BEN ENGLISH: Welcome back to Wagga.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Good to be here.
BEN ENGLISH: Mate, you're one of the OGs. You've gone to every Bush Summit. You must love it. There's not many votes here for you. Why do you do it?
PRIME MINISTER: My job is to represent every Australian, regardless of where they live. During the campaign, in the lead up to May, on day one, I was in Bundaberg and some of the media, believe it or not, were critical and said, why are you going to Hinkler? I was like, because Bundaberg, it's an important -- if you think about Australian produce and making things in Australia, Bundaberg ginger beer is up there. But during the campaign, I went to Longreach, I went to Karratha, I went to Bega. I was right around the country. Because I'm determined to represent -- I came up with Michael this morning from Canberra and as a Prime Minister, I've been to Cobar with Michael, I've been to Wagga Wagga here, I've been to Forbes. I've been to regional communities right throughout New South Wales, and it's always fantastic to get out and about and talk to people. If you just talk to people who agree with you, you won't learn.
BEN ENGLISH: Yeah. It's good to get out of Marrickville though, isn't it? You're a bit of --
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I don't get to go to Marrickville very often these days. And Canberra is of course Australia's largest inland city. Important thing. It has that feel, I've got to say, of a more regional community. And when you walk around there, you just feel a bit more relaxed than you do in a big city like Sydney.
BEN ENGLISH: Yeah, you would've noticed out the front here, there were some protestors and they're actually touching upon a theme that has come up time and time again with our coverage the last couple of weeks, and that's the renewable rollout, the new energy transition, and how that's impacting communities on the ground in the bush. Do you acknowledge that that is quite a traumatic process at the moment, that a lot of people do feel disenfranchised about how that's rolling out?
PRIME MINISTER: Of course, you've got to acknowledge how people feel. And there are mixed feelings, though, of course. And I've spoken with farmers who've benefited substantially from income increases as a result of the renewable energy rollout. I've spoken with other farmers who are concerned about the community consultation process.
BEN ENGLISH: I think that's part of it though, isn't it? That there's a sense that some are cleaning up and some are missing out, and there's a sense of inequity in that.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, when you have change, it can also be difficult. The question here is, when was the last time a new coal-fired power station was built? The answer to that is a long, long time ago. We weren't in government for nine years, three terms. Not a single new coal-fired power station, in spite of the rhetoric. Nuclear power, for the advocates, won't -- best case scenario is you're looking decades away. And coal-fired power stations are increasingly unreliable. Callide shut down in Queensland. The coal-fired power stations in New South Wales are at the end of their life. Most of, a majority of the coal-fired power stations in Australia announced their closure under the former government, announced their closure date. So, we need to make sure we have a policy which is renewables backed by gas, backed by storage. We acknowledge, of course, that community consultation hasn't always been as good as it should be, and governments need to do better there and engage.
BEN ENGLISH: The other side of it, and I've talked to quite a few businesses while I've been down here, is the price of power. Obviously, we don't need to revisit all of that from the last term of government, about the assurances that power prices would go down. They haven't, and that continues to be a concern for businesses. And you're a big advocate for growing future-facing manufacturing, future-facing industries. They all rely -- they're hungry for power. How do you reconcile that? How do we get a manufacturing future when power prices are continuing to rise?
PRIME MINISTER: You get it by, one, acknowledging the truth, which is -- the truth is that global energy prices spiked to the greatest extent since the 1970s. That occurred -- there's a range of reasons why that occurred. The Russian oil situation, with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, was a major factor in that, and that had an effect on global inflation. Inflation hit double digits in places like the UK. That didn't occur here. Countries like Germany and others wish that they had our energy prices.
BEN ENGLISH: So, the prices will stabilise, you believe?
PRIME MINISTER: Yeah. You have to look at what's the cheapest form of new energy. Overwhelmingly, it is renewables. You need firming capacity and what businesses like Tomago in regional Australia, New South Wales' biggest energy user, what they want to do is to have renewables, but they need the backing -- the firming capacity of gas has a really important role to play as well.
BEN ENGLISH: You mentioned the triumph of getting China back on board and how that's actually delivered revenue dividends. But is it also important for us to continue to look beyond China and diversify also beyond coal and iron ore? What is the strategy for those regions that have been reliant on those traditional fossil fuels? What's the strategy for their economic future?
PRIME MINISTER: Absolutely. One is diversification of who we trade with. So, I got the former head of Macquarie Bank, Nicholas Moore, to do a report -- Southeast Asia Economic Strategy to 2040. He visited all of the ASEAN nations and produced a report that looks at, what's the comparative advantage that Australia has in exporting to those countries and in trade. We're undercooked in areas like Indonesia and India. India will be the third largest economy in the world, Indonesia fourth, in coming years. They're just our neighbours, we have good relations with both of them and that presents an opportunity. We've got the fastest-growing region in the world, in human history, to our north. China is important, but so is Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore. I'll host the Prime Minister of Singapore I think next week, in coming weeks. Anyway, Lawrence Wong is coming down. Building those relations is about our jobs and we also need to look at diversification of what we export. And more and more with changes in the global economy, with new technology, the costs of production or labour input to the cost of production are less important as a proportion of the costs. More and more, it's transport. What that's doing is meaning that value-adding here is more and more viable going forward, and that's what the Future Made in Australia agenda is about. So, for example, when I know that Hancock are one of your main sponsors here today, we had Hancock, Rio, BHP and Fortescue do a roundtable in Shanghai with China's biggest steel production talking about green steel and the opportunity which is there as well. The opportunity there is quite enormous going forward. As well as, we have, of course, the critical minerals and rare earths that are so important for this century. Vanadium, lithium, we have copper, all of these in abundance.
BEN ENGLISH: And we're the best at mining in the world.
PRIME MINISTER: We are the best. And one of our exports, indeed, is mining expertise as well. And so, when we talk about exports, it's not just products, it is services as well. We have had great success, our universities, in establishing campuses in Indonesia, in India, in Vietnam. Countries like this are very important as well and those skills that we have present an enormous opportunity in the relationship between regional communities and our trading partners, is critical.
BEN ENGLISH: So, a year ago, the big story the day was the McPhillamys gold mine. Billion dollars, it's gold, it's not coal, it's not obnoxious, and yet it was rejected on cultural lines. Have we got that balance right? Does it need to improve? Because obviously, the community there largely was devastated that what was going to be an economic wellspring has just gone into litigation and perhaps won't even go ahead at all.
PRIME MINISTER: We need to get environmental approvals better. I've said that. There was a review, of course, begun by the former government, of the EPBC Act. It's not fit for purpose. It was done more than two decades ago. It needs to be got better. We need faster either yes'es or no's. That's the way that I put it. We need sustainability, but we also need to make sure that businesses can get on with things that should be approved because that will reduce costs. Now, in the former term, I tried to have discussions with the Opposition, and the then Opposition leader wasn't in a position to have those. There just weren't any. There were on a range of other areas between myself and Peter Dutton, we got aged care reforms, the biggest in 25 years. We got agreement there. We weren't in a position to negotiate things through with the Greens, because their positions would have stopped good projects going ahead. And so, I have a clear position. I want to work with industry, and I want projects to go ahead that should go ahead. On the weekend or last week in the economic roundtable, one of the things that came out of that was a fast tracking of housing approvals, for example. There's 26,000 homes that have been held up, some of them for -- seriously, go back to the Howard government, they have been in planning. That's absurd.
BEN ENGLISH: That's ridiculous.
PRIME MINISTER: And we need to do better. And I say, that there's a couple of people in a relationship these days, Michael and Barnaby here, who now get on, and they should pitch up to their leadership, I want to engage. And I've raised that with -- I don't know if Sussan's coming here today, but I've raised it with the Leader of the Opposition as well, that we're interested in engaging and getting this done. I want to get it done this year.
BEN ENGLISH: Okay, that should be an objective for next year's Bush Summit. You're experienced enough, you can host it next year. You should potentially have that as an objective, get that over the line by next year.
PRIME MINISTER: By next year. I want to do it before then, because we know what needs to be done and we know that the way that it's interpreted at the moment is not good. And we know that there have been outcomes that are less than desirable for everyone and that just adds to costs, adds to holding up our productivity, and we need to do better.
BEN ENGLISH: Okay, look, this is the Bush Summit, but here in the bush, people are as concerned as anywhere about our national security and obviously that was enormous news yesterday. One of the questions on a lot of people's lips is essentially, what threat is there of further reprisals? What is the security setting now in the wake of your decisive action yesterday?
PRIME MINISTER: The security settings haven't changed. One of the things that I hope comes out of this is a great deal of confidence in our security agencies, in our intelligence agencies such as ASIO and others, ASD, the Australian Signals Directorate, all of our agencies as well as our Australian Federal Police. They do a fantastic job. And the truth is that on issues here in New South Wales, whether it be the involvement of the Revolutionary Guard, the IRGC, in the incidents at the restaurant in Bondi or the synagogue in Melbourne, they've been able to trace back. And today's world is complex. These elements use the dark web, they use encrypted messages, they use cryptocurrency, they engage indirectly through a range of channels. And they were able to trace, essentially, the chain of command, if you like, right back to Iran, but with foreign actors and bad actors here.
The success that the agencies had as well on the issue of the caravan -- was also one that on the surface appeared to be something that it wasn't. They were able to trace there what that was about, with criminal elements essentially trying to use that as a bargaining chip for legal matters here in New South Wales. So, I think that Australians can take confidence in our security agencies know they have a government that backs our agencies and says, whatever power you need, we will give you. And that is what my Government has consistently done and also know that immediately yesterday there was bipartisan support for the Government's actions and that's a good thing that's necessary as well.
BEN ENGLISH: It is. The agencies did outstanding work. Did they get a little help from our friends? I mean there's a report out of the Jerusalem Post that the Israelis provided vital intel in order to uncover this.
PRIME MINISTER: Overwhelmingly, this was an Australian operation. Of course, intelligence agencies talk to each other, but this was, credit where credit's due, to Director General Mike Burgess and to our friends in ASIO. This is something that Australians should be really proud of.
BEN ENGLISH: The other impressive aspect was the extraction of Australian officials in the Embassy. Obviously, that was a coordinated effort. It's obviously, well done, to ensure their safety.
PRIME MINISTER: Yeah, we wanted to. I mean we only received this report -- seems like it's been a long week, it's Wednesday morning. On Monday morning we had full briefings about the fact that they were certain. You know, you need to be certain. To be very clear, the actions in expelling a diplomat isn't something that you do for political purposes. It isn't something that you do lightly. It has not been done in the post-war period by Australia. And there's a reason why, even when you have disagreements with countries, the ambassador is allowed to stay. Because communication and dialogue is something that's important. So, we have major differences with Russia at the moment, for example, over Ukraine, but the Russian ambassador is still in place and we have people in Moscow. We took a view at a leadership level and then we went through our appropriate committee processes, internal processes as well, that this was so serious, a foreign government orchestrating an Australian attack on Australian soil, that we needed to take this unprecedented action. And then we turned our mind to, okay, what's the response, given what Iran has a history of engaging with, with not respecting diplomats, including most famously of course -- a pretty good movie, I've got to say, about the US situation that occurred -
BEN ENGLISH: Argo.
PRIME MINISTER: We needed to get our diplomats out whilst making sure that that was done discreetly and we got them out of airspace just after midnight on Monday night. That put us in a position then on Tuesday to we had to one notify. I spoke with Premier Allan yesterday, I think five times probably because of the tragedy that's occurred in Victoria. And this is, let me reiterate my condolences to the family and friends of the Victorian police who've lost their lives, but the entire police family will be grieving today. And so we had that happening at the same time. Added a bit of complexity to it. But Premier Minns, I spoke with -- we spoke with leaders of the Jewish community just prior to it happening as well. I spoke to the rabbi, for example, at the Adass Israel synagogue, who I've met a few times now, and we needed as well to upgrade our assessments for people either travelling to Iran or Australians who are in Iran. But if we had have done that before the Australians -- so, we worked that through and I think it should be a source of pride, not in the Government, a source of pride in Australia, that we're able to achieve that. And the Australian Public Service were outstanding. I mean, there were people who would have gone to bed last night for the first time in 48 hours.
BEN ENGLISH: Sounds like we should make our own movie at some point. The other thing -- The other big news item I'm following - given you've got your own nuptials coming up, was the announcement by Taylor Swift. Do you have any advice that you can proffer?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, with due respect to myself and Jodie, I think that Tay-Tay's wedding will probably be bigger. It's great news. I think it's fantastic. And look, at a time where, you know, you pick up the paper, with respect, any paper in the world, and there's a lot of negative news, that's the nature of news today -- it's fantastic, people falling in love. And it's great. Good luck to them.
BEN ENGLISH: What a perfect note to end our conversation with. Thank you very much, Prime Minister.