CONCETTA CARISTO, HOST: Right now we have a very big special guest to say hello to. Good morning, Prime Minister.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Good morning. Good to be with you.
CARISTO: Yeah, thanks for coming on. Now, we've just had the Hottest 100 of Australian Songs go down on Saturday. You were listening. What did you think of the countdown? Where were you listening from?
PRIME MINISTER: It was fabulous. I was listening here in The Lodge in Canberra and I listened to the last, I guess about 35 songs. 35 down to one, because I had flown down from Sydney. But I was watching online as they popped up. I mean, some of them, sometimes they popped up, as you know, before they actually came on. And so –
LUKA MULLER, HOST: Called out by the PM, brutal.
CARISTO: Our socials team. No, it does happen, you know.
PRIME MINISTER: It was absolutely fabulous. And I'm old enough to know that the first Hottest 100 was won by Love Will Tear Us Apart. And it wasn't the first, the top 100 of that year, it was of every year. So, people pitched in and Joy Division won the first time, and then gradually then it evolved into an annual, an annual event night. I still have about ten of the CDs going back – I don't even know if the CDs are made these days of the Hottest 100, because it was always, you got about 30 of the best tracks.
CARISTO: Wow, you with the stats there PM, on the Hottest 100. Doing our job. I mean, how did your votes go in the end? How many of your votes made the countdown?
PRIME MINISTER: I got five out of ten, which was, which was pretty good, I thought. I did have a whole lot. It was really hard. I liked the way the system worked, that you could have essentially a short list or, I had a short list of about 25 and I kept changing. It took me days to press the submit button because I kept changing my mind. One of the ones was Never Tear Us Apart and I ended up not, not making it. It was on there a couple of times and it was off and it was on again.
MULLER: Almost backed a winner, but not quite then. I'd love to hear you talk about, yeah, Never Tear Us Apart. So, you were 24 when the winning track, Never Tear Us Apart by INXS came out. Can you take us back to a young Albanese at that age? Were you a music lover? Were you going to gigs?
PRIME MINISTER: I certainly was. And I grew up in – I was very lucky to grow up in Sydney at a time where you could see in INXS, Cold Chisel, Midnight Oil, Spiderbait, The Le Hoodoo Gurus, as they were called originally. A whole bunch of these bands in, in local pubs, you know, The Annandale, The Lansdowne, The Hummingbirds, which I don't think The Hummingbirds made it. They were on my list and off my list a few times. But there were so many great bands you could see for very little money, some of them for free. And it was a great time. And in ‘88 I did the Australian young person's thing of backpacking around Europe, and at that time, INXS and Midnight Oil were huge. That was when they exploded internationally. And so –
MULLER: I'm happy to hear you say that.
PRIME MINISTER: If you're out at clubs there, you could hear that song. So, it reminds me of being in Europe.
MULLER: Beautiful. I'm happy to hear you say that. You were lucky to grow up in Sydney at a time where live music was so accessible. Obviously, we know there's a bit of a crisis around live music in this country. One of the biggest reasons why young people aren't heading to as many gigs as before is because of the cost of living crisis. What's your message to young Australians who love live music and want to be out at it as much as you were when you were young, but can't quite afford it?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we're doing what we can. We cut student debt by 20 per cent. Last week we introduced the legislation. This week we've got legislation to cut the cost of medicines to just $25, the same price they were in 2004. And so we recognise that it's been a tough time, but there also aren't as many venues. I think that decisions like Inner West Council have made Enmore Road in my electorate, available for late night openings, and that will encourage live music as well. And during the election campaign we created a fund for live music, in particular for festivals, to give some support to make sure that they can go ahead. Because I know that they're so important. I've got a 24 year old son who keeps me in touch with the latest music, which is always really good.
CARISTO: Hey, you know, earlier in the year, New South Wales, you know, became the first state to incentivise international acts to pick Aussie openers, which you would know for like so many Australian artists, that's a huge, like, opportunity and a big scale and it seems like a really simple thing to do. Do you think maybe this could be enforced across the whole country?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I hope it spreads. John Graham's a fantastic Arts Minister in New South Wales and he's really committed to live music and to giving opportunity for artists. And Tony Burke at the national level has introduced the range of programs. We had Missy Higgins launch the policy for us in Melbourne at the Espy in Melbourne. And so we're doing our bit at the national level, but certainly that's an initiative that can just really expose artists to big crowds that they wouldn't get otherwise. And for heaps of artists, that can be absolutely fantastic. I mean, in years ago too, there used to be lots of free concerts were held at on top of Victoria Park Pool there at Broadway. And that's the first time that I saw, as a very young person who couldn't get into gigs, we'd walk down and that's the first time I saw bands like Skyhooks and Hush and Ol’ 55 and The Angels. That's the first time I got to see them.
MULLER: It is nice to hear you speak, yeah, passionately about these bands that you love and these bands you've been lucky enough to see as well. Obviously the countdown, the whole point of it is to celebrate the last 50 years of Australian music and, you know, start this conversation across the country. Do you think that your Government is doing enough to set us up for another 50 years of joy of Triple J and joy of Australian music and stuff? You mentioned the free gigs. Is that something that maybe you could help out with?
PRIME MINISTER: Certainly, that's something that – anything that we can do, which to promote Australian art across the board is something that I know Tony Burke is really passionate about and, you know, it makes a difference to people's lives and people get to tell Australian stories as well, is so important. Stories like, that made the list, like How to Make Gravy and Beds Are Burning, and Flame Trees. Ones that didn't as well. Cattle and Cane. I was very disappointed that that didn't make the list. I mean, what, what an Australian iconic song by the Go-Betweens. But you can't have everything, got to cop, cop the outcome.
MULLER: You certainly can't.
CARISTO: Now, thank you for coming on the show. Like, it's been so good to talk to you about the countdown and Australian music. Before we let you go, you joined us at our 50th birthday earlier in the year and you said this pretty iconic statement: ‘Triple J plays an important role in holding power to account’. We've got listeners, we can see it on the text line – they want to hear you talk more about Gaza, cost of living, climate change, on top of the Australian music climate. It's been like, over a year since you've been on our current affairs program, Hack. Can we ask you while you're here, will you commit to coming back to chat with the journalist, versus two comedians, Dave Marchese, in the next month, to speak about, you know, those key issues?
PRIME MINISTER: Oh, sure. Always happy to have a chat. And I think I'm pretty accountable. In the last, in the last week, I did Insiders yesterday. I did 7.30 Report last Monday. I did ABC Afternoon Briefing last Wednesday. So, I certainly make myself available, and particularly to the ABC.
CARISTO: We want you on Hack too. Come on, we want you on Hack.
MULLER: Well, get the diary back out and pencil in Dave Marchese for Hack. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Thank you so much for popping into Triple J Breakfast.
PRIME MINISTER: Terrific. Thanks for having us on.
CARISTO: Bye.
MULLER: Thank you.