Welcome to the show, our friend, Anthony Albanese. Good morning.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Good morning. I hope you’re standing up for the anthem there.
SHAUN MCMANUS, HOST: Always, Prime Minister. Always for you.
NATHAN MORRIS, HOST: Are you kidding me? We don’t even understand what a chair is when we speak to you.
PRIME MINISTER: And have you sorted out the new studio?
LOCKE: Yeah, mostly.
MCMANUS: Harry’s playing some disco lights every now and then. It kind of throws us out a bit.
MORRIS: You know what it is, Albo? It’s when you get, like, a bit too much tech. Like, you know, it’s okay to have a bit of tech, but when everything relies on tech, it’s confusing.
LOCKE: It’s like when you’ve got a new car and it’s got all those screens and you’re not really sure what each button does. We’re in that stage, yeah.
PRIME MINISTER: Particularly early in the morning in, flashing lights, might cause some issues there.
MCMANUS: We start sketching out at the best of times, let alone that. Albo, what’s going on, mate?
PRIME MINISTER: Oh you know, big start to the new financial year. We’ve had, this month, tax cuts kick in. We’ve got the energy bill relief kicking in. We’ve got increased rental assistance next month now, kick in at the beginning of September. And we’ve got, I think, some challenges ahead. We know that people are doing it tough, but I think all of those measures will really assist, particularly the tax cuts for every single taxpayer. And at the end of July, I have to remember, tomorrow is Jodie’s birthday. So that’s my priority tomorrow.
LOCKE: Don’t stuff that up.
MCMANUS: Mate, we’ve all been there. We’ve all made a mistake at some stage. Don’t do it again.
PRIME MINISTER: It’s quite good that it’s August 1, so it’s easy to remember.
LOCKE: Oh, it’s Jodie and all the horses.
MORRIS: With Jodie’s birthday, because I’ve seen many TV shows where the President or the Prime Minister has an aide that will go and purchase the gift. Purchase a gift or bring back some options, and then you choose from them. Is that what we’re doing, Albo? Or you’re gonna pop down to Thingz and buy a lava lamp for Jodie?
PRIME MINISTER: I have insisted that I be the person who goes and shops for the birthday present, which is an interesting experience now going into a shop –
MCMANUS: Particularly the adult shop, you know –
PRIME MINISTER: I won’t give them a free ad because that might give away where it’s from.
MORRIS: That’s true.
PRIME MINISTER: Let me just say that there will be no shoplifting anywhere where I’m near because there’s a range of security walking around the store really obviously –
LOCKE: A lot of security.
MORRIS: Shoplifters are like, ‘don’t worry about this one’ –
PRIME MINISTER: And we end up, it ends up taking a substantial period of time because people are surprised to see me in a store where I’m not normally –
MCMANUS: In a normal store.
MORRIS: It doesn’t make any sense, does it?
PRIME MINISTER: It’s like, I insist on going to get the dog food for Toto by myself as well with the security people, because one of the things I miss about this job is just normal things that you get to do –
LOCKE: Being able to do stuff –
PRIME MINISTER: So for, the particular brand, she’s pretty spoiled, my dog funnily enough.
LOCKE: We know, Albo. We know.
PRIME MINISTER: You’ve met her. You’ve met her, you know what she’s like. So, she only eats one sort of food, so I have to go into a particular supermarket and they’re always quite surprised by me walking through, with a box of dog food, through the supermarket.
LOCKE: You’re a man of the people.
MORRIS: I didn’t know Aldi sold caviar. That’s, of course what Toto eats.
PRIME MINISTER: The old Canberra Centre in the ACT, the good thing is, if I’m doing it in Canberra, people are pretty chilled about seeing the PM in Canberra. They’re just like, ‘oh hi’, you know, no big deal.
MCMANUS: Politicians –
LOCKE: There he is again –
MORRIS: But then again, it’s sort of like that with Adam Gilchrist here, especially in this area. Gilly’s just walking around this area and like, cricket fans, their minds would explode.
LOCKE: Imagine him in India.
MORRIS: Indians would go, ‘oh my God, it’s amazing’.
MCMANUS: Hey Albo, I’ve got to ask you though, there’s been some changes in your Cabinet, which we’ve probably seen on the news and stuff. We want to ask you about the Olympics though, so I won’t get too deep. But I was wondering about the people who you changed portfolios with-
LOCKE: When you shuffle them around –
MCMANUS: When you shuffle them around, right. Do they have to leave their office immediately? This is one of those, like in a footy game, you’re off, you’re on. Bad luck, grab your stuff, you’re out.
PRIME MINISTER: No, but some of their staff will shift around because there’s expertise in particular areas, so they’ll go to the new Minister. Some staff are generalists, so they’ll stay with the Minister rather than with the portfolio. I must say, I had a bit of fun over the weekend because Anika Wells, the Sports Minister, is there in Paris and has annoyingly been sending me photos of her with Ariarne Titmus’s family after she won gold, just to rub in the fact that, you know, she’s there and I’m watching on TV. And I did send her back a message saying that I would be appointing myself as Minister for Sport when the Olympics are on and travelling over to Paris –
LOCKE: That’s very Scott Morrison of you. Do it on the sly. You can do anything.
PRIME MINISTER: So she should book her flight home. She didn’t take me too seriously, unfortunately.
MORRIS: But to be honest though, Albo, I’m confused because it is the Olympics. I would think our Prime Minister would be there. So, why aren’t you there?
PRIME MINISTER: I reckon there might be a bit of criticism if I was there, so –
MCMANUS: There would be.
MORRIS: But there’s criticism if you’re not there. There’s criticism regardless. So, I take the criticism of being in Paris.
MCMANUS: With Jodie for her birthday –
PRIME MINISTER: That just goes with the deal, no matter what you do. There was recently a meeting, the NATO Summit in the US, where the opposition was demanding I go to Washington, DC. And I was like, hang on, you’ve been complaining about too many visits when we’re not members of NATO –
LOCKE: About your travelling, yeah.
PRIME MINISTER: You can’t win, but you’ve just got to do your job. So, there’s a range of forums that I have to be at where we’re really important members of, like the Pacific Island Forum, ASEAN in South East Asia, the G20, which is the biggest 20 economies in the world –
MORRIS: Taylor Swift Concerts.
PRIME MINISTER: So there will be a bit of travel in the second half of the year. But I’ve been using the time to get out and about. We’ve been announcing candidates in Queensland. We’ve been doing a lot of work on the cost of living measures that kicked in July –
MCMANUS: I’m not sure if they are working –
PRIME MINISTER: Yeah, there’s always things to do.
LOCKE: Now Albo, what about watching the Olympics, though, because it’s the middle of the night and we know you’re a busy man. But have you been sitting up and watching the Matildas and stuff? What have you been doing?
PRIME MINISTER: Well the good thing is, of course, I’m usually up pretty early in the morning –
LOCKE: Yeah.
PRIME MINISTER: And so I can, you know, read the papers online and find out what’s going on pretty early while having the Olympics on in the background. So, I’ve gotten to see a few of the races, and last night I was watching the 1500 metre heats in the men’s and the women’s. It’s always fantastic. I like the long races, whether it’s in athletics or swimming, where you get to cheer on –
LOCKE: There’s some strategy and stuff.
PRIME MINISTER: 100 metres, like –
MCMANUS: I mean, anyone can do that, is that what you’re saying?
LOCKE: It’s over too quick –
MCMANUS: And, you know, we’ve had six winners so far, Gold Medallists. Do you personally send a message to our six Gold Medallists so far, Albo?
PRIME MINISTER: They will all get a message and a little note and they’ll all, of course, I’ll welcome them back. So, Anika Wells is there in Paris, I get to meet the plane when it comes back. That’s my interaction there. But both the Olympians, and I’m sure the Paralympians as well, will do us proud. And it’s just, it’s a great time. When you think about how well Australia’s going, we’re third in the metal tally. We are by far from the, we’re certainly not the third most populous nation in the world. We punch so far above our weight. And it’s a great sense of pride, I think, that we have in our country. And we’ve provided record funding for Olympic sports. One of the things about these young men and women competing in our name is that they earn bugger all compared with, the official term, compared with people in professional sports like tennis or golf or even footy players. And they train so hard, you know, swimming up and down those laps every morning at 6am for year after year in order to be the champions that they are.
MORRIS: Well, you know what it is, though –
PRIME MINISTER: They deserve a bit of recognition.
MCMANUS: They do.
MORRIS: You know what it is, and you might have had your people seen this. It’s a new term for Australians. It’s our flex. We’re Girt.
LOCKE: Yes.
MORRIS: Yeah. It’s caught on around the world. It means, you know, Australia is girt by sea. It means that we are stronger than you, because we are Girt. And Girt is a mindset. We are Girt.
PRIME MINISTER: That’s got a ring to it. I look forward to seeing you guys in t-shirts with that on it next time I’m in the studio there.
LOCKE: It just says, ‘Girt’
MORRIS: Natalie’s is going to say Girty girl. Very Girty girl.
LOCKE: Albo, thanks so much for calling in this morning. It’s been a little joy to catch up with you. And happy birthday –
PRIME MINISTER: It’s been a pleasure. And I hope you’ve all had, I’ve heard offline, Amy dobbed you all in for your overseas travel, you know, Bali, Vietnam, albeit, hope you enjoyed yourselves.
MORRIS: I went to Maylands.
LOCKE: Are you having a crack at our overseas travel arrangements?
PRIME MINISTER: I’m just pointing it out. Good on you.
MCMANUS: We’re moving around –
PRIME MINISTER: I am waiting for you to schedule your travel over to Canberra again.
MORRIS: Well, we are ready in any time, to be completely honest.
PRIME MINISTER: We have to get that done.
LOCKE: Obviously, he didn’t invite us to Jodie’s birthday party, but whatever.
MORRIS: That’s okay, we’ll hold that against you. Don’t worry about that. Don’t worry about that. Can’t afford a present anyway – cost of living.
PRIME MINISTER: There’s only two people invited to that birthday party.
MORRIS: Are you there? Are you going to be there?
PRIME MINISTER: One’s Jodie –
MCMANUS: And one’s Toto –
PRIME MINISTER: And I’m the other.
MORRIS: Oh wow, you made the cut. Knowing Jodie, I don’t know whether that would have been the case or not.
LOCKE: Give Jodie all our love –
MCMANUS: And happy birthday to her.
LOCKE: It’s always a pleasure.
PRIME MINISTER: Will do. See you guys.
