SARAH MACDONALD, HOST: The Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, joins me now. He's just landed in Sydney on his way to an announcement about social housing. I think you're in a tunnel, but can you hear me, Prime Minister?
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: I can indeed, Sarah. Yeah, I'm on my way to Sally Sitou’s electorate there in the inner west, in the Drummoyne area, looking at a house that has been refurbished as part of our $2 billion Social Housing Accelerator. One of the things that was happening was, there was a whole lot of homes, simply were uninhabitable. And the NSW Government, with that funding, has restored, so far 277 homes, with this funding. Which means there's now people in them, they're good quality, getting refurbished instead of sitting there derelict, which effectively was happening. I've been to places in Riverwood, been to places in western Sydney, and now today in the more, I guess, central western suburbs there near the [inaudible] site.
MACDONALD: Near Drummoyne, yeah. Well, a lot of people can give you a lot of lists of derelict houses that we can transform. But I just want to go to the big news of this morning, before we get back to housing, and that is that Donald Trump found guilty on all counts of falsifying business records in connection with hush money payment made to a porn star. So, we now have a convicted criminal running to be the next leader of America. We wouldn't let that person run in Australia. What's your reaction to this verdict?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I think there will be a lot of public focus on this verdict. Of course, this is a decision of the US court, that we don't comment where we're not participants on court processes of other countries. And, of course, the presidential election later this year is a matter for the people of the United States. Certainly, I obviously have a very close relationship with President Biden. I have visited there and met with him on many times.
MACDONALD: Do you think this will help him?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, that's a matter for the American people to make that judgement. And I think it's really important that Australia not be participants in democratic elections in other countries, quite frankly.
MACDONALD: Sure. But he could become, he could beat Joe Biden. He could be the President that you will have to work with. We have very close defence ties. We've hitched our wagon very closely to the country with the nuclear powered submarine. Are you worried about our relationship with the States, given the instability that could come and with him possibly becoming President again?
PRIME MINISTER: I'm certainly not worried about our relationship with the United States because it's a relationship between our peoples based upon our shared values of democratic principles. We, of course, have a bit of a shared political system here, the Westminster system and the House of Representatives, the Senate system that we virtually adopted from the United States. We have close relationships and of course, people who are leaders of countries have come and gone, but the relationship has been very strong, particularly since John Curtin made the decision during the Second World War, the correct decision, to stand up for Australia.
MACDONALD: Do you think that Donald Trump would? Would he stand up for Australia?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I think that people will have their individual personal views on that. But as Prime Minister of Australia, it's important that I not only not interfere in the elections on another country, but I'm also seen to be not interfering in the elections of another country.
MACDONALD: Yes, and I want to talk about visas and immigration in just a moment. But a lot of people pointing out on my text line, Prime Minister, that he probably wouldn't get a visa to visit Australia after this conviction. Can we let people in legally who have a criminal conviction? Like, what if he's the president, he wants to come for a visit?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, those are hypotheticals that I'm not going down that rabbit hole, Sarah.
MACDONALD: All right, fair enough.
PRIME MINISTER: So, there are a range of processes underway in the United States. This was one of the legal processes. It was a very quick determination by the jury and that will be gone through not just in the United States, but obviously globally, this will be the major story of the day today. I have no doubt about that, around the world.
MACDONALD: It will. You will be asked again. The Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, is with me on ABC Radio Sydney, on his way home to a social housing project in Drummoyne and his home of Sydney, perhaps dropping in at some stage, too. I want to ask you about the hammering the Government's getting on the, on the monitoring of non-citizens and the Minister, Andrew Giles, saying he's going to toughen up the systems in terms of deportations, which non-citizens should be deported from Australia?
PRIME MINISTER: Ones that represent, well the ones who should be, are ones who represent a threat to the community. And I want to make this point about what's occurred this week, section 501 has not changed. Indeed, we have deported some 4,200 people from immigration detention in our first year of office, almost double the number of people were deported as were deported under the previous government, in the previous year. The directions that are being spoken about are actually quite thick documents. The previous directions all had in them as well, a higher level of tolerance, to quote the directions documents, for offenders with long ties to Australia. And under the Leader of the Opposition, who of course, was the Minister for Home Affairs, some 1,300 offenders of serious issues were released, including 102 sex offenders, 64 child sex offenders, four people who were either murderers or involved or connected with murders. They were released with no curfews, no ankle bracelets, no monitoring. What we have done is replace the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, that made many of these decisions to overturn decisions by the department or by Ministers under both governments, we've abolished that body. Quite frankly, it was dysfunctional. It was full of political appointments from the former government and we are replacing that with the Administrative Review Tribunal. And it will have, the new Tribunal will have a new revised direction that puts protection of the community to outweigh any other considerations and that is the priority that my Government has.
MACDONALD: Right, but Prime Minister, I think you spoke to the New Zealand Prime Minister yesterday, Christopher Luxon, about this new direction. What assurances were given to him about sending New Zealanders back who have been here for many, many years, if they commit crimes?
PRIME MINISTER: None. We have Section 501 that is in place. I informed him of what our view was and he is very conscious of that. But we determine our policies.
MACDONALD: But if you tightening up, have you told him?
PRIME MINISTER: Yeah, I told him exactly what we are doing. He was aware of that. He understands that situation. We have also, the big actual change that we made was to encourage our friends from New Zealand, who've been here for a long period of time, to give them a fast track path to citizenship. Now more than 20,000 Kiwis have become Australian citizens since that change was made. That's a good thing. You have New Zealanders who've come here, who are working here, paying taxes, having kids here, buying homes here.
MACDONALD: Sure, but if they commit crimes here, they understand that more will be coming back. I want to go back to about the officials, though, from the department saying that three out of the seven murderers, seven other 16 domestic violence offenders released were not required to wear ankle monitors. I know Andrew Giles was talking about drones today.
PRIME MINISTER: That’s a completely different system.
MACDONALD: Right.
PRIME MINISTER: You’re confusing two very different policy issues.
MACDONALD: I know, well, I'm moving on from one to the other. So, I understand you spoke to the New Zealand Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER: [Inaudible].
MACDONALD: Yes, but in terms of those, that the court told you had to release from immigration detention, because the court said they couldn't go home. And those, and the monitoring and yes, it's a separate issue to the changing of the direction and the new Tribunal. I get that. But in terms of that, like, have you, why can't they wear ankle monitors and how extensive are the use of drones to monitor them?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, the High Court, let's be clear here, the High Court made a decision. We have a rule of law in this country. We've just been discussing court cases overseas, with regard to the rule of law, and governments have to comply with the rule of law that has what has happened here, it changed two years of legal precedent, but it is the law of the land. No parliaments above the law. We've established as well a preventative detention regime, modelled on the High Risk Terrorist Offender Scheme. And what the authorities have said, and I have confidence in our authorities, is that the monitoring is taking place. It's taking place with a range of measures in place. That's something that, you know, frankly, we allow our Australian Federal Police and our authorities to do their job and that is what they are doing. They are monitoring each of these people. And that does stand in stark contrast, as I said, to the almost 1,300 offenders who were released from Peter Dutton with no curfews, not a single ankle bracelet, no monitoring whatsoever.
MACDONALD: The Prime Minister is with me on ABC Radio Sydney. Prime Minister, a couple of people texting in. ‘There's two large derelict houses in Brown Street, St Peters, you could check out after you've been to Drummoyne. Please refurbish for social housing.’ Says a message coming in.
PRIME MINISTER: Whoever it is, please thank them.
MACDONALD: Yes, so that's the thing, we do see a lot of places in Sydney, and while this whole conversation is going on about development, councils got their statistics yesterday of how many more homes they'd have to approve for more housing. You also see derelict places that are not being developed, that are just being left there and which could become social housing. So, how much of the new development that we are now seeing in Sydney would you like to see as social housing and how much can we afford?
PRIME MINISTER: I'm a big supporter of social housing. We've got $32 billion of funds, $32 billion for social housing, for community housing, for emergency housing, for women and children escaping domestic violence. These are all programs that we’ve put in place. It was neglected, frankly, we're overcoming ten years of neglect. And tragically, in NSW, there was less social housing at the end of the NSW Liberal National government, which had a few Premiers, of course, O'Farrell, Baird, Berejiklian and Perrottet, than there was at the beginning when they were elected. And that is just a tragedy that's had real consequences and we're working with the Minns Government to address this.
MACDONALD: All right, we’ll let you get to your announcement. We have been talking about racism a little bit on our free call Friday with listeners. Do you think Australia is a racist country?
PRIME MINISTER: I think Australia is a great country and it's one I'm very proud to represent. I think the issue that you raised, of course, has been an issue relating to the ABC. And one of the things that I think is really important, is that my Government has provided additional funding, but we also support the independence of the ABC and that's something that I stand by.
MACDONALD: Well, I wasn't talking about the ABC, just the question. We're getting reports of people discussing whether they think we are racist or not.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I think we're a great multicultural country and the area I'm just arriving in now is a great example of that, where the Italian community have provided an extraordinary contribution in this part of Sydney. Does racism exist? Of course, racism has existed and it needs to be opposed and called out when it happens. But I think overwhelmingly we're an incredibly successful multicultural nation.
MACDONALD: All right. Well, Ash in Drummoyne says, ‘While you're there, the old Drummoyne Bowling Club has been vacant for twelve years. The developer has approval to build 70 townhouses, but they're stalling.’ You could take a trip there after the current house.
PRIME MINISTER: Okay, well, it's probably a matter for the council, but we’ll see how it goes. Thanks very much.
MACDONALD: Yeah, you are the Prime Minister, not on the council, definitely. Ash, thank you for your text though and thank you to the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese.