LISA MILLAR, HOST: I have the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, with me here. Good morning. How are you feeling?
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Good morning, Lisa. A little bit less chilly than yourself.
MILLAR: I think we have a little bit of a breezeway here as well.
PRIME MINISTER: I'm feeling good. I got the great pride of sitting there for the first Labor Budget in a decade. I believe it's a Budget that Australia needs. It's the Budget that's right for the times. We live in an uncertain world. There's inflationary pressures we have to deal with. And this is a Budget that had responsible investment, fulfilled all of our commitments, including increased funding for the ABC, without putting pressure on inflation. It was a difficult task that we had to navigate in our first Budget, but I believe we did it last night.
MILLAR: You’ve got Australians watching this morning who saw those figures about a 56 per cent increase in energy prices over the next 18 months, rents going up in a couple of years, wages not going up, economic growth slowing. Are you absolutely ruling out any direct handouts to try to help the cost-of-living crisis that people are facing?
PRIME MINISTER: The problem with direct handouts is it would feed straight into inflation. That would therefore not help people at the end of the day with cost of living. That's the problem here. So, what we had to do was target investment into ways that didn't add to inflation. So, cheaper child care, more Paid Parental Leave, more affordable housing, the increase in wages that you will see over the medium term kicking in. Real wages are a product of inflation and wages. If inflation is going up, it makes it harder to hit that real wage increase which is of priority. As well as providing immediate relief through measures like cheaper medicines. The first decrease in the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme in 75 years since it was introduced. That kicks in on 1 January next year.
MILLAR: That's not going to counter those other big increases that people are seeing, the rent and the electricity. So, granted, there are changes there that will make a longer term difference, right now, people are hurting.
PRIME MINISTER: Yes, well, we've been up-front with people about that. We inherited, on electricity prices, you will be aware that before the election, the energy prices were due to go up by 20 per cent. They actually introduced a changed regulation to keep that information from the Australian people. An extraordinary act prior to the May election. So, that increase had been baked in and hidden from the Australian people. We do know that people are doing it tough at the moment. But we need responsible economic management in order to come through the other side. On energy, we had four gigawatts of energy leave the system and one go in. We didn't have that investment in new energy. We know that the cheapest form of new energy is clean energy, is renewables. Everyone knows that is the case. We didn't have an energy policy for this country. We now do. We will see that benefit flow through. It can't happen overnight, of course. You need to fix transmission, we have a plan to do that. We had the biggest investment announcement that we've seen since Snowy Hydro that was announced by the Chifley Government just last week in partnership with the Tasmanian Government and Victorian Government through projects like Marinus Link to fix transmission.
MILLAR: Are you confident that Australia won't follow other countries into recession? If it doesn't, does that mean anything to Australians if they feel like they're in one anyway?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, that is precisely why we needed the sort of Budget we handed down last night, Lisa.
MILLAR: You think Australia won't follow countries into recession?
PRIME MINISTER: I think that is right. The Budget papers show that's the case because we have been responsible. In areas like the increased upgrades in revenue that have happened for the Government, 99 per cent of those over the next two years were banked to pay off debt, to put downward pressure on inflation.
MILLAR: What is a timetable for reform, this structural deficit we talk about? When will we see that happen? Jennifer Westacott earlier said it's been kicked down the road.
PRIME MINISTER: We had substantial reform there last night, Lisa. If you look at our program of energy policy, something supported by the Business Council of Australia, thank you to them as well as the Australian Industry Group and the National Farmers' Federation and the Australian Council of Trade Unions, pretty good to bring that group together on that journey of reform. You will see later this week, legislation introduced to make the industrial relations system work better, so that it lifts productivity as well as lifting wages. You have seen child care policy introduced last night. Child care policy is about reform, not about welfare, it's about improving workforce participation, boosting productivity and boosting the population while benefiting families and benefiting the young people themselves.
MILLAR: On the NDIS, a lot of people are very alarmed about, people who rely on it, alarmed about the language that was being used given that it has changed so many people's lives. The costs are blowing out. Jim Chalmers last night suggested hundreds of billions of dollars down the track. What can you say to people who make use of the NDIS this morning?
PRIME MINISTER: Labor created the NDIS. We stand by it. The NDIS are working effectively. And that means people with disabilities can participate not just in the economy but the whole of society. That benefits them, but it also benefits the economy and all of us when we get more participation. Some of the structural problems that are there, there is some abuses, there is some waste that can be dealt with. We have flagged that before the election campaign. These figures of increases were baked in. They are not as a result of the change of government. They were baked in. What we have done, that was to undertake a review under Bill Shorten. Bill is very passionate, he was one of the architects of it. And I can't think of anyone better to review it, to oversee that, while giving people the confidence that we are very passionate about keeping the NDIS and making sure it achieves its objectives.
MILLAR: A couple of quick ones that I want to run by you. The mental health funding, it is in the Budget papers as students who have been affected by COVID. A couple of hundred million dollars there. What do you do for people who have suffered the impacts of that over the last couple of years, students who have now left school? How do you reach them and what kind of admission is it that you are needing to pour all of that into people's mental health right now?
PRIME MINISTER: It's a commitment we made, like all the others, all the commitments we made before the election, this is a Government that delivers on our promises, it does what we said we would do. So, I remember being at a school in Waterloo announcing that with Tanya Plibersek. The idea there is to provide support for every school, each and every school, private and public, to provide that assistance that people need. That might take a range of forms. It might be increased excursions and that social activity that they have missed out on.
MILLAR: How do you reach kids that have already left schools as a 19 or 21-year-old?
PRIME MINISTER: I have a 21-year-old. He was at university and he didn't go onto campus for two years. It's tough. We need to recognise the consequences that are there long-term. We need to engage as much as possible. There is support, of course, through programs like Headspace, specifically aimed at young people. But by going into schools, what we wanted to do was to get to people who may not go to the local Headspace, who may not put their hand up and say, ‘I have a problem’, and make sure that there is that support therefore each and every school.
MILLAR: Can I jump back to the housing accord? The Greens this morning are saying that it is smoke and mirrors because over the last five years private enterprise has built a million homes, and you are just asking for another million over the next five years. The other problem is, where will the supplies come from?
PRIME MINISTER: They are so negative, they always are. Never have any solutions. We have a real solution that has been worked out with state and territory governments, with superannuation funds.
MILLAR: It is locked in, it is solid? We are actually going to get a million homes?
PRIME MINISTER: And that's why we say from 2024, because we recognise that there are those supply problems at the moment in the market, and this will enable those structures to be put in place with the private sector to encourage that investment. And it comes on top of the commitments we have made for increased investment in social and affordable housing as well through our Housing Australia Future Fund that was also confirmed and created in last night's Budget.
MILLAR: You said you are a Government that it keeping election promises. But the opposition says that one promise you didn't keep was keeping electricity prices down by $275. They said you knew about the war in Ukraine before then.
PRIME MINISTER: Seriously? What we didn’t know, and they know that you no one knew because they kept it, was to change the regulations so that the 20 per cent increase in prices that was baked in before the election, they changed just before they went into caretaker mode, introducing regulation so that would not be revealed to the Australian people before the May election. They had no credibility when it comes to transparency. They presided over 22 policies on energy. They did not implement any of them. Four gigawatts in, one gigawatt in, at a time when, of course, you need increased investment, not that sort of decrease that they presided over. We are cleaning up the mess that they created.
MILLAR: Prime Minister, thanks for joining us this morning. We will see you in May for the next Budget. I might bring my winter clothes.
PRIME MINISTER: It might be a bit colder then, I will give you the big tip.
MILLAR: Thanks.
PRIME MINISTER: Thanks.