HOST: It's a tough job. Who'd want to do it? This bloke would. Albo, our Prime Minister. Thank you for joining us today.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: G’day Mick and team.
HOST: Yeah, great to have you on board. I'll give you a free hit. Just to begin, Prime Minister, our core audience is men 10 to 54. What's in this Budget for them?
PRIME MINISTER: Tax cuts. The total now $2,800 back into the pockets of Australians on the average income.
HOST: Yep.
PRIME MINISTER: Indeed, as well, the changes that we're making to the way that property is taxed still will mean if you've got an investment property, you keep that, no change for you. But for future buys, you can still buy a negatively geared property, but it has to be a new build. So, you're not only helping yourself, you're helping the country as well, by boosting in that supply. In addition to that, Medicare further strengthening there, those Urgent Care Clinics, making them permanent, and a whole range of other changes designed to help people through the cost-of-living issues that people are dealing with.
HOST: Prime Minister, you were really emphatic this time last year prior to the election, in not making some of those changes you mentioned, particularly to the property market. What's changed in 12 months that essentially gave you no choice but to act?
PRIME MINISTER: We have changed our position, so we're upfront about that. You change your position, like we've changed our position on fuel taxation, which we halved, because as you confront things, that's part of my responsibility is to respond. And the truth is that more and more young people were being priced out of the market to get into their own home. And I didn't want to see that dream of owning your own home just disappear for this and for future generations. And that was something that was raised with me, not just by young people, but by parents and grandparents as well. This has been kicked down the road for too long. We are confronting this issue and doing something about it, and doing it in a way, though, that protects people's existing investments which are there.
HOST: It's quite a brave Budget when you consider normally it's maintaining the status quo. You've taken advantage of a weak Opposition and those nut bags over at One Nation cannibalising each other to death. So, you've had a window. What normally happens is about a month out we start hearing whispers, and then on the day you shit yourself. It basically, it goes from widespread reform to kind of, well, ‘we'll water it down’ to the point where we get to see what you're trying to do. Can you go further in this department of redistribution of generational wealth?
PRIME MINISTER: We have bitten the bullet. It is a big reform Budget. And for years and years, editorials have been written saying we need tax reform and we need to treat income that's earned from working, which is what most people have, a bit similar to income earned from assets, rather than the way that it was entrenched as well. The existing system simply wasn't working for working people. So, levelling that up a little bit, making it fairer, is important reform. And I'm really proud of this Budget, that we have been prepared to take a risk. There's a bit of criticism out there you might have seen. That's what happens.
HOST: There always is. You're never going to get away scot-free in this environment.
HOST: That's the nature of politics. PM, and some of the moves have been unpopular, you would concede that. I hear this a lot out from the rank and file in the streets, we're one of the richest nations on earth in terms of our natural resources. Do you believe that we capitalise on that properly and should we philosophically build an economy that really capitalise it on it so we don't have to make some of the hard decisions you've made?
PRIME MINISTER: Oh, absolutely. Look, one of the things that we have as a theme of the Budget is resilience. We need to make more things in Australia. We need to be less vulnerable to these global shocks. We've got a war on the other side of the world. Most people couldn't find the Strait of Hormuz on a map.
HOST: Yes.
HOST: We can now.
PRIME MINISTER: And had never heard of it a few months ago. But it's having an impact here. And what that is a reminder of is we need to be more resilient, more self reliant. And in this Budget as well, we've got $14.5 billion dollars with our Fuel Security Plan, and that's part of our Future Made in Australia plan, which is what I was elected on in 2022. We need to rebuild manufacturing in this country. We need to make sure that we use the assets that we have. We have everything under the ground and in the sky in terms of solar energy that will power the world in the 21st century. So, there's nowhere you'd rather be than Australia, but we need to take advantage of it.
HOST: Well, thank you too for not introducing any new taxes that will get us firebombed more than we are currently being firebombed. And I'm talking about alcohol and tobacco taxes, usually –
PRIME MINISTER: We've frozen the beer tax, of course.
HOST: Good. Well, you got my vote then.
PRIME MINISTER: For two years. That was a very popular move we took to the last election and we passed that legislation in March, you'll be pleased to know.
HOST: All right, well, we could do this all day. Congratulations. It's a Budget, it's out there. There's pros and cons. No Baby Bonus. I'm very disappointed. That was always a big one.
HOST: That was always fun.
HOST: When Peter Costello was trying to get people into the bedroom and go at it. Those were the Budget days, I remember. Good luck. And good luck with your Hawks on the weekend too, sir.
PRIME MINISTER: Oh, thanks very much, guys. They're going okay in spite of a bit of a setback last week. Freo are a pretty good team. But, yeah, you know, those last five or six minutes, we got overcome. But that learning experience.
HOST: And Delta, 5am tomorrow at Eurovision.
PRIME MINISTER: Delta, absolutely backed by the Australian Government. I had a chat with her the other night.
HOST: Great.
PRIME MINISTER: And she is so excited about representing the country and I think we're all behind her.
HOST: Did she have to pay her exit tax? That's a new one I hadn’t heard before to leave the country.
PRIME MINISTER: We gave her support to represent Australia and it is fantastic that someone of her status – she doesn't need to do this. She's a star.
HOST: She is a star.
PRIME MINISTER: She's not up and coming. She's been there for a long time and she's a great Australian and she's so proud to represent our country.
HOST: Yeah. The song’s a banger too. All right. Thank you, Prime Minister.
HOST: Good on you, Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER: Thanks guys.