RICHARD GLOVER, HOST: The Prime Minister is here, Anthony Albanese. Welcome, Prime Minister.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: G’day, good to be with you.
GLOVER: Now, Peter Dutton's Budget reply, I think it's fair to say, was dominated by migration. A crackdown on permanent migration on foreign buyers of existing houses, international students. With a housing crisis, excess demand in the economy and these really congested roads we experience in Sydney, isn't he onto something?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, he's on to the same old formula of blaming others and not coming up with any costed policies whatsoever. Take the issue of foreign people buying houses. He didn't seem to know the morning after how many that consisted of. It's just a bit over 1000. So, the idea that that's going to make a substantial difference is frankly absurd. A migration system that he presided over that was broken is something that we've been busy repairing. New measures to restore integrity to international education have resulted in a 35 per cent reduction in student visa grants in just the last few months. You actually need serious policies rather than slogans. And Peter Dutton has had three Budget replies and has yet to come up with a single costed policy. Whether it's this one or whether it's these nuclear reactors where he won't say who'll finance them, how many there'll be, where they'll be, even though just yesterday David Littleproud said that actually even done polling on the locations, but they won't tell your listeners or anyone else where they'll be.
GLOVER: But under your watch, we had 500,000 people, a lot of them coming to Sydney. I mean, you're talking to people who are kind of dealing with the congestion on the roads and the limited rental properties that that sort of response brings. That was far too many and yet you were the boss when it happened.
PRIME MINISTER: It was. It was a system that we inherited from Peter Dutton. Of course, we know that the borders were shut for some time, but when they reopened, the Government under Scott Morrison actually put in place a mechanism, for example, where students could come in, could work unlimited hours. Now that attracted people who were coming here to work rather than study, even though they were on student visas, not doing real courses. No integrity in the system. Now we're busy restoring the system so that it will come down to 260,000 in the next financial year. That's important. We are fixing a problem that we inherited, like so many problems that we inherited. Like we're fixing, we turned a $78 billion deficit into a $22 billion surplus last year and a $9.3 billion projected surplus this year. Like we’re fixing child care and aged care and so many areas.
GLOVER: Since we’re talking about surpluses and deficits. In this Budget, last week's Budget, we go from a $9 billion surplus to a $28 billion deficit. That means in technical economic terms, it's an expansionary Budget. And expansionary Budgets lead to excess demand, which leads to excess inflation, which leads to the Reserve Bank putting up interest rates again.
PRIME MINISTER: No, it doesn't mean that at all. It means that we inherited deficits, $78 billion, and deficits that were much greater into the future as well. We have reduced, well, first we've turned two deficits into two surpluses, and then we've turned what were very large deficits into much smaller deficits to the tune of some $200 billion plus, improvements in the bottom line over the medium term.
GLOVER: Ok, but the next figure is a deficit, right?
PRIME MINISTER: It is, but it's much smaller than what was anticipated under the former Government just two years ago. It's less than two years, we celebrate the anniversary tomorrow, it’s less than two years since we came to office, what we've done is bank revenue gains. We've made considerable savings. We’ve stopped just handing out cash payments. What we've done is to provide cost of living relief in a way that is effective, but also in a way that has seen inflation moderate to half of what we inherited. It's now down to an annual figure of 3.6 per cent, which is getting towards the band that we want it to be in between 2 and 3 per cent.
GLOVER: Ok, but how will this Budget, with the very generous tax cuts, as you keep on saying, for everybody, and the $300 energy rebate for everybody, how can that possibly not be inflationary?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, the tax cuts were factored in and bear in mind that we have a $9.3 billion surplus. So, we have designed cost of living relief in a way that provides support that people need. So, by lifting wages, increased tax cuts so people will earn more and keep more of what they earn. But at the same time, we've designed other forms of cost of living relief so they take pressure off inflation. So, rather than send out cash cheques, there's rebates on energy bills that will reduce them by $300. There's Fee Free TAFE that is literally making it free, obviously, to go to TAFE. There's cheaper child care that's reduced the cost of childcare by 11 per cent. All of these measures have had a downward impact on inflation. And indeed, Treasury estimates that our cost of living measures will reduce inflation by three quarters of a percent this financial year and by half a percent next year.
GLOVER: Yeah, I saw that. But why are they so, why are they so convinced? Why are you so convinced that if you reduce my power bill by $300, I won't just spend that money?
PRIME MINISTER: Because it's worked. Because we've put it in place already.
GLOVER: With the pensioner thing last year?
PRIME MINISTER: Yeah. It has had that downward impact on inflation. The measures that we've put in place have been about reducing inflation whilst providing that cost of living support, and that has made a considerable difference. We know that people are doing it tough, so we needed to provide support to them, but do it in a way that achieves the macroeconomic objectives as well of having fiscal policy, if you like, the Budget policy, working in partnership with monetary policy. Which is precisely why we have produced these two Budget surpluses. It must be said the first time in almost 20 years that there have been consecutive Budget surpluses.
GLOVER: The Prime Minister is with us. I want to talk to you about Papua New Guinea in a second, but just staying with the migration for a minute. Queensland's Labor Premier, Steven Miles has just been in our news saying that he welcome, he welcomes Peter Dutton, echoing my comments, he says that the current rate of migration is leading to too much pressure on the Queensland housing system. So, even people on your own side are cheering on the Opposition Leader on this.
PRIME MINISTER: There's nothing about Steven Miles that'll be cheering on Peter Dutton because he knows that it would be a disaster for Queensland. He knows that what we saw in Queensland when Campbell Newman was elected was a bit like the last time the Coalition came to office nationally, which was to rip money out of education and health and out of essential services, to rip money out of housing. The former Government did nothing to fund public housing and to support people when and where they needed it. There was a great deal of waste and no economic plan. What we've done with this Budget is to provide that immediate support that Australians need, but also to have our mind on the future of Australia. How does our economy grow? What are the new industries? How do we take advantage of becoming a renewable energy superpower? By supporting clean energy, by supporting new industries. And that's what our Hydrogen Headstart program, our Solar Sunshot program, our support for the National Reconstruction Fund is all about making sure that we can make more things here in Australia.
GLOVER: Now, I know I've only got you for a few minutes longer. Papua New Guinea is hoping to have its own team in the NRL, maybe with a successful bid as early as next month. I know you're a big supporter of the idea. We've talked about it before. But I wondered whether it got discussed when you were walking Kokoda with the Prime Minister and generally what that was like.
PRIME MINISTER: It certainly did, Richard. One of the things about Papua New Guinea is I've never seen anywhere where a single sport dominated the social conversation and the interaction that occurs. You walk the Kokoda Track, which is an extraordinary experience, a chance to pay tribute to the bravery and courage of those World War Two Defence Force people who kept our country safe in conjunction, of course, with Papua New Guinea at the time, it was a part of Australian territory. And you walk, though, into a village, having gone through very dense jungle, and there it'll open up onto a little village and everyone will be wearing a Broncos jumper or a Bunnies jumper or a State of Origin jumper. I must say, usually Queensland more so than New South Wales. But they are very passionate about their rugby league and that's why it would be a good thing for the economic development of PNG as well as for the relationship that our two great nations have, as they approach their 50 year anniversary of independence, to have a team in the NRL.
GLOVER: How's the team going to compete with the lifestyles, I guess other clubs offer in places like Bondi, Manly or dare I say at Marrickville?
PRIME MINISTER: They'll go pretty well, the locals and we know that over a period of time, people like Justin Olam and others have come from PNG and been very successful. But if you look at the number of people from the Pacific who are in the NRL, they're big numbers. What a team will do is mean that the young, up and coming PNG players who mightn't be discovered now when they're 16 or 17, unlike people if they're in Marrickville or Manly, they will be discovered and they will be a powerhouse in the rugby league competition. There's no question about that in my mind.
GLOVER: You do realise that if you really want to challenge China's push into the Pacific, you will agree with me that the first time the Pasifika team play the Rabbits, you'll be there in the front row cheering on the Pasifika team.
PRIME MINISTER: I will wish them well, but I will never, ever cheer against Souths.
GLOVER: I thought I might have that answer. Hey, thank you very much for your time this afternoon.
PRIME MINISTER: Thanks very much, mate. Always great to talk with you.