: You know who knows Frangos? I know who knows Frangos. The person on the line, I think’s got Frangos.
JOEL CREASEY, HOST: What do you mean?
BLACKWELL: I’m just about to – I’ve organised someone. Um, Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, do you know Frangos?
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: I do know Frangos. Who doesn’t know Frangos?
BLACKWELL: These two.
RICKI-LEE, HOST: Good afternoon, Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER: You should know Frangos in Petersham. It’s a must do thing for Sydneysiders.
RICKI-LEE: I know Frangos from your lovely friend Tim Blackwell, who regularly orders the tabbouleh.
BLACKWEL: The tabbouleh, and the tendies, and the chilli mayo. And I force it upon my friends here.
CREASEY: What’s your order, Prime Minister?
PRIME MINISTER: Just make sure with the chicken, you have to have the chilli as well. It’s just magnificent. And all the salads. Everything’s good there. It’s just such a casual place, and upstairs you can sit down –
CREASEY: You really know it.
PRIME MINISTER: It’s a go-to place for takeaway.
RICKI-LEE: Prime Minister, I’m really struggling because I’m freaking out that right now, at 4:41pm on a Monday afternoon, we’re randomly talking to you about chicken. You’re so important. You have so many –
PRIME MINISTER: I’m a big picture guy and this is big picture.
BLACKWELL: You know the reason, Ricki, I have to tell you, the reason I wanted to get Albo on today is because we couldn’t get him on after 5:00pm because that would be after hours, Prime Minister?
PRIME MINISTER: Not everyone has a right to disconnect, and I never do.
RICKI-LEE: I’m actually going to be singing for you, I think, in a couple of weeks, Mr. Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER: Oh, whereabouts?
RICKI-LEE: In Canberra. I’m very excited.
CREASEY: Checks out.
RICKI-LEE: Checks out. That’s where you are most of the time, I’m guessing?
PRIME MINISTER: It certainly is. I’m speaking to you from Canberra right now.
RICKI-LEE: Are you?
BLACKWELL: As long as you don’t disconnect for Ricki’s show, because that’ll be on in the evening too. But can you just give us a heads up to this?
PRIME MINISTER: Where are you playing?
BLACKWELL: Okay, you can go back to the gig.
RICKI-LEE: It’s wherever you’re going to be. I think it’s at Parliament House, so I’m very excited. But are there chicken shops in Canberra? Do you have a local in Canberra?
PRIME MINISTER: There are, but the idea that I can just drop into a takeaway on the way home, it’s not on. I did drop in recently to the Yarralumla kebab shop, which is pretty good. And it takes a whole exercise, you know, there’s an advance and there’s all of that. Whereas life used to be much simpler when – a couple of years, I’ve got to say, Frangos catered for my office Christmas party. You just put in an order in advance to go pick up a big tray of it all. Can’t go wrong.
CREASEY: It’s a bit dangerous going into your local chicken shops at the moment. I’m not sure if you saw JD Vance pop in the other day to that doughnut shop. It was very, very awkward over in the US.
PRIME MINISTER: That was pretty ordinary, wasn’t it?
BLACKWELL: Albo, I’m going to go for the third time lucky here and try and get you to talk about this right to disconnect. Because I want to know what it means for us and the people listening, because a lot of my friends, we have mixed opinions about this. What does it mean in a nutshell?
PRIME MINISTER: What it means is that if you’re not being paid 24 hours a day, you shouldn’t be on call 24 hours a day. So, you can’t be penalised. To put it really simply, it’s to make people a bit more relaxed in their life. Like so much of the world now is connected up and there’s positives about that. But people shouldn’t have to look at their phones and answer an email from the boss at 10 o’clock at night if they’re in a 9am to 5pm job without getting some form of compensation for it, or without that being agreed. And certainly what should happen is that you don’t get penalised. So, it’s understandable, from time to time, I might get a text, “can you come into work for an extra day, or can you do extra hours?” That’s fine. That still will happen. But you can’t be penalised if you don’t immediately go back to the boss and make yourself available. So, it’s all about getting that work-life balance a bit more in tune with where it should be.
RICKI-LEE: I feel like, because we have smartphones and maybe we’re just a little bit late to catch up on this, but we are all so available all the time. Like, you’re always an email or a messenger or a WhatsApp or an Instagram DM or a signal away from someone contacting you. And I feel like that’s where this comes from, right?
PRIME MINISTER: It does. It comes from people feeling like they’re under enormous pressure in their life. And life’s about a range of things. It’s about work, but it’s also about enjoyment with your family, with your friends, being able to tune out. So, if you’re at a gig watching yourself on a Friday night, here in Canberra –
RICKI-LEE: You better not be on the phone, Albo.
PRIME MINISTER: You won’t get into trouble if you’re not checking your phone, and you can just listen to Ricki-Lee and enjoy the moment.
CREASEY: I love this.
PRIME MINISTER: And that’s one of the things – I don’t know if you do this, but I reckon that artists who – I saw Florence and the Machine a few years ago there at the Opera House, and she said, yeah righto, get out your phones, take a photo now, then put them away and just enjoy the gig. Enjoy the moment.
RICKI-LEE: Yes, well there’s something about present.
CREASEY: Yeah because we work 4:00pm to 6:00pm, Ricki-Lee, Tim and I each day. Slog it out. So, what you’re saying is we shouldn’t answer the bosses, like, outside those.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, what I’m saying is you can’t be penalised unless you’re compensated. You and I both know that you compensated for more than 2 hour’s work a day.
CREASEY: Thank you very much.
BLACKWELL: Mate we love chatting to you, just got two quick things to mention. I’ve seen you representing the Hawks a lot lately, and the Hawks are in the finals, so that’s fantastic news for our AFL fans listening right now.
PRIME MINISTER: Oh, well, first five games, they were looking pretty ordinary. They were the favourites for the spoon not the flag. But a young team just having a crack. Really enjoying their footy. They’re playing like a great team that they probably don’t, on paper, have the best team on paper, but they’re really enjoying it and they’re attacking, playing a great brand of footy.
BLACKWELL: He’s been wearing a hat everywhere, too. I saw you hiking with Toto the other day in the hat. And then lastly, before we let you go, the three of us would love to come to you and Jodie’s wedding if there is obviously an invite going.
CREASEY: Yeah, I can –
RICKI-LEE: Hey! You don’t invite yourself to someone’s wedding.
BLACKWELL: I’m just saying we’re available. I’m not inviting myself. We’re available.
PRIME MINISTER: Yeah, you can – nothing wrong with pitching up.
BLACKWELL: Mate, Thanks for calling through. Go and have a little Frangos burger on us.
PRIME MINISTER: Thanks so much, guys.
