Radio interview - ABC AM

MELISSA CLARKE, HOST: Prime Minister, thanks for speaking to AM.

ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Good to be with you, Melissa.

CLARKE: Now you're announcing the expansion of Paid Prac to include another 10 allied health degrees, things like physiotherapy and psychology. Why are allied health fields the focus of this additional support?

PRIME MINISTER: Because these are areas where we do have skill shortages, where we need to encourage people to go into these professions. They tend not to be at the end of the process, you know, the high end of wages at the end. What people want to do though, is to help their fellow Australians and we want to help them to do that, which is why areas such as radiography, pharmacy, audiology, all of these areas, 10 allied health professions, will receive this support. It's been incredibly successful. I spoke with nurses at the Royal Children's Hospital there in Melbourne and they were just so grateful that it made a difference. I think many Australians would think that if you're going into a profession like teaching or nursing or these allied health areas, that you wouldn't have to essentially give up your part time job as you're working your way through university and getting the qualifications and not have any income over that period. So, this is really practical cost of living support.

CLARKE: What about for medical and veterinary students, though? They have to do extensive placements as well, why not extend the support to include them too?

PRIME MINISTER: Well, what we've done is to make a difference in these 10 areas. We started off with areas like social work, teaching and nursing and midwifery and now we're expanding it into allied health because we thought this was the absolute priority. There is a cost, of course, to this as well. The total costing now in Paid Prac over the period from this current year will be $745 million up to the end of the decade. So, we can't do everything at once -

CLARKE: Sorry, is that including these new additional supports?

PRIME MINISTER: It does. The additional support is valued at $158 million over that period. It will commence on July 1, from next year, and it will make a difference, a practical difference, to attract people into these professions.

CLARKE: You mentioned before that these allied health fields often don't come with huge salaries once students graduate. Is that why medical and veterinary students have been left to wait longer for support? Because they ultimately earn more once they graduate?

PRIME MINISTER: No, that's important as well. But there aren't shortages of people who want to do medical degrees. In practical terms, there are shortages of our nurses, there are shortages of social workers, there's shortages in areas like radiography and physiotherapy and OTs, speech pathology. These are all areas where we need to encourage people to go into those professions. And that is why, at this stage, they're the professions that we're prioritising. Of course it's important for people to do medical degrees and we have encouraged, through a range of other policies, that to occur, including the opening up of additional training. But what we wanted to do here was to expand on the success of the program. And that is what today's announcement will do.

CLARKE: You're announcing that at the ALP's National Conference and there's obviously a lot of debate going on about settling the policy positions on a range of areas for the Labor Party's platform. It seems when it comes to the issue of a gas tax, that the platform that will be agreed on will call for Australians to get a fair share from their natural resources, including through appropriate taxation arrangements. Do you interpret that as a request from your party's membership to increase taxes on gas exports?

PRIME MINISTER: No, I don't. And what my party understands as a priority of Australians is making sure that we have fuel security at this point in time. People wake up every morning and if they're tuning in to early AM or the ABC News, they'll find that there's news every day about what's occurring in the Middle East. Our priority has been fuel security. We have managed to do that and to indeed have more fuel in Australia today than there was on February 28th when this conflict began.

CLARKE: Do you think the current policies in place deliver a fair return?

PRIME MINISTER: I think the current policies are our priority and our priority is making sure that we deliver fuel so that when people go and try and fill up at the petrol station, fuel is available. And remember this, prior to Easter, we had all of the opposition party saying that rationing was inevitable. There was some panic buying going on, a real demand issue.

CLARKE: Can I clarify here, I understand you're saying this is a priority to make sure that liquid fuels are available. But that doesn't necessarily mean that the current taxation arrangements are fair. It might be a compromise that needs to be made. Are you saying this is a compromise that we need to keep the current taxation levels where they are because it helps us get the fuel we need? Or are you saying we're getting the fuel we need and the current tax arrangements, in your view, are fair?

PRIME MINISTER: No, we're saying in a sophisticated way, rather than a three word slogan, that we have serious policies that include a gas reservation, a domestic gas reservation for the East Coast. That's a serious policy to deliver certainty, to make sure that manufacturing on the east coast can continue to get gas at a price that ensures that those jobs are protected. We have a serious policy rather than just a slogan. And what we're doing is implementing that in the interests of consumers, but in the interests of business as well.

CLARKE: Delegates to Labor's conference are expected to endorse a Fair AI Task Force to give unions input into AI policy. What sort of input would this task force have into your government's AI plans?

PRIME MINISTER: Well, we want everyone to have input into our AI plans. We want to introduce a world leading AI framework to ensure that Australia can capture the opportunity that's there, share the benefits, but importantly as well, mitigate some of the risks which are there and make sure that Australians are kept safe.

CLARKE: I'm glad you mentioned some of the risks because we've seen overnight OpenAI revealing that one of their models went rogue in a security test. Is accessing the internet beyond its containment, hacking into other AI companies. Does news of these sorts of events alarm you?

PRIME MINISTER: It is a fact that there are risks here which need to be mitigated. That's why I gave a major speech at Sydney University just last week that spoke about that, that spoke about Australian standards. And that's why we want to work with industry, we want to work with business, but we also want to work with everyone in society. This is going to have a massive impact on the way that we work, on the way society functions. And that's why we need a sophisticated debate and we need input from all sources, including of course, workers who will be impacted by this.

CLARKE: At the frontier development of AI though, the companies themselves seem alarmed about its capabilities. Does there need to be a break at the frontier level of what's being done overseas, given these sorts of going rogue events that we're now seeing?

PRIME MINISTER: What we're determined to do is to shape the change by engaging in the process. We can't pretend that it won't occur any more than we can turn off the internet, full stop. This is a change that's occurring and what we don't want is to do what happened with social media, where down the track people have recognised the damage that was done to young people on an ongoing basis. And we've led the world with our social media ban that's now been replicated in full or part by 20 nations around the world. What we want to do here is to set the standards for AI. AI can bring enormous productivity benefits, it can create jobs, but it also needs to be controlled and that is why national standards are important. That's why I'm setting up an office within the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet to coordinate all of this input which we need to have as a society.

CLARKE: Just on a couple of other issues, one of the other things that your party members are looking at over the next couple of days is gambling and action on gambling advertising. Many of your party members want stronger action in this area, including for a National Regulator. So too do other parties in the Parliament that are assessing the legislation you have before it. So, when it comes to a National Regulator, why will you not create one? What's your case for not doing it when you are getting so many appeals from your own membership and other parliamentarians to introduce one?

PRIME MINISTER: Well, my government is taking the strongest ever action to tackle the harms of gambling. We have new reforms that will minimise children's exposure from the harms of advertising, to break the link between sports and wagering -

CLARKE: Can I bring you to the question of the National Regulator, though? Because this was something that was recommended but not include in those reforms. Why not?

PRIME MINISTER: Well, we have a regulation that's called the government and we have introduced legislation on top of the legislation that we've already, and action that we've already taken, in areas like introducing BetStop that has been very successful. These are significant reforms that are before the Parliament.

CLARKE: Most of the regulation that happens comes from state governments. It's quite patchwork from state to territory. A National Regulator would mean more consistent regulation and it could be done at a more, at a higher level of enforcement. Why not have a National Regulator?

PRIME MINISTER: Well, we have these things called states and territories that were created before federation. They exist. States do control many of these measures, just like other areas where states are in control. I'm the national leader, but we can't just redo the Constitution. What we are responsible for, we are taking strong action on. We don't control, for example, poker machines, when it comes to gambling - that's state regulation, and having a National Regulator won't change that. That's just the structure of our federation.

CLARKE: Prime Minister, just before you go, China's foreign affairs spokesman Lin Jian has accused Australia of exaggerating tensions and inciting confrontation when Australia has raised concerns about confrontations in the South China Sea. Is Australia's diplomatic relationship with China deteriorating here?

PRIME MINISTER: No. What we do is put forward our views clearly, publicly, and directly to China. We were concerned with the test that was done in the Pacific. We made that very clear, as did other Pacific family members. And we'll continue to do that. We'll cooperate wherever we can, but we have a relationship which means that it is appropriate that we make clear where we have concerns. And here we have made that clear. I did it publicly on the day, and it is appropriate the Foreign Minister has raised these issues with her counterpart, Wang Yi.

CLARKE: Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, thank you very much for joining us on AM this morning.

PRIME MINISTER: Thanks very much, Mel.