SARAH FERGUSON, HOST: Prime Minister, welcome to 7.30
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Good evening, Sarah. Good to be back with you.
FERGUSON: Are you now, even four days later, still stunned at the magnitude of your victory?
PRIME MINISTER: It was a great endorsement by the Australian people, and I am humbled and will be forever humbled by the outcome. I also have that sense of responsibility that comes with this endorsement, and we won't take the support that we received on Saturday for granted, not for a single day.
FERGUSON: Political analysts are saying this win makes you virtually unbeatable at the next election. Are you prepared to be a multi-term Prime Minister who shapes Australia in the Labor way, just like John Howard shaped Australia in the conservative way over a long period of time?
PRIME MINISTER: Sarah, I take nothing for granted, and some of the commentators will always overreach. That's something that my Government isn't going to do. We have received a clear mandate. But I also know from experience that a strong mandate doesn't guarantee you another term. Just ask Campbell Newman, who went from having an opposition that couldn't form a cricket team under Annastacia Palaszczuk, to Premier Palaszczuk winning three elections. So, we take nothing for granted. We are going to continue to pursue the agenda that we have. I think Labor should be the natural party of government. We are a political movement that enjoys support from working people. We also engage constructively with the business community. I've said for a long time that I think people have conflict fatigue. There is common interest between business and unions, and we can engage with civil society as well. So, I think that going forward, if we get this right, we can be successful into the future, but we shouldn't take it for granted.
FERGUSON: Let's talk about one of the policies that you promised before the election. You said you would pursue a new version of the Environmental Protection Agency. Will that agency have the power to make decisions about whether mining projects go ahead?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, what we'll do is we'll sit down with sensible people across the spectrum, whether that be the mainstream environment groups, who I met with before the election, indeed before the election was called, I had a round table with them. I've also sat down with groups such as the WA Chamber of Minerals and Energy, Rio Tinto, BHP, the big resources companies.
FERGUSON: If I may just jump in there. You may have sat down with them, but they're clearly concerned about the direction that agency's going to take, including the Premier of WA. So, have you made a decision yet on whether that body will have the power to approve projects?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, indeed I've also sat down with the Premier of WA, Roger Cook and I are great friends, we're on the same page. We want to make sure that a Federal EPA can support industry and jobs and provide certainty but also produce sustainable outcomes. You can protect the environment whilst you're also standing up for jobs and certainty for the resources sector. One of the things that has occurred and is a great frustration when it comes to the productivity agenda that will be very much part of our second term, building on what we've done in our first, is the delays and delays and more delays that occur. We need to make sure that there is more sensible decision making. That's something that I'm committed to. It's something as well that conservation groups want to see. Where a project clearly doesn't stack up, there should be an easier way to make decisions.
FERGUSON: Does a more sensible way of making decisions mean that you need a different Minister in charge, not Tanya Plibersek?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we'll make all the decisions down the track about who's in what portfolio. I made that clear. We have a caucus meeting on Friday. I respect our internal processes and I'm not about to pre‑empt them. I will then take over the weekend and into next week. I'm going to have a swearing-in of ministers next Tuesday morning is the tentative proposal that I've put forward to Her Excellency the Governor‑General, so that we'll have plenty of time to work through those issues.
FERGUSON: Did Tanya Plibersek do a good job in trying to bring forward an EPA during your first term?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, she was dealing with a Senate that was a Senate of blockers, whether it be the Greens or the Coalition, not wanting to look for solutions, looking to play politics. It wasn't just in this area; it was in the area of housing, in so many areas. Just practical positions that were put forward were blocked and delayed. And what I hope comes out of the new Senate is a bit of a recognition that one of the reasons why the Greens political party have had a bad outcome in the election is the view that they simply combined with the Coalition in what I termed the Noalition, to provide blockages, and that occurred across a range of portfolios, Housing, Treasury, as well as Environment.
FERGUSON: Now, just on the question of the Greens, Max Chandler‑Mather said yesterday that the culture in Question Time ‑ the culture in Parliament, especially in Question Time, is awful and that your front bench was partly responsible for that.
PRIME MINISTER: He should have a good look at the way that he asks questions in the Parliament, and maybe what he needs is a mirror and a reflection on why he's no longer in Parliament. His attitude, this is a guy who stood before signs at a CFMEU rally in Brisbane describing me as a Nazi. So, you know, I think he should have a look at the way that he conducted himself in Question Time, including the questions that he asked of me, which I found pretty offensive and some of which were ruled out of order. So, I think it's a bit rich for him of all people, who has been rejected by his own electorate after just one term, and indeed the seat of Melbourne is very much under a cloud, is the best that you could put it. Adam Bandt hasn't conceded yet, but it's very difficult to see a pathway in which he will resume his seat in Parliament.
FERGUSON: I understand you don't want to comment on individual ministers with the reshuffle coming, but does the authority given to you by this, the size of this victory, mean that the normal rules for handing out ministries to the factions no longer apply?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, the leader always gets to allocate portfolios under our system, but I'm someone who's consultative. Part of the reason for our success at the election is the way that I have brought back Cabinet-style government. We've been elected for three years. We need to conduct ourselves in the same orderly fashion that we conducted ourselves in our first term, because that's what appealed to Australians. I think they were sick of the chaos that was there from the replacement of Prime Ministers and the revolving door of ministers as we went through. I said during the election campaign, we've been the first ‑ the most orderly government in its first term in the post‑war period. That's very clear. We had no resignations, no scandals in which people had to step aside, and certainly no replacements of elected Prime Ministers, which occurred of course, on four occasions in the recent period.
FERGUSON: In the phone call posted that you had, that was posted by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, you were pushing him to make your first visit to Indonesia come very quickly Monday week. Why is Jakarta a more urgent destination than Washington DC, given we're in the throes of a trade dispute with America?
PRIME MINISTER: We have no more important relationship than Indonesia just to our north. We have an important economic relationship with them. They will grow to be the fourth largest economy in the world. We have an important defence and security relationship with them as well. It was my first bilateral visit as Prime Minister in my first term, and it will be my first bilateral visit next week. He is a good friend of mine on a personal level, as well as our countries being close. And I will travel to Indonesia next Wednesday. That will be the day after, literally, my Government is sworn in, and that is as well, I think, a signal to our region of the importance that we place on this region. We live in the fastest growing region in the world in human history.
FERGUSON: Final question, are you worried about hubris?
PRIME MINISTER: What I'm concerned about is making sure that we seize the opportunity that we have to take this country forward. We have an opportunity to renew faith in our democracy. I think it had suffered with the turbulence, with the revolving door of Prime Ministers over essentially the last almost 20 years, and we have an opportunity to repair that. I want to make sure that we do that, that we build confidence in our democracy because it can't be taken for granted. And I want to share the optimism that I have for this great nation of ours, Australia. I think if we get this decade right, we can set us up for the many decades ahead, and it's a great privilege to be able to play a role in that.
FERGUSON: Prime Minister, thank you very much indeed for joining us.
PRIME MINISTER: Thanks very much, Sarah.