Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese joins us now. Good morning, Prime Minister.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Good morning. Thanks for rubbing in how beautiful it is there in Adelaide. I’m speaking from, I assure you that Canberra is not that sort of temperature overnight.
JULES SCHILLER, HOST: Well look, it was sunny news that you brought us yesterday, undeniably. Three tunnel boring machines will be operating at the same time instead of the expected two, which, you know, probably says that the timeframe for completion has been brought forward. Prime Minister, you said 5500 jobs will be created, but with a critical labour shortage, are you really confident that it will finish on time considering many people can’t get enough tradies to renovate their own home?
PRIME MINISTER: Absolutely. We are confident we’ll get it done. And it’s not just a good economic project in creating jobs and boosting productivity when it gets done. When you get rid of 21 traffic lights and you save 40 minutes of travel time, then you’re really making a difference to the way that the entire city of Adelaide functions. But as well, it’s good social policy because there’s going to be, 20 per cent of that workforce will be people who are new apprenticeships, training people, giving people skills on the job will be a part of the project – that was a part of the procurement process to make sure that there’s that lasting benefit as well. So we’re very confident that we can get it done. Having the three tunnel boring machines, of course, they do a lot of the heavy lifting creating the two tunnels that will be a part of this project. And to have three operating at once is a great achievement, frankly, by the South Australian government because they are in demand globally.
FELDHOFF: But realistically, where are those jobs coming from? We’ve also got the submarine project here in South Australia and we’re looking for workers for that. And those figures and numbers sound great, 90 per cent South Australian workforce. But as Jules said, a lot of people who are renovating, a lot of people who are building cannot get tradies to their home in time. So realistically, where are those jobs coming from, Prime Minister?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, they’re different skills, of course. There’s different skills required to build a major project and this is a $15.4 billion road project. The largest ever infrastructure project in South Australia. That’s very different from needing a tradie to fix up your plumbing or to renovate your home. And South Australia is doing this big project. They also, of course, have the hospital project that is a construction project, but that’s a bit different as well – that’s a high rise project. But we’re very confident in being able to achieve this and we’ll be working hand in hand. The construction, we hope to start next year in 2025. And by being able to bring forward the project is, the key has been using the technology of these tunnel boring machines to make sure that the two tunnels effectively can be got going at once.
SCHILLER: Speaking of labour shortages, Prime Minister. The President of the RACGP, Doctor Nicole Higgins today said that Urgent Care Clinics that the Federal Government is supporting are creating confusion for the public and disrupt care people usually receive from their regular GP. So, she’s saying they fragment normal care. They’re pulling GPs from their own practices to these Urgent Care Clinics and might solve one problem but create another. What would you say to President, Nicole Higgins?
PRIME MINISTER: With respect, she’s obviously president of the equivalent of a union, and that’s fine for her to express those views. But the truth is the Urgent Care Clinics have been an enormous success, and literally almost a million Australians have received care through them. We promised 50, we delivered 58 by that deadline, and we committed to another 29 in our last Budget, and about ten of those have been opened. I’ve been at the opening and celebrations of Urgent Care Clinics there in South Australia and they’ve been welcomed by families. When little Johnny or Mary falls off the bike or someone cuts their hand, they don’t need to go to the emergency department of a hospital, but they do need that urgent care and looking after. They’re able to get x-rays on the spot, they’re able to then get the care off a doctor or a nurse on the spot and be able to get the care that they need when they need it – and all they need is their Medicare card, not their credit card. It’s been a huge success.
FELDHOFF: So, you don’t accept that GPs are being hamstrung because of those Urgent Care Clinics?
PRIME MINISTER: No, what this is doing is having a mid-tier, if you like, between a GP, who most GPs don’t have x-ray facilities and don’t have a pharmacy attached and don’t have the sort of capacity to really look after the full suite from the time someone comes in to being able to walk out the door, having all of their health issues dealt with. And the Urgent Care Clinics provide that midpoint between a GP and an emergency department. And they’ve been incredibly successful at taking pressure off hospitals as well as, of course, taking some pressure off GPs as well.
SCHILLER: Before we leave health, Prime Minister, our own Health Minister and I know other states Health Ministers have talked to you about the amount of medical school places available in Australia. And we’ve spoken to parents and people who have been desperately trying to get into medical school, many of whom want to become GPs but can’t because there aren’t enough places. Is this something that the Federal Government is looking at?
PRIME MINISTER: It certainly is. We know that we need to train more doctors, we need to train more nurses, we need to train more people right across the health system, including in aged care. The other thing that we need to do is to make sure that doctors do go into becoming GPs. There was a real skew, if you like, towards people becoming specialists and not going into general practice. And GPs are the people who look after us on a day to day basis. They’re the people who we have a relationship with throughout our life. They’re the people who we can pick up the phone to and it’s such an important role that they play. One of the reasons why we tripled the bulk billing incentive in last year’s Budget that’s had an enormous impact in the number of people who can see their GP for free is that we really wanted to incentivise GP practices. So we understand that this is one of the challenges in the health system and Mark Butler, a great South Australian, is dealing with it.
FELDHOFF: Prime Minister, let’s stay in the universities if we can. It was last week, I think, you announced a cap on international student numbers. Now, rightly or wrongly, our universities rely on these fee paying students from overseas to get through, and that’s become a big part of their business and bottom line. Our merger here in South Australia between UniSA and Adelaide University has relied on those numbers for its future. Have you put universities in a difficult position with that cap?
PRIME MINISTER: Not at all. We’re dealing with the Universities Accord and negotiations and having consultation with universities about what is the appropriate number or mix, if you like, of students at universities. Should they be 80 per cent of foreign students or is there a reasonable setting for that? We recognise that overseas students can play an important role in providing income. It’s an export for Australia that’s absolutely vital for us. But we need to make sure as well that universities aren’t totally reliant upon that, that they continue to provide a service and education for Australian students, because there are also implications, of course, for the migration numbers.
FELDHOFF: Yeah but also, I guess if we’re looking at the timing of this, going back to what we started talking about, the Torrens to Darlington Project and also the submarine project and the sorts of numbers of workers we need for that. Was it wise to be putting a cap on numbers when we need more workers and need more students?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we haven’t actually announced a cap, what we’ve announced is the negotiations and consultation that is going forward. There’s been a bit of an attempt to preempt some of that, but we’ll have a common sense approach to this. But South Australia has such an exciting future. If you look at this road project that will transform the way people get around the city – the new hospital project, the submarines that will bring really high quality jobs to South Australia. I’m very confident that under Peter Malinauskas’s leadership, you’ll see economic growth and growth in jobs, growth in population, which is something that has been called for by South Australians for such a long period of time.
SCHILLER: Now, I know you have to go soon, Prime Minister, but you talked, we’ve been talking about workers and GPs and projects, submarines and the Torrens to Darlington Project. To do all that we need houses in South Australia, we need houses around Australia. Is part of the cap of international students based around the lack of housing that we’re currently experiencing around Australia at the moment? And what do you propose to do about that?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, one of the things that we’ve done to link the two is that universities will be encouraged, as a result of the policy that we have announced going forward, to build more student housing. So that you will be able to bring in more students if you can house them in appropriate student housing. So putting that link between student accommodation and students is a really common sense solution.
FELDHOFF: Prime Minister, we are obviously talking to you at a time when the closing ceremony is happening in Paris of the Olympic Games. In eight years Brisbane, will have it. Our Chef de Mission, Anna Meares, was urging the Federal Government to continue and perhaps even boost spending and funding for future Olympics. Will you respond to that call?
PRIME MINISTER: We’re already putting record spending in. And one of the things that we’ve done with Anna Meares, is very conscious of, is almost quarter of a billion dollars, $250 million into the Australian Institute of Sport that frankly had been left to decay here in Canberra. It is so important for so many of those Olympic sports, including water polo and gymnastics and athletics and so many. And we have put in that record investment as well as the additional funding that we put in for Olympic based sports. I notice that in terms of our wonderful kayaking sisters, the Fox’s, noted that they couldn’t have got to where they’ve got without the additional spending that we put in to enable them to compete and train and qualify for the Olympics.
SCHILLER: We might not have Breaking in the Olympics anymore, Prime Minister. Is there a sport that you would stick in? I mean, we can put demonstration sports in the Olympics. What would you put in there?
PRIME MINISTER: AFL is the obvious one for us to put into Brisbane, isn’t it? We’re a fair chance of cracking the gold medal there.
FELDHOFF: Before we let you go though, we were talking about funding of sports. But what about Brisbane? We’ve got eight years and Paris, we can attest to the fact that they put on a fabulous Olympics. LA is going to turn it on, there’s no doubt about that. Are we working now with money to make sure Brisbane shines in the way that we’ve seen Paris and no doubt LA will?
PRIME MINISTER: We sure are. And it will do Australia proud, and it will join Melbourne and Sydney as being successful Olympic cities. I think it will be a fantastic time in the lead up to 2032. And we, of course, have just had our best ever Olympic games, but I’m confident we can do even better into the future.
SCHILLER: Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, thanks for your time.
PRIME MINISTER: Thank you. Have a great day.
