KIERAN GILBERT, HOST: Prime Minister, thanks very much for your time.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Good to be with you, Kieran.
GILBERT: On the Voice, you're still optimistic despite the polling, where does that optimism come from?
PRIME MINISTER: It comes from my faith in the Australian people. This is a very simple proposition, it's to recognise Indigenous Australians in our Constitution, in our founding document, and it's time that we did that. And I believe most Australians will accept that. And it's representation and recognition through a Voice, just listening to them. It's not a complex proposition, it doesn't change any of the way that we are governed, it just provides for the opportunity for Indigenous people to have a say in matters that affect them. And I think that when Australians look at what the actual words are that are being put forward, like when they look at the Uluru Statement from the Heart, they’ll see this for the generous and gracious offer that it is to advance reconciliation.
GILBERT: Peter Dutton has suggested you should shelve the referendum if it is headed for a certain loss, is there any prospect of you doing that?
PRIME MINISTER: The referendum will be held in the last quarter of this year. Peter Dutton unfortunately has raised a number of issues that he knows, I think, are just not right. The important thing about the Voice is that it doesn't have a veto. And the Solicitor General's opinion makes that very clear, as does the actual wording of what's being put forward, as does the opinion of people like Justice French, and Justice Hayne. The truth is that when the referendum is called, there has to be, like a federal election, 33 days in advance of the poll. Then people will really focus here. And this is an opportunity to advance our nation and to give respect to Indigenous Australians, but also for non-Indigenous Australians. It won't have any impact in a direct way on their lives, but it will make us feel better about who we are as a nation. It will send a signal to ourselves and to the world that we're a mature nation that is coming to terms with the fullness of our history, and that we're proud of sharing this great continent of ours with the oldest continuous culture on earth.
GILBERT: Would a loss be a setback for reconciliation though?
PRIME MINISTER: Undoubtedly it would be. But no one ever won an Ashes Test by staying in the sheds. As I said at the Garma Festival a year ago, if not now, when? Federation is 122 years old, it is more than half century since Indigenous Australians were counted in the 1967 referendum. It has been now, six years since the First Nation's Constitutional Convention at Uluru produced the Statement from the Heart, and if not now, when? And if not under my Prime Ministership, how will this issue be advanced? The Morrison Government was elected in 2019 with a promise to advance these issues and nothing happened. So many Indigenous Australians have worked on this for such a long period of time. And of course, this is a voice to Canberra, it's something that came from communities themselves from thousands of discussions. It's something that Indigenous Australians asking for this vote to be held. The figures show that almost between 80, or sometimes 90 per cent of Indigenous Australians support the Voice and constitutional recognition. And just this week Kieran, in this very room, the leaders of the four Northern Territory Land Councils, including Northern Land Council and the Central Land Council, gave to the Parliament the new Barunga Statement, calling for constitutional recognition and a Yes vote in the referendum.
GILBERT: Will you set the date for the referendum at the Garma Festival? There's been some talk that you'll do that in, which is early August, I believe?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we haven't finalised that yet, Kieran. We can't call the referendum until at least two months and 33 days after the Senate passed the legislation, so it can't be held before September. Of course, we're not going to have it on AFL Grand Final day. So we'll work through the dates and we'll also consult obviously with the Australian Electoral Commission about that.
GILBERT: Is the cost of living crisis, the rising rates, and I know they're very different issues. But when people are battling around the kitchen table, are you worried about the fact that a lot of people won't have the bandwidth to say, ‘Okay, I'm open to what this is all about, I'm too busy trying to feed my kids’?
PRIME MINISTER: Look of course, for Australians cost of living pressures are being felt here, as they are around the world. We have, as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as well as supply chain issues post COVID, we've seen a rise in global inflation and increased pressures on the economy. But on areas, of course, of GDP growth, on employment growth, on all of these factors, Australia is better than any of the G7 countries going forward. But we understand cost of living pressures. One of the things that we did with our budget was make sure that we had energy price relief, that we had the Medicare strengthening changes that will give access to bulk billing to 11 million Australians. That Australians will benefit from the cheaper medicines that we put forward, cheaper childcare begins on July one. We are taking a range of measures, as well as at the same time, of course, we're starting to see those wage increases that are making a difference to people. And so we understand all of that, but at the same time we think that Australians will have the opportunity to vote in the referendum, and they'll give it consideration and come up with their decision. We respect people to be able to do that, and we want to make sure that people vote on the basis of the facts rather than some of the misinformation which is out there.
GILBERT: You made some interesting comments on Friday where you said you want to, if it does get up, to get consensus as much as possible in the parliament so that the Voice lasts, basically. That you get as much bipartisanship after the vote. Is that essentially you saying, ‘Okay, here’s an olive branch, if this does get up we need to find a way to bring everyone together on this’?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I said that months ago, of course, to the leader of the Liberal Party, to the leader of the National Party, as well. Of course, the parliament can change legislation at any time affecting the Voice. But what we want to do is to get as much consensus as possible around the structure and the functions and operation of the Voice, including over its composition and the final format - how many people will be on the Voice, for example. But I should imagine over a period of time that will be improved as well. But I see this as being similar to the apology. Now, the apology was called for from the end of the last century, from the Bringing Them Home Report and for years it was resisted. And it was said that it would be divisive, and of course, we know that Peter Dutton has apologised for walking out on the apology that occurred. So we know that that was a moment of national unity. The scare campaigns weren't right, it didn't result in big compensation claims, it didn't have an impact on most Australians except they felt better about who we were as a country because the wrong thing had been done, sometimes with good intentions, but it was an apology. And just like we teach our kids if something goes wrong say sorry, because that's a key to being able to move on, and the country moved on. If we recognise Indigenous Australians in our Constitution, I think people will look back at it and say, ‘Oh, why didn't we do it earlier?’, just like people say, ‘Why didn't we make the apology earlier?’
GILBERT: On some other matters, you gave the Greens housing spokesperson a bit of a gobful in the Parliament this week. Would you be willing to fight a double dissolution election on this issue if need be?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we think that Parliament needs to pass this legislation. We know that there's effectively been a blocking of the legislation by it being deferred on more than one occasion - and this is good legislation. And I think the Greens position was exposed this week when their spokesperson published in writing a piece, essentially talking about the politics of this issue and how it enabled them to have a campaign opportunity. This isn't a campaign opportunity, this should be a policy solution. And we need to build more houses, and we need to fix housing supply. I firmly believe that governments should serve their full term, that's my starting position. But we will wait and see what the Greens political party choose to do. They're saying that they won't vote for the legislation until something they know is not going to happen occurs. All state premiers and chief ministers are focused on supply, and they know that that's the key to fixing affordability and to assisting people who are renting.
GILBERT: The rent caps though, that argument from the Greens and Max Chandler-Mather, that spokesperson we touched on. Do you accept that argument would be popular among many younger voters in particular?
PRIME MINISTER: The responsibility that people in this building have is to come up with policy that actually makes a positive difference. And I'm sure that if you said to people that free rent should occur, then that would be popular. If you said to people, as was argued this week by some as well, free education, free everything. The job of decision makers is actually to put in place measures that make a difference. And all of the advice is that what we need to do is to secure supply. Now I'm interested in the issue of renters rights, and we're negotiating through with states and territories how we can give more rights to people who are renting, and we're working through that constructively. But the Greens political party essentially have excluded themselves from that process and those discussions, just like they've excluded themselves from the issue of building more social housing. Just a week ago, Kieran, I announced $2 billion would be available immediately for additional social housing to be built. That's part of the initiative that we have, as well as our National Housing Accord, our one year extension of the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement of $1.6 billion, $2 billion additional for community housing providers, our build to rent incentive for the private sector to build private sector rentals, that will result in between 150,000 and 250,000 additional dwellings, as well as the largest increase in rent assistance in 30 years.
GILBERT: On the economy more broadly, we touched on it a bit earlier, but the cash rate was forecast in October, the October budget would be 3 per cent, then the May budget 3.85 per cent. It's now 4.1 per cent, the consensus is it will get to 4.6 per cent. If it does, inflation remains sticky over the next three to four months. Are you willing to look at policies which would slow the economy more and spread the burden beyond basically just mortgage holders?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, what we've done, Kieran, is to take up our responsibility to ensure that fiscal policy was working with monetary policy - and we did that through our budget. We turned a $78 billion deficit which was forecast by the previous government for this financial year, into a forecast of $4.2 billion of surplus. That is an enormous contribution, and that shows discipline as well. To take revenue gains and make sure it went to the bottom line to pay down debt.
GILBERT: Are you willing to go harder?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we're already making measures, and the way that we have done our policy initiatives, take our energy price relief plan. Now we could have given cash payments out, that would have been inflationary. What we did was design a scheme that according to Treasury, backed up by the Reserve Bank Governor, will take three quarters of a percent off inflation this year. Our cheaper medicines plan will take pressure off inflation. Our plan to deal with childcare and the way that that's designed will as well take pressure off inflation while boosting productivity, which will make a difference as well by boosting workforce participation. So in all of our measures we've been very conscious about the global pressures that are there in the economy, and about the impact here in Australia. And that's why it is, I think, quite extraordinary that in this budget session of Parliament Jim Chalmers sat there day after day waiting for a question from the Shadow Treasurer, or the Leader of the Opposition, or any of their finance spokespeople and basically, I think he might have got one or two over the entire five weeks of sittings. So we have been responsible.
GILBERT: Also on wage rises, though? Because you're saying you're being responsible on that front, and I understand during your campaign you campaigned heavily on boosting wages. But right now, the Governor has made it pretty clear he's worried about wage rises over 5 per cent without productivity gains.
PRIME MINISTER: And that's why Kieran, we are investing in productivity. Our childcare plan will be a major boost to productivity, but that's not the only thing that we're doing. Our National Reconstruction Fund is designed to boost productivity. We're having an infrastructure review, of course, to make sure that instead of having 800 projects based upon a colour coded spreadsheet of where projects were being driven by politics, we want it to be driven by productivity. What are the productivity enhancing infrastructure investments that we can make? Now, some of those proceeding, one of the ones I went to just a couple of weeks ago was when the Western Sydney Airport reached its halfway milestone. That's an example of a productivity boosting infrastructure project that will make an enormous difference as well. Busting congestion will make a difference as well, projects that help freight to be delivered more efficiently, projects to boost our port infrastructure as well so the land freight, that last mile, can make an enormous difference as well. So we're looking at so many measures that will drive productivity, including of course, dealing with labour market issues. That's why in the budget we now have 480,000 fee free TAFE places, making an enormous difference over coming years. Giving employers the skilled workforce that they need to boost productivity. That's why in migration we're looking at skilled migration, making sure that Australia benefits so that potentially, if what that looks like down the track is potentially less migration, but of the right people to make a difference to our economy, to boost productivity so that those areas of skill shortages that are holding the economy back - whether it being services sector like nurses, whether it be in the skilled workforce sector as well, blue collar if you like, like engineers, is dealt with as well.
GILBERT: Prime Minister, you got some news for us today on the Fadden by-election. Do you think you're any chance? Seems unlikely in Queensland particularly.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, the truth is that we start at very, very long odds in Fadden. It's not an area that we've held, it's an area that's always been in a very safe LNP territory. But we believe in Letitia Del Fabbro, she was our candidate during the last election, she's running again. She's a nurse educator based at Griffith University. I'll be launching her campaign on Tuesday night. And she’ll be having a crack, and we'll be out there putting forward a Labor candidate. We think that the resignation of Stuart Robert without even having the courtesy of attending the parliament to explain why it is that he's resigning under such a cloud, people will think why is it that this money is having to be expended on this by-election with someone who just has made that resignation. We think this is unnecessary and shouldn't have happened, but that's why we’ll be putting forward a strong candidate. I think it is long odds but we’ll be there.
GILBERT: Not far from where we are, we've got a Russian squatter. This diplomat who’s squatting at the site that you've ruled, and the government said there's no embassy going there. How do you get rid of him?
PRIME MINISTER: We of course will apply the law because the Australian Government's respect the law. The Russian government has shown contempt for international law with the illegal and immoral invasion of Ukraine. We acted swiftly to ensure our national security interests were protected. There will never, ever be a Russian Embassy on that site because it was a risk to national security. One bloke standing on a blade of grass shivering in the Canberra frost in the morning is not a threat to our national security. And I'm sure it will be resolved in accordance with the law very swiftly.
GILBERT: Just finally, Chinese officials recently, apparently expressed frustration that you haven't locked in a date yet to visit. Is that going to happen soon? And just on that, will the detainees in China be released, those Australians before you do visit Beijing?
PRIME MINISTER: I believe, and we consistently say at every opportunity that the human rights of Australian citizens need to be protected. They haven't been. We think that for example, Cheng Lei, the Australian journalist, should be released and should be allowed to come home to Australia. And we continue to raise those issues and other issues with China. We do so respectfully, but we do so with a sense of purpose as well. Just as we continue to advocate for the removal of any impediments to trade between our two great nations. The truth is that it is in Australia's interest to export to China, but it's also in China's interest to receive those exports. We will finalise a date going forward.
GILBERT: Will that be soon?
PRIME MINISTER: We'll finalise the date at an appropriate time. And we will, we are conscious as well of domestic concerns. My next visit will be to the NATO Summit, that will be very important that Australia is represented there. There we've been invited by NATO as part of the, what's known as the AP4, Australia, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand. We will be holding a special forum there in Lithuania in July. In addition to that, on the way I have a one day stop at the invitation of Chancellor Scholz of Germany. We think there are significant additional trade relations that we can have with Germany specifically, but also with the European Union, and we're hoping to advance the EU Free Trade Agreement as well.
GILBERT: Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, I appreciate your time as always.
PRIME MINISTER: Thanks very much, Kieran.