STEVE AUSTIN, HOST: And look what came in with the cows. The Prime Minister of Australia, Anthony Albanese.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Thank you very much. Great to be here, Steve, although I'm not sure about the introduction.
STEVE AUSTIN: Have you been here before?
PRIME MINISTER: I have been here before. I've been here a few times now and I intend to come every year. It's such a good feel. So, the good thing about it being a public holiday is it pops up on your electronic diary, so I slot in straight away, Brisbane, and it's such a good feel around here. I've met the people as well who are producing the strawberries and the pineapple and the wool and –
STEVE AUSTIN: Have you eaten anything yet?
PRIME MINISTER: I've had to have a strawberry sundae. I was embarrassed. I broke the rule, which is no politician should be filmed while they're eating. It never looks good, but we'll see how they –
STEVE AUSTIN: At least you didn't eat an onion.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, that was just weird. That's a whole different category there. But the strawberry sundae, I've got to say was fantastic. I've had some honey. I've had a little bit of banana and I've had a pineapple juice, so all good.
STEVE AUSTIN: Now, I know you're a controlled man, you don't control your own diary, but tell your diary organiser to say, 12 o'clock upstairs at the Royal Queensland Steakhouse because you get to eat the blue ribbon beef and lamb and barramundi, all the good stuff.
PRIME MINISTER: Now you're just teasing me, Steve.
STEVE AUSTIN: Correct, correct.
PRIME MINISTER: When you said that to me while the news headlines were coming out there, I immediately regretted the fact that I'll be going to have a look at a battery for solar that's been put up on a home here in Brisbane, one of more than 5,000 homes that have installed batteries to permanently reduce their power bills and take pressure off the grid.
STEVE AUSTIN: Well, I want to ask you about some matters that come, arising from the Reserve Bank announcement yesterday. I watched the whole media conference with Michelle Bullock and she was very subdued. Let me ask you, Prime Minister, why is the Australian economy so anaemic?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I'm not as subdued as an RBA governor, I must say. I'm pretty optimistic. Look, when we came to government, inflation had a six in front of it. It's now at 2.1. Unemployment is relatively low at 4.3. We've got real wages increasing and now we have had, because of the hard work that Australians have done to get inflation down, we've actually got three interest rate decreases this year. So, that means real dollars in people's pockets who have a mortgage, and is a really positive thing. And I think yesterday at 2:30pm there would've been a whole lot of cheers go out in workplaces right around Australia.
STEVE AUSTIN: Yet productivity improvement is slowing down, not speeding up, Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER: Productivity has been flat now for more than two decades. That's why we're getting together next week. Business, unions, civil society, we need to do better on productivity. And there are ways of doing that of course, and one of the things that we'll be examining next week is things like regulation. Are they appropriate? How do we speed up planning approvals? How do we make sure that we boost that productivity growth?
STEVE AUSTIN: Why is employment growth mainly in the government or government-financed sector, not in the private sector?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, that's not right.
STEVE AUSTIN: You're squeezing – well, it is right.
PRIME MINISTER: It's not right.
STEVE AUSTIN: You're squeezing out private sector jobs.
PRIME MINISTER: That's not right. A majority of jobs that have been created have, of course, been in the private sector. Government is playing a role going through difficult times. We make no apologies. I was –
STEVE AUSTIN: That's not what the private sector says.
PRIME MINISTER: I was at a home in Melbourne yesterday, where 45 new homes are being built through our Housing Australia Future Fund. Yes, the private sector is building it. Yes, the Government is funding that, but it's private sector jobs being created and making an enormous difference to people. We went through a really tough period. We had COVID and then we had the biggest global inflation spike that we had seen for decades.
STEVE AUSTIN: The employment spike has been in things like NDIS and aged care. That's been where the job boom has been. It's not –
PRIME MINISTER: Well, aged care, we have an ageing population. We make no apologies for delivering, for example, the 99 per cent of the time there is now a nurse back in a nursing home. It was outrageous. The system was in crisis. What we've done is ensure that aged care workers are being paid more and that there's more of them looking after our older Australians.
STEVE AUSTIN: I want to make sure I understand you clearly then, Prime Minister. You don't think that government supported industries or direct government jobs are squeezing out the private sector at all?
PRIME MINISTER: No, I don't. I think that government's role is to facilitate private sector growth. That is what we are doing through things like the clean energy jobs that we are creating. So, after I go here, going to have a look at the batteries which are receiving a 30 per cent subsidy, yes, from the Government, but those jobs are all in the private sector, whether it be the production of the batteries, the installing on people's roofs as well are all private sector jobs.
STEVE AUSTIN: Let me ask you about an established industry here in Australia. Copper smelting, the Mount Isa of copper smelter, owned by a Swiss commodities trader, Glencore, they've already shut down a copper mine. This is the last copper smelter of its kind. It looks like it's going to go into what's called care and maintenance in September. That's basically mothballed. It'll simply mean that China has done to the copper industry globally what they did to the nickel industry 10 years ago, which did over Australia, and we're about to be done over again in copper unless you have a plan for copper and copper smelting for things like Mount Isa and the wider industry here.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we're working with Bob Katter, the local member who's very passionate of course about Mount Isa, but we're also working with the Crisafulli government. I've spoken with David very directly about what is needed there. I visited Mount Isa as well earlier this year. I was there last year as well. I've been a regular visitor there as Prime Minister, I think I've been back there three times over the last four years.
STEVE AUSTIN: Have you got a plan? Are you going to give them bridging finance? You gonna buy a stake in the project?
PRIME MINISTER: We are working on a plan to make sure that not only that industry survives as well, but Mount Isa thrives and we're working those issues through. Some of those issues of course are commercial. But Glencore of course, I've made this point in Parliament. Glencore are a very profitable company. They have made billions of dollars out of Australia and they have a responsibility to do more than just cut and run.
STEVE AUSTIN: They're not asking for a handout, apparently, they want some sort of bridging finance or agreement for a five to seven-year period for when the global copper price is going to come back up again to protect Australia from China dominating the global copper industry.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, there's no doubt that copper, along with the other resources we have under the ground, whether it be lithium, vanadium, nickel, all of these products, cobalt, will be vital for powering the world in this century. So, it is important that we keep these industries alive. It is important that we work these issues through and that's precisely what we're doing.
STEVE AUSTIN: When you went to China earlier this year and met Xi Jinping, you went with BHP, Rio Tinto and Fortescue. Did you raise copper with the Chinese administration?
PRIME MINISTER: The big round table that we had there was about green steel, but we certainly raised with the Chinese administration, our industries and the importance of our industries being able to thrive as well.
STEVE AUSTIN: Copper?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we raised our industries. We didn't – in a half hour meeting, a formal meeting as well as we had the informal meetings as well, we raised the full suite of issues and now our officials are constantly engaging, not just with China but right around the world.
STEVE AUSTIN: I'm here with Prime Minister of Australia, Anthony Albanese. This is 612 ABC Brisbane. Steve Austin's my name. I want to ask you, premier of Queensland, David Crisafulli, is apparently lobbying the leaders of the Quad group of nations to have the Quad held here in Brisbane, I think the next meeting in the near future. You regularly attend the Quad. Is that something the Federal Government would support?
PRIME MINISTER: Yeah, well there's four countries. The Quad is Australia, the United States, Japan and India. This year it's due to be hosted by India. One of the things that David has raised with me is Brisbane hosting a Quad leaders meeting. It's a big deal. It's not just the four leaders. It is thousands of people come and –
STEVE AUSTIN: I think we did the G20 back when Barack Obama was US president.
PRIME MINISTER: That's right, and I think it's really important that we showcase Brisbane to the world in the lead up to the 2032 Olympics. I support Brisbane hosting the Quad. I've said that to David. We have a good working relationship and I think that it's important that we take every opportunity to showcase this great city before what will be the biggest event that Brisbane has ever held, the 2032 Olympics, which I'm sure will be a great success.
STEVE AUSTIN: I'm taking that as David Crisafulli and you are on the same page when it comes to the Quad.
PRIME MINISTER: We are indeed absolutely on the same page. And I want to promote Queensland. Queensland is such an important state and it also – it's an opportunity for us, too, if the Quad meeting is held, what I think I'd like to see as well is for us to have some regional engagement in the lead up. Take advantage of the fact that the world's media would be here to showcase all that Queensland has to offer, particularly in the regional communities and the Sunny Coast, Central Queensland and of course the Great Barrier Reef.
STEVE AUSTIN: I want to ask you about tobacco and the illegal tobacco market. It looks like the Federal Government is losing about $10 billion a year in expected tobacco taxes because the illegal market is now a booming black market. Have you set the tax rate of legitimate tobacco or cigarettes too high and thus created a black market incentive, Prime Minister?
PRIME MINISTER: It's a rather bizarre argument that says that it's okay for people to act illegally and break the law because of a financial measure.
STEVE AUSTIN: No one's saying it's okay, it's just happening –
PRIME MINISTER: What we need to do and what we are doing is clamping down. We have had record customs, seizures we need to prosecute and those people need to face the full force of the law who are breaking the law.
STEVE AUSTIN: I have to let you go. I have one final question. Is that your hat?
PRIME MINISTER: It is absolutely my hat. I've had it for quite a while. I've got a –
STEVE AUSTIN: It's a legitimate Albanese hat. It's an Albanese hat.
PRIME MINISTER: It is, absolutely. It's ageing a bit these days. I do have some bigger ones that have been given to me in North Queensland –
STEVE AUSTIN: By Bob Katter?
PRIME MINISTER: Including by Bob Katter. I went to the Mount Isa rodeo and I've got to say a couple of the hats that they gave me up there are real doozies, much higher, about twice as high as this hat is.
STEVE AUSTIN: I'll let you go, try and get upstairs and have some decent beef, but thanks for coming along.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, now you're just really rubbing it. In fact, now that I've told you I have to depart, but next time I will plan it much better.
STEVE AUSTIN: I'll eat your steak. Thanks very much for coming.
PRIME MINISTER: Enjoy it. Medium rare mate.
STEVE AUSTIN: Done
PRIME MINISTER: With a little bit of mustard and you got to have a bit of onions or mushroom sauce, if they do sauce.
STEVE AUSTIN: Well, ditch your team and come on up and have lunch with us.
PRIME MINISTER: Thanks mate.