AMANDA KELLER, HOST: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, hello.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: G'day. Good to be with you.
BRENDAN JONES, HOST: Great to talk to you again.
KELLER: So, does it close at six o'clock tonight, our chance to early vote?
PRIME MINISTER: No, no. Every day between now and October 14 there's early voting. You can just log on to the AEC website aec.gov.au, and there's a little button you can press on to find your early voting booth. And you can press on that, put in your suburb, and it'll pop up where you can vote.
JONES: We've been on the journey with you from the get go. And my stance hasn't changed on how I'm voting, and I am voting Yes. And I've read everything that there is about it, read the whole every part of what the No argument is, what the Yes argument is. But still in my mind, there's no argument. It's just to me, it feels like it just should be Yes. And I know you've banged on about this a fair bit, Albo, but since 1973, we've had seven advisory boards, from various governments, from Liberal and Labor. And each time a new government gets in, they get rid of the advisory board and they start all over again.
KELLER: That's where the wastage is.
JONES: And I'm thinking, 'Well hang on, in this Constitution, which says an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice may make representations to the Parliament on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.' May, it's not will, it's may. I don't understand why people aren't understanding this may bit. It's not 'will'.
PRIME MINISTER: That's exactly right. And that's one of the changes that were made from the draft wording to make it very clear that there's no compulsion here. And when you read that, together with the next clause that says, 'the Parliament shall make laws relating to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, including - it's an important word as well - including composition, procedures, etc'. What that is doing is making it very clear the primacy of the Parliament. So all that people are being asked to vote for here is two things. One, to recognise a fact, it is a fact that there were people here before 1788. And that should be a source of pride for our nation, that we have the oldest continuous culture on earth right here that we shared this continent with. So that is just a fact. And the second thing is a non-binding advisory committee that may give advice on matters that affect Indigenous people. And why would you want to do that? Because you get better outcomes when you listen to people who are actually directly affected by it. It's as simple as that. That's all it is. It won't change the way that our Parliament functions or laws are made, that will still be up to the government of the day. And that's why this is such a gracious and generous request that has come from Aboriginal people themselves. They met at Uluru in 2017 and said, 'You know what, the form of constitutional recognition that we want is one that has a bit of substance and something that lasts. Give us a body that may be able to give that advice, and either listen to it or not'.
JONES: But also, one that's not going to be changed every four years when a government changes.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, that's right. And that's why they want that security of enshrinement in the Constitution. And at the end of the day, both sides of politics are saying they support constitutional recognition. Both sides are saying that they want a legislated Voice. The Liberal Party says that they're going to do that, that's the policy that they've adopted for a long period of time. The only difference and all of the noise that's out there is about whether the Voice can be abolished or not. And Indigenous people are saying they want the security of not putting in all this effort to create a body and to have that continuity, just have someone come along and say, for whatever reason people like Pauline Hanson, of course, would want it abolished at any time. We want that security. It can be changed, its composition and what it does, but there has to be an advisory body which is just a recognition of Indigenous Australians. Other countries have had Indigenous seats. There are seats reserved for Maoris in New Zealand. So this is a really modest request and that's why I sincerely hope that in the last 11 days that we have to go, people will have a read of the question and decide, 'You know what, this is the right thing to do. I'm going to vote Yes.'
KELLER: Nathan Cleary, straight after winning the Grand Final released a clip that said 'No Voice, no choice. Come on Australia, vote Yes.' What impact you think that might have?
PRIME MINISTER: I think if you look at Nathan Cleary, all of the sporting club codes have all been endorsed a Yes vote: the NRL, the AFL, Basketball Australia, netball, Football Australia, rugby union, Tennis Australia. They know that the way that those codes have worked is that they've got better relations when they've actually spoken to Indigenous people. So we've seen the rise of things like the all-stars game at the beginning of a season, it's fantastic. So whether it's people like Nathan Cleary, who has put out such a strong statement, whether it be Indigenous athletes like Latrell Mitchell and Cody Walker and Jonathan Thurston, and in AFL people like Eddie Betts and Adam Goodes, Greg Inglis have all come out and very strongly supported the Yes campaign. And I just hope that people, particularly one of the things we're seeing with people like Nathan as well, is that younger people are really motivated by this. I know that lots of people, I've spoken to several people who have said, 'Why are we even having having a vote? I didn't realise that we didn't recognise Indigenous people in our Constitution', which, of course, is something that should have happened in 1901. But at that time, of course, we had some pretty bad policies towards Aboriginal Australians. That is why this is really a catch up. Every other country in the world has recognised its first peoples, except for Australia.
JONES: And you know, me I'm not a Labor guy. I'm not a Labor voter. I'm not a 'wokey', I'm not a lefty. I'm not an elite. I'm just an Aussie that wants a fair go. I get it, I totally get this. The word 'may', it's not 'will', it's 'may'.
KELLER: And if you're a white Australian, you're losing nothing.
JONES: You're losing nothing.
PRIME MINISTER: Exactly, there's everything to gain here. It's like before the marriage equality vote. There was a view from some saying it would ruin existing marriages, people will be marrying harbour bridges and all this nonsense. It just gave a group of people rights they didn't have and didn't impact others, except that we feel better about ourselves when we're more inclusive. So yes, this is about respect for Indigenous Australians. But we'll also just feel better about ourselves as a country. And as a country, we're always going to look at enlarging ourselves. We can't shrink in on ourselves. And that's what a No vote will be. A No vote leads us nowhere. It's more of the same. We're living in No right now. There's a eight year life expectancy gap.
JONES: And also no victory. It just sounds hollow. You can't even celebrate a No victory.
KELLER: It's such a kick to our psyche of Australia if No gets up.
PRIME MINISTER: No is now. We're living in No. Having an advisory group never hurt anyone. There is absolutely no downside. And the only power it will have, of course, is the power of its ideas. If it has a good idea, it'll be adopted by government. If it doesn't, well, it won't.
JONES: So, for example, I want to marry the Harbour Bridge.
KELLER: I want to marry the Harbour Bridge.
JONES: Lately it's been looking at me, so, obviously, that's a good idea.
KELLER: That winking eye on the top.
PRIME MINISTER: Always flashing.
JONES: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, thank you for joining us.
PRIME MINISTER: Thanks for having us on the program. And thanks to all of your listeners.