, and I think that's the way that I want the Parliament to work, if people have a good idea, we're up for it.
GLOVER: That doesn't mean that peace has broken out entirely with the Greens. Here's the Greens leader, Adam Bandt, today, talking about the idea that you're going to stick with these tax cuts for the wealthy.
ADAM BANDT (RECORDING): In the first year of the tax cuts, the top 1% gets as much as the bottom 65% combined. The top 20% of income earners get around 80% of the money.
GLOVER: That's Adam Bandt. As a Labor Prime Minister, you're standing up Prime Minister to say that if you're earning $199,000 a year, you will pay 30% in tax. That's a pretty extraordinary thing for a Labor Prime Minister to say, isn't it?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we had the legislation before the Parliament in 2019, we tried to amend the legislation to change the stage three of the tax cuts. We weren't successful by one vote. All of the crossbenchers voted in the Senate in favour of stage three. So that was a legislative change, we at the time had to make a decision once we weren't successful, whether we block or try to block all of the tax cuts for everyone. And we didn't do that, we didn't vote against all of the tax cuts for income earners, stages one, two and three. We said at the time that it was ambitious to say you knew what the economy would look like in 2024. But there's also the issue of certainty which is there. These were legislated and are legislated tax cuts. And we said that we wouldn't seek to change them at the election.
GLOVER: But that was in retrospect, was that an act of cowardice to not say to the Australian public, 'Times have changed, we voted that way back then, because the Government had tied, or had bundled things together, so we didn't want to upset the whole thing. But right now, we're not going promise to keep them.' You could have said that?
PRIME MINISTER: Well we could have, but we didn't say that, we said that it had been legislated and that we wouldn't seek to undo that legislation, that we'd look at a whole range of other ways to grow the economy, to make sure that we could pay for our commitments. And that's the programme that we took to the election, and I've got to say that Adam Bandt had lots of opportunities prior to the election to say what he's saying now, as well. And the truth is that before the election, this wasn't front and centre of the election campaign that was held earlier this year on May 21.
GLOVER: Nonetheless, you know, money is short. Amanda Rishworth, your Minister today said that there'd be no lift to JobSeeker in the October budget. That means for all those people who are on $46 a day, there's no relief this year. And you know that ACOSS is saying it should be $70 a day?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, ACOSS of course have always advocated for increases, and you'd expect them to do that. That is not related, though, to these tax changes, because these tax changes don't come in until 2024.
GLOVER: Okay, it's an indication, though,
PRIME MINISTER: There's no link between the two things.
GLOVER: Yeah, it's an indication that money's always short. And this seems mean for a Labor Government to not increase JobSeeker, doesn't it?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, what we'll do is we'll examine JobSeeker and examine other payments each and every year, which is what you'd expect Labor Governments to do. The last time we were in office, we had the largest ever increase in pensions in Australian history.
GLOVER: Do you think that will happen again?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we will make those assessments each and every year when we consider the budget. What we'll do is it's an opportunity for us to examine what our priorities are, and Labor will always be better on those issues. But what we can't do is, this is a mini budget, if you like, in terms of halfway through the year, there was a budget in March, there'll be another budget next May. And what we're concentrating on in this budget is the funding of all of the election commitments that we made, as well as going through line-by-line, looking for where savings can be made with some of the rorts and the waste, which is there in the budget from the former government.
GLOVER: Anthony Albanese is here, Prime Minister of Australia. Last week, you announced two inquiries into things that happened under the last government. I don't think anybody, any right person, right-thinking person would not cheer you on in terms of the Robodebt Royal Commission, people died as you said last week, Prime Minister, and it needs investigating properly. There's an argument though, about the Morrison Inquiry, is there not? We've already had a bit of an inquiry, even his own side are adamant that he did the wrong thing. We pretty much know the answer to this problem. You can change the law to make the Governor-General put everything that happens into the Gazette. That's the obvious answer to this and probably everyone would vote that through Parliament. It's not to say that what happened wasn't terrible, but we kind of know it was terrible and we know the solution. What's the virtue in spending money on an inquiry?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, this is a former High Court Judge in Virginia Bell, who's examining what occurred, how it occurred, why it occurred, who knew about what was going on, what the implications are that have not been examined by the Solicitor-General? What are the implications for, for example, the statutory authorities, of which by making himself the Minister for Finance, that makes him a shareholder, for example of Australia Post, at a time when the comments were made about Christine Holgate being forced to resign from her position, for example, what are the implications there? What are the implications behind the decision that was made about the PEP-11 project off the coast of the Central Coast, Newcastle, down to the Sydney coastline, that were made given there were two ministers in charge.
GLOVER: I don't think anyone would defend it. But don't we all, aren't we all agreed? Every Australian agrees this was terrible. Even Mr Dutton says it was terrible.
PRIME MINISTER: Not everyone is agreed.
GLOVER: There's one guy who isn't, but everyone else is.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, are they though? Did they sit back and allow, for example, a committee of Cabinet to have just one member on it, which is the way that the former government openly structured itself? So there's a committee of one, made up of Scott Morrison, so whenever he met with other people, it could be deemed to be a subcommittee of the Cabinet, with other people seconded onto the committee for a particular purpose. We need to look at the structures of government. This goes to the very heart of the functioning of our parliamentary democracy. It goes to our conventions, which we've relied upon since Federation in 1901. And having a former High Court Judge have, this isn't a show trial, this is a serious inquiry, former High Court Judge, to have a very quick look, she'll report in November, prior to Parliament rising for the year so that legislation can be examined properly with proper advice, based upon someone who is a legal expert in Virginia Bell.
GLOVER: There is a habit in politics of going in to the battlefield and bayoneting the already dying, though, is there not?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, this is a very appropriate inquiry. It's not a Royal Commission, it is a former High Court Judge having a look at what happened and how it happened. I've got to say, as the Prime Minister, I want to know, what occurred with the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet as well. And the truth is, the Solicitor-General has had a look at this, but hadn't spoken to anyone involved in any of these processes. And this was a serious trashing of the way that parliamentary democracy functions. And that's important. It can't just be dismissed as saying, 'Oh, well, that's done then, we all agree that was a bit silly.' But it went on over a two-year period, it continued to exist up until May, and had the former Prime Minister not agreed to do a book with a couple of people and temporaneously tell them what was going on at the time, then we might never have known about this.
GLOVER: We may have never known, that's right. Anthony Albanese, can I just ask you finally about Penny Wong's visit to PNG today? It's an intriguing idea that one of the things we could have is a deal whereby PNG gets an NRL team. It seems to me that that is one of the things that the Chinese cannot match us in. Is that a real possibility and would you support that?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, it's something that I think is a pretty good idea, I've gotta say. I was at the Pacific Island Forum meeting, including with Prime Minister Marape, and other leaders from Tonga and Samoa and Fiji. The Pacific and Papua New Guinea in particular, are so passionate about rugby league. Prime Minister Murape will visit Brisbane for the Prime Minister's XIII, versus the PNG Kumuls game that will be held in a month and a half's time, and that will be a real opportunity for engagement, and I think that it is something I've raised with the NRL, with Peter V'landys, and I think that it has a great deal of merit. If you have a look at the rugby league list, there's a few players there with Pacific and PNG background. And I think that anything that improves our relations in the region, sport can play a role in that.
GLOVER: Is it fair to say that you've lobbied Peter V'landys to say, 'Look, do this do for footy, but also do it in the national interest?'
PRIME MINISTER: Well, it certainly would be in my view in the national interest and in the view of good relations in our region. And it also is a good form of providing support for these countries as they develop. There was a game up there on Saturday between the Mackay Cutters and the PNG Hunters, and it was a sell-out. More than 10,000 people attended the game in Port Moresby. And what the PNG Prime Minister has said to me is that there are three times a year when the entire country stops, and that is every State of Origin game.
GLOVER: What if you as Prime Minister encourage this, Mr Albanese, and then they beat Souths?
PRIME MINISTER: (Laughs) That would be okay by me, that's sport! And sometimes you win, and it wouldn't be the first loss I've seen Souths have.
GLOVER: Well, don't leave it to day 202 to speak to us again on Drive. Thank you very much for your time.
PRIME MINISTER: Thanks very much, Richard.