Prime Minister, thanks for joining us.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Good to be here.
CLENNELL: How is this APEC meeting going in an environment where a lot of discussion with leaders is about a man not even here, Donald Trump?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, what leaders here are focused on is the agenda that they have. It represents 75 per cent of the global economy, 75 per cent of Australia’s trading partners as well with the 21 economies here. And we’re talking about the need to promote free and fair trade, the benefit it brings to our populations. But also talking about other issues such as climate change and the impact on the economy. So there’s a very positive feeling here so far. I look forward to the discussions taking place over the next 24 hours.
CLENNELL: But it’s kind of an anti-Trump agenda in some ways, isn’t it? He’s for tariffs. He’s not big on climate change. So it’s countries uniting against that.
PRIME MINISTER: No, it’s about the agenda that the nation states and economies represented here have and the benefit that they receive from trade. And that is something that has helped to lift people out of poverty, it is something that helps to create jobs in our national economy. One in four Australian jobs is trade dependent. And that’s my focus here, is supporting Australia’s national interest.
CLENNELL: Well, Scott Morrison and Malcolm Turnbull were able to talk Donald Trump out of imposing tariffs on Australia. Do you think you’ll be able to do the same?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I of course, will always stand up for Australia’s interests. And when I spoke with President Trump, I pointed out, as I’m sure they did, that the United States has enjoyed a trade surplus with Australia since Truman was president. So for a long period of time. So the trade between Australia and the United States is in both of our nation’s interests.
CLENNELL: The Chinese government press is reported to have said that other countries should look to Australia as an example of how to deal with China. What do you say to that? Are we closer to China on some things than a Trump led US?
PRIME MINISTER: We have an alliance with the United States. It’s a very different relationship that we have with China. The relationship with the United States has been our most important since John Curtin turned to the US during World War II. And ever since then it’s been a relationship of defence and security, but also an economic relationship. The United States is the major investor in Australia. The relationship with China is different. I’ve said that we should cooperate where we can, disagree where we must, but engage in our national interests. China is our major trading partner. One in four of the dollars that come to the Australian economy that create Australian jobs are a direct result of exporting to China.
CLENNELL: If you do meet President Xi on this trip, as many anticipate, what would be your advice to him on how to handle the US tariffs, the 60 per cent tariffs that Trump has promised? And would you advocate on Xi’s behalf against that 60 per cent, or wouldn’t it particularly bother you?
PRIME MINISTER: That’s a matter between China and the United States. My job is to advocate for Australia’s national interests. I leave bilateral relations between other countries to them.
CLENNELL: How would that affect the world economy do you think, though, if that was imposed?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I don’t want to preempt things that have been speculated upon. President Trump will take office on January 20, and I’m not about preempting any of those decisions that might be made.
CLENNELL: You seem fundamentally opposed to a lot of Donald Trump’s beliefs on climate change and what his man Elon Musk calls censoring the internet on Israel. How will a relationship with him work? How can it work?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, it can work constructively, and there was a very good beginning to our relationship with a positive phone call that we had. We spoke for 10 minutes, it was one of the first phone calls that he made. And importantly as well, the relationship between Australia and the United States isn’t just a relationship between leaders, it’s a relationship between nations. Two great democracies that have a shared history, that do have shared values. And so I’m very confident, just as I have a record of being able to develop relationships with people across the political spectrum and indeed from different countries as well. We’ve improved our relations with ASEAN, with Pacific neighbours, with China, as well as strengthening our relationship with our historic allies, the United Kingdom and the United States through AUKUS.
CLENNELL: You said in 2017 you were scared of Trump. It was kind of a pretty impromptu thing. Are you still scared of him to some extent?
PRIME MINISTER: No. I will deal with President Trump and I’ll deal with him constructively in Australia’s national interest. And I’m confident that we will be able to do so.
CLENNELL: Have you spoken to Kevin Rudd or messaged him or reached out to Donald Trump or his camp since this Dan Scavino tweet about Kevin Rudd?
PRIME MINISTER: No.
CLENNELL: How do we get to this point, I guess, where Donald Trump’s saying we’re going to have a perfect friendship and then a week later one of his right hand men is tweeting this hourglass about saying Kevin Rudd’s running out of time?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I’m not going to comment on someone who I don’t know and have never had a discussion with. The discussion I had with President Trump was very constructive and very positive.
CLENNELL: And didn’t mention Kevin Rudd.
PRIME MINISTER: No.
CLENNELL: Could it get to the point if the Trump administration doesn’t like Ambassador Rudd, that he has to tap the mat?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, the fact is that Kevin Rudd has been a very good ambassador. He continues to do the job. He has developed relationships across the political spectrum in the United States as I’d expect any ambassador to do. And that’s why he received praise from people such as Tony Abbott as well as Malcolm Turnbull as well as Peter Dutton for the job that he’s been doing.
CLENNELL: Do you think he’ll be there for another year or more?
PRIME MINISTER: Yes. He’s Australia’s Ambassador to Washington and he’s doing a very important job. The work that he did with AUKUS was a difficult task to get that through the Congress and the Senate. But when I was there, one of the things that struck me was just how extensive the links that Kevin Rudd had developed with the US Congress and the Senate were.
CLENNELL: Do you agree with the Treasurer that a Trump administration could prove inflationary?
PRIME MINISTER: We’ll wait and see what decisions are made. The Trump administration takes office on January 20th. Our job will be to continue to work in Australia’s national interest and we’ll all be doing that.
CLENNELL: How fearful are you about the next election? You were speaking before about inflation being across the world, every country struggled with it. It’s proved a government killer around the world as well.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we’ll do what elections are based upon. We’ll be going to the next election with, we’ve already chosen our slogan as you know, ‘Building Australia’s Future’. We’ll talk about our record of halving inflation. It had a 6 in front of it and was rising, now it’s got a 2 in front of it and is falling. We’ve done that while creating a million jobs. We’ve done that while providing cost of living relief across the board, whether it’s health or child care or free TAFE or indeed tax cuts for every taxpayer. All of those measures were opposed by Peter Dutton. People would have been doing it a lot tougher if Peter Dutton was a part of a government, if we hadn’t have won the last election. But elections are also about the future. They’re about the future offer, they’re about what we will do. And we will be arguing very strongly that Australians will be better off under a Labor government than they would be under Peter Dutton. And that’s why we’ve already made our first commitment, done weeks ago, that a reelected Labor government will introduce as our first piece of legislation free TAFE, lifting the threshold in which students, graduates have to pay back money and cutting 20 per cent off the bills that they owe for some 3 million Australians, benefiting them by some five and a half thousand dollars. And we’ll have more to say about the future agenda, how we’re going to support Medicare, further improvements in housing, further improvements in our national economy, because we’re very confident that we will have that positive agenda going forward. And the third element of any election campaign is of course risk. All of the gains that have been made are at risk. Peter Dutton has not produced a single costed policy. He talks about nuclear, we still haven’t seen any costs yet. But that’s off in the 2040s and there’s no plan for what happens to energy policy in the meantime.
CLENNELL: How much should we read into you talking to Roger Cook about a possible March election?
PRIME MINISTER: I have not spoken to Roger Cook about a possible March election.
CLENNELL: Did you speak to him about, is it, you know –
PRIME MINISTER: No, he has said that his election is on March 8th and I talk to state leaders sometimes about the dates in which they have elections set. It’s as simple as that. A completely nothing story.
CLENNELL: So we won’t be going to an election in March.
PRIME MINISTER: A completely nothing story. We’ll go to an election sometime between May. And I don’t talk with any state premiers or journalists about when those options might be. But we have a Budget scheduled for March and the election will be in May. The speculation –
CLENNELL: In May?
PRIME MINISTER: Well that’s when it’s due. It could be beforehand, but that will be a matter for me to make in conjunction with my Cabinet colleagues. I’ve read, Andrew, that the election was going to be August 30th, then it was September, then it was December because journalists are bored and when they’ve got nothing else to write about they write about election speculation. I think there should be four year fixed terms. I’ve said that very clearly.
CLENNELL: Thanks so much for your time.
PRIME MINISTER: Thank you.
