The Prime Minister of Australia, the Honourable Anthony Albanese MP, welcomed the Honourable Fiamē Naomi Mata’afa, Prime Minister of the Independent State of Samoa to Canberra on 22 March 2023. The Prime Ministers’ bilateral talks reflected the longstanding relationship between Australia and Samoa, underpinned by mutual respect and trust. The Prime Ministers affirmed their strong partnership and commitment to work together on shared challenges and priorities to support a stable, prosperous and resilient Pacific region.

ANTHONY ALBANESE. PRIME MINISTER OF AUSTRALIA: Well, Prime Minister Fiamē, you are a very welcome guest in Australia. And it is good to renew our friendship from when we first met at the Pacific Island Forum. My apologies for our Foreign Minister being absent because of COVID. But she wanted to make sure that she sent those apologies. Prime Minister, our countries have deep connections. We are very close neighbours. Both of us believe in the Pacific family.

STEVE WHAN, LABOR CANDIDATE FOR MONARO: Hello, my name's Steve Whan. I'm the Labor candidate for Monaro in the New South Wales election on Saturday, and I'm absolutely delighted to be able to welcome the Prime Minister here to Queanbeyan this morning, with our absolutely fabulous Federal Member, Kristy McBain, and Minister Jason Clare.

ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Well, thank you very much, Mr President. We look forward to welcoming you down in Australia for the Quad Meeting in May. I'm sure it will be a very successful visit. And this is our fourth meeting, I haven't yet been Prime Minister for a year. So we've been in very regular contact and developed a personal friendship and relationship of trust as well, which is something that should be there between our two great nations. And today, what we've really done is just to demonstrate a next chapter in our history together.

NEIL MITCHELL, HOST: On the line is the Prime Minister, Mr Anthony Albanese. Good morning.

ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Good morning Neil, good to be with you.

MITCHELL: Welcome home.

CHRIS O’KEEFE, HOST: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, good afternoon.
 
PRIME MINISTER, ANTHONY ALBANESE: Good afternoon, Chris. Good to be with you.
 
O’KEEFE: ‘The worst international decision by an Australian Labor government since Billy Hughes sought to introduce conscription in World War One’ – it's a bit much.
 

SARAH HARRIS, HOST: Welcome to the show.
 
PRIME MINISTER, ANTHONY ALBANESE: Good to be with you.
 
HARRIS: Nice to see you again. But I’ll tell you what, $368 billion is a huge amount of money. How are you going to pay for this?
 

MARY DOYLE, LABOR CANDIDATE FOR ASTON: I'm Mary Doyle, and I'm the Labor Candidate for the multicultural electorate of Aston here. We have such a diverse population here in Aston, including a large contingent of people with Chinese heritage. And that's something I'm incredibly proud of. Everywhere I go in the electorate, people, regardless of where they come from, are raising cost of living pressures with me.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN, HOST: Good morning, thanks for joining us.

ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Good morning Raf, words that I don't usually say. So I hope you're enjoying getting up earlier.

EPSTEIN: I am. Paul Keating ruined your week didn’t he?

ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Welcome to Balmain. I'm just across the road from the Unity Hall Hotel. That's the first place that an ALP branch ever met way back in 1891. And at the election next Saturday, on 25 March, you have the opportunity to return Balmain to the Labor fold. We have a fantastic candidate here in Philippa Scott and the only way that you can be certain that you can make a change of government is by having Philippa Scott as the member for Balmain and Jo Haylen as the future Transport Minister, and so happens to be my local member as well.