We are now joined by the Prime Minister of Australia, Anthony Albanese. Thank you for being with us.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: G’day, Lindsay. Good to be with you.
MCDOUGALL: So, yesterday you said of Barnaby Joyce, get your act together or move on. Not quite sure what this bloke’s got to do to be moved on. Do you still think the Member for New England needs to be moved on by the Coalition?
PRIME MINISTER: I do. These are almost monthly incidents where Barnaby Joyce engages in rhetorical behaviour that is unacceptable, that leads to, I think, social disharmony. We saw Barnaby Joyce when he was last in office, for a while there, going on about the damage that action on climate change would have. He said that Whyalla would be wiped out. He had a whole lot of extreme claims. It’s one thing to talk about Whyalla being wiped out, he’s now talking about wiping out Members of Parliament. To use a gun analogy with magazines and talking about people disappearing is, I think, reckless. It does nothing to add to serious policy debate. And the issue of climate change is a serious one. The government is responding in a serious, methodical way to reduce our emissions, to deal with the impact of climate change as part of what needs to be a global solution. And this bloke just engages in reckless behaviour and rhetoric that given where we are in politics, which is that Australia doesn’t want to go down the American road of so much polarisation and everything being expressed in the most angry way possible, I just think it’s entirely inappropriate.
MCDOUGALL: I mean, we saw just recently a comedy musical band cancelling their Australian tour after making a comment about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. Kevin Rudd told them to grow up and get a decent job. Is this a similar thing do you think? As serious? Less serious? difference form of seriousness?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, this is more serious. This isn’t a band. This is a bloke who has a position of authority. He’s someone who has served as Deputy Prime Minister not once but twice, someone who’s been a senior minister, he’s a shadow minister on Peter Dutton’s frontbench. And we’re yet to see anyone in the Coalition actually condemn this. They’ve said that it’s inappropriate, but no one has condemned this sort of language to what was, I’ve seen the vision now, a pretty poorly attended rally, it has got to be said. But being prepared to say anything in order to get a response, is not appropriate.
MCDOUGALL: Well, if you saw the video, you would see that whilst he was talking about the bullet, he was making the hand gestures of a ballot box. He was pushing, miming a vote into a ballot box. It was clearly a metaphor.
PRIME MINISTER: Whilst saying goodbye in the most, you know, absurd way. I mean, this is a bloke who has a track record of saying things that are out of touch and not in tune with what is a purposeful political debate and he continues to do it. I don’t know what this bloke has got to do to lose his job, but it seems that Peter Dutton is incapable of touching him and that not a single Coalition frontbencher has been prepared to actually distance themselves by condemning this use of language by Barnaby Joyce.
MCDOUGALL: Would it be David Littleproud, the ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ Party Leader, who would be sort of responsible for that as well?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, certainly. And we know that, though at the end of the day, the Leader of the Opposition is Peter Dutton, so at the end of the day it’s his responsibility. But David Littleproud, we just know there’s no discipline in their show. I mean, they’re a rabble and this sort of behaviour seems that anyone can do whatever they like and they’re untouchable.
MCDOUGALL: Can I ask, Prime Minister, your colleague Catherine King told ABC Breakfast this morning that she has had to upgrade her home security and that Barnaby’s comments put all of us at risk. Is that right? Do you need to take extra security precautions at the moment?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we do. The head of the Australian Federal Police gave evidence before the Senate Estimates Committee just a month ago about the fact that there have been more than 700 threats or harassment incidents to Members of Parliament this year. That represents a significant increase that is occurring. It is completely unacceptable that at a time when we’re very conscious of those issues of social disharmony which is there, of threats to Members of Parliament, that you have Barnaby Joyce engaging in this sort of rhetoric. Certainly Peter Dutton, members of the Opposition also have security. There’s been calls by Coalition members for increased support in terms of security in people’s personal households, as well as potentially other security personnel being around events. And here you have Barnaby Joyce out there using analogies of magazines, bullets, people disappearing, in a way that’s entirely inappropriate.
MCDOUGALL: I presume that was Toto in the background?
PRIME MINISTER: That was.
MCDOUGALL: Scary sounding, but maybe not officially part of the Prime Minister’s security detail, Mr Albanese?
PRIME MINISTER: No, no. I think that if I have to rely upon a cavoodle for protection, then I’m in real trouble. But Toto makes up for it in enthusiasm.
MCDOUGALL: True. Now, can I ask Prime Minister, Barnaby was in Lake Illawarra, though, because people are scared, they’re angry. You said there wasn’t that many people there but these people, they’re very passionate. They don’t believe what they hear about offshore wind turbines, about them not being visible, not affecting whales and birds. They’re not satisfied with what they hear from the proponents of offshore wind. So, what can you say to those people?
PRIME MINISTER: What I can do is reassure them that just as right around the world, offshore wind is playing a role. This is a very modest proposal. The final Illawarra Wind Zone is about a third of what was originally proposed. It will be located at least 20 kilometres from the coast. Now, at a time where all sorts of shipping goes around the coast and everything else, the idea that these represent a threat to whales or anything else has been shown to have no basis of fact. The next step is for developers to apply for feasibility licences and once that closes then Minister Bowen, the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, will assess them. Feasibility licences give developers the opportunity to have a look at whether their proposed projects are feasible. They can take up to seven years and as part of that process, of course, is further proper assessments. But importantly, this is expected to deliver over 1700 new jobs during construction and almost 1000 ongoing jobs to generate enough power to power 1.8 million homes, but also importantly, it will secure the future of the steelworks there at Illawarra that’s been so important. There’s 9000 jobs in steelmaking and associated industries. We do need to have that security of supply, of energy supply. One way that you can do that is through wind power and renewables are the cheapest, most effective way in which we can transition our economy.
MCDOUGALL. So, why then is it so important to push ahead with things like offshore gas mining, which is mainly for export, such as off the Northwest Shelf of Western Australia in highly sensitive environmental locations when, you know, we’re paying more for gas in the home here and these are sort of industries that are supposed to be winding up?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, that’s a long way away, let me tell you, from the Illawarra, what’s happening there. Of course gas will play a role in firming capacity for –
MCDOUGALL: We’re about to get a gas import terminal here and it seems a lot of the gas that we export goes to other countries who then, you know, on sell it even. It seems like we’re paying more for gas here, importing gas, but we’re sending a lot of the gas we’ve got away without making much money out of it as a country.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, WA, of course, has a gas reservation policy and indeed, in terms of Australian revenue, substantial revenue comes from the export of gas, as well as substantial economic activity and jobs. Gas does have a role to play in the transition in firming up renewables, and that’s the case on the east coast here as well. We know that coal-fired power stations are, twenty-four of them announced their closure under the former government without a plan to replace that energy which is required when people want to turn on their light or when industries want to operate. What we’re doing is transitioning 82 per cent of the national energy market to renewables by 2030 – that’s a substantial increase. In order to do that, it also needs firming capacity, particularly for industry. The benefit of gas is that it can be turned on or off when it is needed.
MCDOUGALL: What about, and you just mentioned Port Kembla, the Maldon to Dombarton Railway line. You were a big supporter of that back when you were Infrastructure and Transport Minister. It’s recently been relaunched. It was SWIRL for a bit, and now a Western Sydney lobby group have rebranded at the Port Kembla to Macarthur rail line. I mean, it’s been around in some form since the early eighties. Do you support it and will it be built under Labor?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I do support it. It would be an important piece of infrastructure. It would have been built and completed had it not been paused all those years ago. Some of the work, effectively was started, and then it was stopped. In terms of Port Kembla and that linkage to the southwest, it does go effectively to the Macarthur region, will be very important, and it is a project that is worthy of support. It’s something that, when I was the Infrastructure spokesperson some time ago, we committed funding to it and I certainly would like to see it go ahead.
MCDOUGALL: Can we get it, I mean, the lobby group wants a commitment from both State and Federal governments. So, would there be a commitment?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I don’t give commitments during radio interviews. What we do is we have proper feasibilities and proper business cases. But certainly when we examined it some time ago, it had a great deal of merit.
MCDOUGALL: And just finally, of course this weekend the Labor Party Cabinet reshuffle. Tony Burke’s been given Immigration and ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ Affairs, in addition to the ministry for the Arts. I know you love the arts, and here in the Illawarra we do. We’ve got two members of Radio Birdman living here. I saw you there a couple of weeks ago.
PRIME MINISTER: You sure do. That was an awesome gig, I’ve got to say.
MCDOUGALL: Are you sure –
PRIME MINISTER: It’s been a long time since I’ve been at Manning Bar.
MCDOUGALL: Yes, I can imagine. But are you sure the arts won’t get forgotten if the Minister is also focused on the very important and very, you know, big dual ministries, Immigration and ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ Affairs?
PRIME MINISTER: It certainly won’t be forgotten. The one thing that Tony Burke is obsessed about is making sure that he stayed as the Minister for Arts. Previously he had, of course, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. They’re pretty big jobs as well, and we’ve done substantial industrial relations reform to make sure that workers can be paid more. We’ve had, of course, real wages increasing after a decade of real wages being kept down as a deliberate economic strategy by the former government. Tony Burke presided over significant reform, including same job, same pay legislation. Everything that he’s done, paid domestic and family violence leave, a range of reforms in industrial relations. He is capable of a big job. He’s got a big job, but arts will always be front and centre and in addition to that, Australia certainly has in myself, a Prime Minister who’s committed to providing support for arts and culture in this great country. As well as we’ve got Susan Templeman, who’s a Special Envoy for the Arts and doing a fantastic job.
MCDOUGALL: All right. Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, thank you for being with us this afternoon.
PRIME MINISTER: Thanks very much, Lindsay.
