HOST: If we need to get a train line open, we get one man to cut the ribbon.
HOST: Anthony Albanese, the Prime Minister, good morning.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Good morning to you. Good to be with you.
HOST: Thank you so much.
HOST: Now did you open our train station that immediately go back to the eastern states? Is that what happened?
PRIME MINISTER: I did. I’m back in Canberra, so it was a day trip. But I will be back there in two weeks’ time for a few days there for the Telethon. And I'll also be hosting a bilateral meeting with the Japanese Prime Minister. Rather than bringing the Prime Minister of Japan to Canberra or Melbourne, taking him to Perth, and he's very happy with that. So, that will be important. Japan's very important for the Western Australian economy.
HOST: We know a good sushi shop.
HOST: Do you want us to do anything?
PRIME MINISTER: Maybe. If you're available, well, maybe some good sushi and sashimi. But I reckon the people in the Japanese Consulate probably know the best place.
HOST: I would like to find out what they think is the top ten.
HOST: To be honest, Nippon over the road, that's actually quite nice.
HOST: One at the Freo markets, that’s not bad. There's always the line there.
PRIME MINISTER: Always a fantastic lunch, I reckon.
HOST: Albo, so you opened the train line. I want to know, I want your honest answer, so when's the last time you actually caught an actual train? Like, without media or anything, you caught a train?
HOST: Because that’s how you're getting around?
HOST: I know because it's hard because you're a public figure.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, for example, in Perth I caught a train. I think we probably had media to be honest with Madeleine King down to down to her electorate. And that was pretty good.
HOST: That doesn't count.
PRIME MINISTER: I used to. The most efficient way to get from Marrickville, where I used to live, into the city was to catch the train. And I'd do it regularly including the entire time I was Leader of the Opposition. Being Prime Minister's a bit more difficult. I can't go anywhere, not to the sushi shop, without giving an hour's notice and without there being a whole security exercise. Unfortunately, that's the world we live in.
HOST: You take up your own cart with 15-20 people in there.
PRIME MINISTER: I’m not allowed to drive a car.
HOST: What do you mean?
PRIME MINISTER: I'm not allowed to drive. It's one of the security issues.
HOST: Say if someone was double-parked at your place, you couldn't even reverse the car out and just move it?
PRIME MINISTER: No. I stayed at Marrickville, my home, for as long as I could. I was quite happy to stay there. The security arrangements were such that the neighbours were very relieved when I moved out, they could park again because they weren't multiple cars clogging the street.
HOST: Just on the car thing, Albo, we know that you get driven, we've seen every Prime Minister getting driven around. Do you feel like you need an itch every now and then? You need to swing out to Bathurst and just unload in a V8 to get it out of your system every now and then?
PRIME MINISTER: I had a sneaky drive up in Broome, but mind you the police vehicle was in front of us and one behind.
HOST: And you were so happy, you had your head out of your window like a dog.
PRIME MINISTER: ‘I really want to drive. Is it okay if I drive?’ And they were like ‘Yes sir, you can’.
HOST: You had to beg for permission to drive a car?
PRIME MINISTER: Exactly. And we will still be coming with you.
HOST: Did you drive on Cable Beach?
PRIME MINISTER: No.
HOST: That was too dangerous.
HOST: So, when you're being driven around, I'm guessing you're doing a lot of work in the back of the car. Or is it a scenario where..
HOST: You’re waving like the Queen?
HOST: Yeah, or are you like are you conversing with the driver? Or is it like one of those ‘don’t talk to me’ Uber rides that you can request? What’s it like?
PRIME MINISTER: I'm usually working, often talking on the phone or doing work, reading papers, signing, all of that up. I’ve usually got someone with me. It's pretty busy job so I tend not to waste a minute. But the security people are very friendly and I spend a lot of time with them so I've got to know them. And we have a chat about a range of things, about the footy, or the cricket or the weather or whatever's going on.
HOST: All right, let's talk about the business of running the country at the moment. You're coming up to having your first budget, your Labor team. There's a lot of things said, obviously before the election, about the cost of living, how you guys would be in a position to be able to run that way better than the Liberal Government and the fact that there would be tax cuts and all these other promises. Where do you stand on them now, Albo, with the state of play of everything?
PRIME MINISTER: Well what we're doing is already introducing legislation to deliver things like cheaper childcare. We had the legislation introduced a week ago, that funding will be in the budget. That will assist over a million families. We have legislation before the parliament to reduce the cost of pharmaceuticals from $42.50 down to $30. That will be the first time in 75 years there has been a cut in the cost of pharmaceuticals. And we're very conscious that rising interest rates are putting pressure on family budgets with rising inflation. That's why we are determined to have a very responsible budget that doesn't increase any of the inflationary pressures in the economy.
HOST: Well, I want to talk about fuel, of course, because that's what I'm freaking out about especially with the interest rates going up. So fuel, personally, even after the Ukraine conflict is over I don't think fuels probably going to come back down.
HOST: This is the cost of it now.
HOST: So knowing that and knowing the future is probably in renewables and electric vehicles, you see how much money a car costs overseas and then how much it costs by the time it gets to Australia, especially that we don't manufacture them. Can we cut the price of EVs down significantly?
HOST: To incentivise it?
HOST: Yeah, to get people driving them?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we have just that. One of the costs that goes into an electric vehicle is tax and we’re cutting that.
HOST: But how much, Albo?
PRIME MINISTER: It will make a difference, depends on whether it's a fleet vehicle, which then gets on sold. A whole lot of our vehicles begin as part of fleets and then they go into the second hand market. It will reduce the cost by thousands of dollars, including getting rid of the FBT, the Fringe Benefits Tax. That's an encouragement for governments, for local government, for private operators, to move to electric vehicles. We also are rolling out a significant program of electric vehicle charging stations around the country as well, so that people won't have any concern about travelling long distances.
HOST: You just need some extension cords.
PRIME MINISTER: The thing about electric vehicles is that the technology is getting better and better and the price is getting cheaper and cheaper. And so around the world – whether it's the Japanese, the Koreans, the North Americans, the Europeans – what they're doing is concentrating, not on internal combustion engines, they're concentrating on electric vehicles and zero emissions vehicles, hydrogen, other forms of transport. That's the way of the future, we used to say. But the truth is, the future is here now. Down the track, we know that that is where the world is moving and it's moving very quickly to it.
HOST: Yeah, no doubt about it
HOST: I still think, as well, with renewables – I feel like the Government should make it a rule that any new builds have solar energy put on it.
PRIME MINISTER: It’s a pretty good idea. That, of course, is a state planning issue. But it makes a lot of sense to build things in a sustainable way. And one of the things about the whole debate about renewables is: why have people gone out there and put renewables, put solar panels on their roofs? It might be because of the environment, but chances are it's also been driven by lower power bills. It makes sense to do it? You get that return. And that is an analogy for what's happening in the economy, you need an investment upfront to pay for the infrastructure, the capital, whether it be a solar panel or a wind turbine or a battery to store the energy. Once you've done that, over a period of time, you end up being better ahead.
HOST: It pays off in the end.
PRIME MINISTER: It’s the same for the economy. And that's why we have an incredible opportunity in this country to be a clean energy economy, a renewable energy superpower for the world, to make more things here powered by cheap, clean energy. So, we need to manufacture more things here in Australia. And one of the things about the railway line that we opened yesterday, the airport line, is that now in WA, thanks to the McGowan Government, they're actually making train carriages there that are fit for purpose, that are world's best practice. And that's a great thing. It creates jobs in WA but it also means that you're not reliant upon importing manufactured goods
HOST: And they’re pretty easy too, just shipping containers with tram wheels.
PRIME MINISTER: I think the workers there at Midland might disagree about how simple it is. But it’s Australian quality and Australian jobs. Over in the East, in New South Wales where I'm from, they keep importing trains that don't fit the stations that can't fit through the tunnels were imported ferries that go along the Parramatta River that no one can stand on the top because they'll be decapitated by the bridges.
HOST: Bit of an oversight.
PRIME MINISTER: They got the heights wrong.
HOST: I know we’ve got to let you go, but I just want one more thing. You're the only person I know that went to the Queen’s funeral, right? So when we were watching the Queen's funeral, my dad was going off his brain about how people aren't busting to go to the toilet because they were sitting there for so long. So you were there. How was the toilet situation? How long were you sitting there for and were you busting at the end of it?
PRIME MINISTER: We were given notice, it must be said, that no one would be going in or out. So, everyone knew the rules. It's about proper planning.