Radio interview - ABC Perth

OLIVER PETERSON, HOST: This is Drive with Oliver Peterson. And I'm pleased to say that standing opposite me here in the 102.5 ABC Perth Studios is the Prime Minister of Australia, Anthony Albanese. Good afternoon.

ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Good afternoon. Fantastic to be back in Perth.

PETERSON: Good to see you here in Perth. I know you've just stepped off the plane and the Premier addressed the CME today. You're due to do that tomorrow, Prime Minister. The number one question that the sector obviously has for you is are you here to put the kibosh on the gas tax?

PRIME MINISTER: We, of course, made changes to the PRRT in our first term. What we're concentrating on at the moment is supply. There has been no windfall of gas prices in Australia. What my concentration is on is on fuel security, and that has been absolutely critical for Australia. We've got Export Finance Australia, have managed to secure an additional 400 million litres of diesel. To put that in perspective, the Premier here announced a WA reservation of four. So, this is a substantial amount. There's more to do, and we continue to engage with our partners to ensure that security of supply. But so far so good. That's not to say that there aren't challenges, because there are. The longer this war goes, the longer the economic impact will be. But as of the latest figures, we've got 44 days of petrol, 33 days of diesel and 30 days of jet fuel. But that's continually being redone, of course. There's 58 ships on the water on the way to Australia and my concentration is that, because I think that is precisely where most Australians want to be.

PETERSON: So, no gas tax?

PRIME MINISTER: What we're concentrating on here is on supply of fuel, and anything we do in policy terms would always honour existing contracts. That is something that is essential for the way that you do business, the way that Australians do business. When we give our word, we stick to it. And that security is really important. I'll welcome the Prime Minister of Japan, Prime Minister Takaichi, on her first visit to Australia as PM. I'll welcome her on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday of next week. That relationship with North Asia, with Japan and Korea, but also in our region, of course - I've visited in recent weeks Singapore, Brunei and Malaysia - they're important for getting that fuel security here, which is vulnerable around the world because of the impact of the conflict in the Middle East.

PETERSON: So, the Liberals want to double our fuel reserves. Politics to one side, this crisis has it not shown up our deficiencies at the moment? Prime Minister, are you looking to double our fuel reserves?

PRIME MINISTER: Well, this bloke, give Angus Taylor some credit for irony here. This is a guy who, on their watch, four out of our six refineries closed, and his fuel reserves he had in Texas. Now we brought them back into Australia. We had at the beginning of this conflict the biggest, most amount of fuel here in our reserves in 15 years. And we've been dealing with this global crisis while they've had nothing but criticism. Angus Taylor was out there saying I shouldn't have visited Singapore and talked to our suppliers in Brunei and Malaysia. And I don't know what he thinks of our engagement with China and Korea and Japan, but we're engaged with them as well. We've talked with Premier Li about getting further jet fuel from China. This is how you do business. And so it's all right for them to have what's a completely under costed thought bubble in the lead up to the Farrer by-election, I think is what that's aimed at.

PETERSON: But doesn't he have a point about the need for more robust reserves, Prime Minister? These conflicts are showing up -

PRIME MINISTER: Of course he does. Why didn't he do it? Why didn't he do it?

PETERSON: But are you looking to double it?

PRIME MINISTER: If only he was in a position - well, you'll see, what we're doing right now is making a difference. As I said, we have brought back the reserves onto Australian soil. We have ensured that the two refineries that we inherited from the former government, there were six in 2013, two in 2022. We've made sure that Ampol and Viva have a future going forward with the security of arrangements that we've put in place there. And we'll continue to put in place practical measures to enhance our fuel security. That is important.

PETERSON: How vulnerable are we to these price shocks? Because particularly here in WA, as you know, we are isolated, we're remote, we're very trade reliant, and we probably feel it more than most Australians, whether it's cargo, airfares, trade routes, WA is more exposed than anywhere else in the nation. What are your current forecasts for the damage this is going to do to the economy? Because we'll have inflation figures tomorrow. How worried are you, Prime Minister?

PRIME MINISTER: The inflation figures we expect will be higher tomorrow because of the impact on fuel. We're not immune from what happens in the globe, and that's why we need to be more resilient. That's what the whole Future Made in Australia agenda is about, that we're working hand in hand with the Cook Government here in WA, which has of course, a Future Made in WA agenda. They're in sync, those two strategies to make sure that we're less vulnerable to global shocks, whether it be a pandemic, whether it be an international conflict, or whether it be a cyber attack. We need to make sure that Australia as an island continent, located where we are, that we're more able to be self reliant. And part of that is of course, the issue of fuel security. And that's one of the issues that we're dealing with, but certainly not the only one. We have a number of advantages as well, including here in WA, of course, the critical minerals, rare earths that are here. The fact that you have the resources that have powered Australia not just in the last decades of this century and last century, but the future decades ahead as well. You have them in an abundance, which is why WA is so important for our national economy, and why I spend so much time here.

PETERSON: Then now, though, we've got whale shark tour businesses, for example, in Exmouth, which have got hundreds of thousands of dollars of forward bookings now cancelled. How are they going to survive? Farmers, fertiliser, wheat, barley, crops need to be sown. What confidence can you give them in continuing to be able to do their business?

PRIME MINISTER: We delivered 250,000 tonnes of additional fertiliser from Indonesia. I thank President Prabowo for that. That was a direct intervention. It's a direct relationship result of the relationship that we have. When you are trusted as a partner, that's how you can get things done in the national interest. And that's what I've done. That's what we've been able to achieve in other countries in our region. You have compulsory public holidays, you have all sorts of disruption occurring. At this point in time, that hasn't occurred. Now, we know that the fuel is on its way through May into June, that that has happened. If the war keeps going though, the truth is that there is vulnerability and uncertainty there, because that's the volatile world that we live in, and we're not immune from those impacts. But what we can do is, whilst the future down the track is uncertain, many months away, what we can be certain of is that we're doing everything we can to make sure that Australia is protected from the worst impacts of this global conflict.

PETERSON: We have asked you what you want to ask the Prime Minister today. How do you answer this one from Kane: 'why shouldn't young people just give up? We'll never catch up.'

PRIME MINISTER: Oh, the young people - we want to make sure that they get a fair crack. And that's what we're looking at across the board. Whether it be the 800,000 people who've got Free TAFE, the three million Australians who got an average of $5,500 cut from their student debt, the more than 200,000 Australians who've been able to get into home ownership through the five per cent deposit scheme, whether it be the school funding that we've got, began this year, the old Gonski funding, making sure that every public school gets properly funded. And WA was the first state to sign up to those funding agreements. More people are going to university today than ever before. And indeed, in terms of school completion rates up to Year 12, they've actually gone up for the last two years. They were in decline, people completing Year 12 for previous years, so -

PETERSON: So, Kane should be optimistic?

PRIME MINISTER: You should be optimistic. There's nowhere you'd rather be than Australia. If you look at the energy sources that will power the globe this century, we have them in abundance. The best solar resources in the world. We have these critical minerals, rare earths. We have huge opportunities going forward. We have in our human capital, if you like, our people and population. The fact that we've brought people who are connected up with different parts of the world, gives us an advantage as well when we talk about us as a trading nation. And just to our north is the fastest growing region of the world in human history, that represents opportunity for Australia. So, I am very optimistic.

PETERSON: All right. You just want to put those headphones on for a moment. I'd like to bring in Casey, who's just phoned in from High Wycombe, and has a question for the Prime Minister. Good afternoon.

PRIME MINISTER: Hey, Casey.

CASEY, CALLER: Hi. How are you?

PRIME MINISTER: I'm very well.

CASEY: Hi. We would be well as well, but me and my kids have been living in a tent. We can't get housing because of too many immigrants. We can't get food hampers because there's no funding for the Australian people. There's more than 20 immigrants going for one house. I'm a single mother with kids. They're going to choose someone that has four people over me. We don't have a chance anymore. Like, I get emails. I've emailed you but you haven't replied. But we're getting emails to say that they can't help us because there's no funding for Australians, only immigrants.

PRIME MINISTER: That is a tough story to hear and I feel for you. You're clearly someone who's doing it tough and I know what it's like to grow up in a family with just a single mum. And I'm sure that you are giving your kids love and affection, every care that you can. We have put in record funding for public housing through our Housing Australia Future Fund. We have more than $43 billion program in housing aimed at assisting people like yourself get into affordable housing. We can't solve that overnight, but we are doing that. We also have record funding for organisations like Foodbank and others who are delivering support for people in need. And I assure you that there's not a, there's no advantage for immigrants, as you put it, that that's just not the case.

PETERSON: But on that suggestion, though, that Casey feels that immigration is playing a role here in the housing pressure, Prime Minister, that's a feeling gaining ground. I mean, you look at the boom in support for One Nation.

PRIME MINISTER: Yes, and some of that is about misinformation, which is there. One of the issues with housing and with the construction sector is that we do need people with skills to build homes as well. Now, we have halved immigration just about. It's down by 40 per cent in where it peaked. We're making sure as well that we concentrate on their skills that people need in order to make a difference. But we are dealing with housing supply. It is a challenge, because for a while the former Federal Government didn't even have a Housing Minister for most of the time they were in office.

PETERSON: But wherever you go around Australia and whatever you hear on the talk back lines here at the ABC, there's a belief that the Australian dream of ownership, it's no longer achievable, Prime Minister.

PRIME MINISTER: We want to make it achievable. That's why more than 200,000 people have benefited from five per cent deposits to have that home ownership. But it's not just that. We, for private rentals, we have our Build to Rent scheme. We have our shared equity scheme, which is based upon the WA model, Help to Buy, that was held up by the Senate for so long. And the Senate held up through the Liberals and The Greens, both voting against our Housing Australia Future Fund for two years until we could get it through. But that Fund is now in place and that fund is building public housing so that people in need can get into housing here in WA and right around the country.

PETERSON: Finally, Prime Minister, are you ruling out any changes to negative gearing and capital gains in your Budget in two weeks?

PRIME MINISTER: We'll have a Budget on May 12th. And one of the things that we'll be doing is making sure that we address issues like intergenerational equity. The call that we just had, people feeling like they can't get a fair crack. Now, we'll look at the whole of the housing sector, how we can help people to get into housing, and that includes the way that the housing sector operates across the board.

PETERSON: Prime Minister, good to see you. Thanks for your time.

PRIME MINISTER: Good on you, Oli.