JACQUELINE MALEY, HOST: PM, are you ready?
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Hang on one tick, are we ready?
MALEY: From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, this is Inside Politics from Please Explain. I'm Jacqueline Maley, its Friday June 30. This week we bring you a very special episode of Inside Politics, our guest this week is Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese. Chief political correspondent David Crowe and I chat to the PM about the nature of power and how it feels to wield it. We also ask him about the economy, the Voice, and Taylor Swift tickets. And he reveals that he didn't meet a single Liberal voter until he went to university. We hope you enjoy this very special edition of Inside Politics. Welcome to the podcast, Prime Minister. It is such an enormous pleasure to have you on Inside Politics.
PRIME MINISTER: Good to be here, welcome to my office.
MALEY: Well, it's very comfortable and commodious, thank you. Now I want to start with something a bit different, I want to take you back to the Canterbury Hurlstone Park RSL in May last year. I was there, you were there, quite famously that was the night of your election victory.
PENNY WONG: Australians chose hope, and the man who embodies that hope is my friend, our leader, Anthony Albanese.
MALEY: The room's packed, the crowd's going wild for you, you gave your election victory speech, and I remember watching you after you finished. You tried to come down off the stage and you tried to walk through the crowd to go and see your friends who were there and you couldn't move. All of a sudden, you know, the office of Prime Minister just descended upon you. There's police, there's cameramen, there's journalists, everyone's swarming you. And I remember watching you and thinking, 'Wow, you know, the weight of the office happens quickly when it happens'. I want to ask you what that moment was like for you? And did you feel that weight on your shoulders all of a sudden? How did it feel?
PRIME MINISTER: It was an extraordinary moment. I actually go back a little bit further, which is when I came out of my house from watching the election night coverage play out. And I got the phone call from Mr. Morrison and we went through that. I took that away from my family and friends, we only had eight people there in the house, and I said 'it's done'. And there was this moment of, 'Okay, it's happened, I'm now the Prime Minister'. And I went outside, I didn't expect, there were hundreds of people in the street, which is a pretty ordinary suburban street in Marrickville. And there was this moment which was, 'Okay, it's really happening'. But it was very daunting, but I didn't have that much time to think about it. I had not prepared my speech in advance so we had to literally, I dictated the speech to someone sitting on the floor of the lounge room, Katie typed it all in, she printed it out, and then I made one then read through and check, but some of it as well on the night was spontaneous.
PRIME MINISTER: I begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet. I pay my respect to their elders past, present and emerging. And on behalf of the Australian Labor Party I commit to the Uluru Statement from the Heart in full.
MALEY: What was your dominant emotion when you were giving that speech?
PRIME MINISTER: Pride.
PRIME MINISTER: My Labor team will work every day to bring Australians together.
PRIME MINISTER: That Labor had won, we'd succeeded in winning the election.
PRIME MINISTER: We'll work every day to bring Australians together. And I will lead a government worthy of the people of Australia. A government as courageous and hardworking and caring as the Australian people are themselves.
PRIME MINISTER: But it was also a sense of relief. I genuinely thought that the Morrison Government wasn't worthy of re-election. And I thought it would descend into even worse condition afterwards if they were successful again.
PRIME MINISTER: The Australian people have voted for change. I am humbled by this victory and I am honoured to be given this opportunity to serve as the 31st Prime Minister of Australia.
PRIME MINISTER: So it was a sense of relief, but also that sense of opportunity. That now we had a chance to really make a difference, to implement the agenda that we put forward.
CROWE: So Jackie's question really has highlighted the fact that all of a sudden, you've got immense power. What's the best thing about having that power as Prime Minister now?
PRIME MINISTER: Power is defined by its use. So using it judiciously, not overusing it for its own sake. Using it in the interests of the objectives that you want to achieve. So already we have turned around Australia's positioning on climate change. We've gone from being a pariah in the naughty corner with two or three countries saying no to actually engaging with our neighbours, but also engaging with the economic opportunities that are there from the transition to the clean energy economy.
CROWE: And so if those are the pluses, what are the minuses? At a personal level, what's the downside or the worst thing of having that power?
PRIME MINISTER: The lack of freedom, the not being able to just drop into the pub by yourself and catch up with someone. Time is the biggest shortage. The demands on my time are quite extraordinary, the pressures that are there as well. But that's a small price to pay for the incredible privilege that I've been given. It's not something that I take for granted.
MALEY: Still on the question of power, do you find that now that you've got this power, great power, that people tell you what you want to hear more than they did before? And how do you guard against that?
PRIME MINISTER: No, I don't find that that's the case. And I think that one of the advantages that the government has is we were the most experienced incoming Labor government in history, since Federation. So people who were familiar with each other, comfortable with each other. And I've learnt over a period of time how to chair a meeting to get the best out of the group. And that means sometimes holding back on your views, listening to what people have to say before you come in. Because when you're the Prime Minister or the Leader of the Opposition, you can from time-to-time have undue influence, and you want people to put forward views honestly and clearly to you. And I've always surrounded myself with people, whether it be in the Cabinet, in key positions, all of the key people are quite happy to put forward their views to me. But also in my own office there are people here who started work with me, Tim Gartrell, my Chief of Staff, started working with me in 1996. There are a number of people who I went to university with, who are comfortable with saying exactly what their views are and that is what I want.
CROWE: The death of Simon Crean, I think makes it natural to reflect on the way in which politics is practised, the way in which it's important to win but also to keep personal integrity in the manner in which it's conducted. What do you think of the lessons from the way in which Simon Crean conducted himself as a leader?
PRIME MINISTER: The lesson is that if you have the integrity that Simon Crean had, tragically, at the end of a life that was cut short he has respect across the board. And you've seen that outpouring of grief and genuine emotion as a result of that respect about who he is and the sort of person he was. The other thing is that Simon was justifiably, of course, disappointed in not leading Labor to an election in 2003. He got up, dusted himself off, kept going. Looking forward, being positive, understanding that politics is a difficult business.
CROWE: Because politics can mess with people's brains when they lose power cant it? You've seen that.
PRIME MINISTER: Absolutely, I've seen it. And the person who replaced him as leader, in Mark Latham is, I think, tragically an example of that. Someone who's a much more diminished figure than he was at that time in 2003 - 2004. And I think that's really unfortunate. Simon Crean is someone who, you know, I stood in a ballot for deputy leader of the Labor Party, not once was there any rancour. He accepted that outcome, he was disappointed by that, but he can't have been more supportive of my position when I became Labor leader. And he was someone who was always willing to offer advice and to pass on the wisdom that comes with experience.
MALEY: PM, Simon Crean famously argued against the invasion of Iraq in 2003, but he was very much pro the United States alliance. You also spoke out against the war in 2003. Now two decades later you've committed Australia to AUKUS. So the obvious question now is would you speak out against US military action, if it was in our national interest?
PRIME MINISTER: Absolutely. Australia must always stand up for our national interest. And the other thing is that being a friend and ally, which Australia is of the United States, means not just going along and being subservient. It means actually telling the United States where you think it's made a position that you disagree with. An example is that at the moment is that on Julian Assange. I've made very clear that I have a different position from the United States, I've advocated that and will continue to do so.
CROWE: So, let's talk about the purpose of power and what you seek to do now that you have it, starting with the economy. I thought I'd ask you about something Kevin Rudd famously said in 2007, that he was an economic conservative. How would you describe yourself?
PRIME MINISTER: I think I am someone who believes in economic growth, I believe in market forces, but I don't believe in them being allowed to just let rip. I think there are times where you need intervention into the economy in order to address market failure and to address equity issues in particular. And an example at the moment is in the energy sector where you have had an intervention that we couldn't have anticipated. Because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine you had this massive spike, so we put a cap on prices between us and state governments on gas and coal prices. Now, that's not something that we anticipated we would do upon coming into government, but you need to be prepared to use the power of the state to intervene in the interest of the nation.
CROWE: And so we're in a slump at the moment, or an economic slowdown at the moment that's got everybody concerned about how to actually lift ourselves out of that. The Reserve Bank Governor, Phillip Lowe is talking about the need for higher productivity. That's something Labor's talked about before, that Kevin Rudd talked about in 2007. What is your plan to increase growth through increasing productivity?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, it's a multi-faceted plan. It's looking at the nature of the workforce, there's low hanging fruit in some areas - women's workforce participation. Our childcare plan is a plan for boosting productivity through workforce participation and population. The three P's of growth are there, and that is something that we're very much aimed at. And indeed, the figures show already that the policy being projected and being put in place is already having an impact with not just more women in the workforce than ever before, but overwhelmingly that being channelled towards full time jobs - doing things better, more efficiently. During the campaign I said that we needed an economy that works for people, not the other way around. And that's very much my philosophy, and that goes straight to the productivity agenda.
MALEY: Just quickly on young Albo, Sydney University Albo in the Economics Department during a pretty torrid time in the economics department of Sydney University. It was an era of fairly hard left ideas, and you were in the Labor Left before the fall of the Berlin Wall. What was the event that, sort of, changed your thinking about the market economy and big interventionist government policy from those radical ideas to what you are now?
PRIME MINISTER: I always, I studied the full spectrum of economics at Sydney Uni. I did, there were two streams, I did both of them. I did the economics, what would be seen as the conservative stream under people like Peter Groenewegen and Warren Hogan, the adviser to the Howard Government. As well as the progressive stream, political economy stream under people like Ted Wheelwright and Frank Stilwell. I read everything, I was a great reader and I believed in reading all of the classics right across the spectrum from Keynes and Schumpeter, and to Friedman, and others on the conservative stream. So I think that markets can be a democratic forum as well of expression, and they can be a great allocator of resources, and so I've always had that view. I remember speaking at a forum in Newtown, it was very much a broad left forum and saying what was regarded as heresy, that markets were a democratic form of expression, because I believed that they are. If you want to determine what the best chocolate bar is, the market will tell you. You won't get that by just talking to two - 'what's selling the best'? Tim Tams are good biscuits because people buy them, that's the market in operation, and then resources are allocated to it. But I've also always believed that there's a role for government, there's a role for the state in providing people with opportunity and making sure that people don't get left behind. So from my own experience, my lived experience growing up with a single mum who had access to a pension because of decisions that were made by the Whitlam Government. That had a house because the city council was controlled by the Labor Party that believed in public housing, and so there was substantial amount of housing around there. She was quite ill, and I saw the difference that good health care made to her. So I see that, on election night I spoke about the Labor Party's job as being about just widening the doors of opportunity further for people be uplifted. And I see that as about not just helping individuals, I think greater equity, and people being able to participate fully in society benefits the whole of the society.
CROWE: People often mellow over time, and I'm not sure whether it's right to describe you as a radical in younger years in the Labor Left. Would you have described yourself as a radical back then? Have you become less radical? Is there a point in time or an event in history that made you less radical?
PRIME MINISTER: I think certainly in the way that I conduct my politics, I am much more moderate in the way that I engage with people. When I grew up, I don't think I'd met, I've said this before, I don't think I met anyone who certainly admitted to voting Liberal. You were, the council housing estate, were all Catholics because a lot of Catholics worked for the council, they all voted Labor, and they supported rugby league on Saturday. And that was the culture that I grew up in. And I hadn't met, it was quite a culture shock for me going into Sydney University with people wearing their, you know, old school ties with mugs tied to them around their neck, having a drink from what school they were from. We, the school I went to –
CROWE: So you were a total outsider?
PRIME MINISTER: Absolutely. There was, no one from my actual class went to Sydney Uni. So when I walked into economics at Sydney Uni I didn't know anyone in my class and that was quite a culture shock. But it also opened up things for me as well, in terms of that people are just people, and you can be a wealthy person or someone who's really struggling and still have the same values, still have decent values. So I tell the story in my book, written by Karen Middleton, about a friend of mine, Mark Jones, who his father was at the time the Mayor of Hunters Hill, so probably not a card carrying socialist. And I went to his house, and he was at my place one night having dinner and I was cutting up my mum's food because she couldn't use a knife or fork with her hands crippled up with arthritis. And he said to me afterwards, he was like, 'how long has that been the case?' And I was like, 'What?' Because to me that was just the way that it was, I'd grown up that way. And his mum worked for Dr. David Champion, who was a specialist orthopaedic surgeon specialising in rheumatology, and he organised through his mum an appointment for my mum to go see him, and that changed her life. He reconstructed her hands, her feet, put metal joints in, long, long operations. But it meant that for my mum who died when she was 65, she was fitter and more mobile and healthier when she was 60 than when she was 40. Now, that's a little bit of a story about class, too. She just didn't have access, didn't have anyone around to know how to navigate the health system through to get the right care that she needed. But instantly, someone from a different world, a world that I now inhabit, was able to get that. And so I think as you get older in life, I now have a very broad range of friends including some very successful people in the business community, as well as leaders of the trade union movement. I think in this position that I hold now, it's important that I engage with people and I think that that strengthens my capacity to understand where people are coming from. And I think that is one thing that you get as you get older, the capacity to put yourself in someone else's shoes, not necessarily to agree with them, but to say, 'Well, I get that perspective of where they're coming from, and I respect it'.
MALEY: Let's talk quickly about the Voice, because we know that it is your passion. It's now at a pivotal stage, it's leaving parliament, it's going to the people. And there's been a lot of talk about the polling and the decrease in support generally, but we want to talk about the purpose of the Voice. Just very quickly, there's been many organisations that have been set up for First Nations people to try to help them. Why would this one be any better?
PRIME MINISTER: That's why constitutional recognition is important, because bodies have come and gone, and because of that experience Indigenous Australians when they met at Uluru with the Constitutional Convention, said they wanted recognition, but they wanted one that was a particular form. They wanted a mechanism that wasn't just about the symbolism, which is important. But they wanted a voice to government to be able to advance their interests. And I think a national voice that was elected by Indigenous people themselves, that would be able to advocate on their behalf in order to close the gap which is there. Eight year life expectancy, gap in infant mortality, health outcomes, incarceration rates that mean that a young Indigenous male is more likely to go to jail than university. We need to do better than that. And the fact that there will be a referendum and Australians, I hope vote Yes, in that referendum means that that Yes vote will in itself, I think, lift up Indigenous people. It will say to them that they are respected. But it will also give weight, I think, to the country. I think that Australians will wake up the day after and feel that the greatest country on Earth just got a little bit greater.
CROWE: The referendum can go either way. Do you think it's so important that the Voice is set up that regardless of the outcome of the referendum, it's important to actually legislate a Voice so that it exists, even if it's not enshrined in the Constitution?
PRIME MINISTER: Well of course, the former government had the opportunity to do that, and they didn't. Now Indigenous people have asked for this. This isn't something that is a government idea and I have faith in the Australian people. I think that when people focus on what this is about, about listening, and about consultation, and also about recognition, then they will vote Yes.
CROWE: Does a No vote then mean that you can't really legislate a Voice anyway because that will be going against the outcome?
PRIME MINISTER: I'm not going to get into the hypotheticals. I'm focused on a referendum, that votes Yes, that puts this change in place. And one of the things that will, of course, then happen is that there will be legislation. And when that occurs, I want to get as much consensus as possible across the parliament so that there's very broad agreement about how it will operate. I think it will be like the Apology to Stolen Generations. That was resisted, there were a range of arguments put about what the consequences of the Apology would be, none of which were true, none of the negatives were there, it was an uplifting moment for the nation. And this will be even more so because this will be something that the nation will own.
MALEY: We've seen increasingly shrill rhetoric around the debate on the Voice and we're seeing misinformation creeping into that debate. Does that personally upset you or distress you or anger you?
PRIME MINISTER: I do find it really disappointing, is the word that I would use –
MALEY: Does it made you mad though?
PRIME MINISTER: I think it's important that I don't engage in that way because I don't think that's going to be helpful.
CROWE: Do you have to hold yourself back?
MALEY: Do you swear and curse in private?
PRIME MINISTER: No, I just think that for some of the arguments that have been put forward, which people know when they're saying it isn't true. The idea that the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice is going to sit around and go, 'Okay, where should the next base be for defending Australia?' The people putting that forward know that that's not the case. And the people saying it might advise the Reserve Bank of Australia know that they're in a position of power, the people who I've heard use that argument, and they can't advise the Reserve Bank of Australia, let alone any group outside of this process. I think that this is a very gracious and generous request. This is the equivalent of walking into a room and putting out your hand to shake someone's, which is the Australian tradition. A hand of friendship and saying, 'Good to see you, can we discuss some issues?' And I think that that hand should be grasped. That is the way that I see this process. And I sincerely hope that Australians do.
MALEY: We're almost out of time, we just need to go to the most important topic of today's podcast, Taylor Swift tickets. Now, have you secured them? And did you jump the queue because that's un-Australian behaviour.
PRIME MINISTER: I haven't secured them. I won't commit to not making a call to get Taylor Swift tickets.
MALEY: This is the real scoop, right here.
PRIME MINISTER: This is it. The thing about Taylor Swift is I think that she is a great role model. 'Shake It Off' is a feminist anthem, and her later material like Folklore and Evermore are just fantastic albums, she is a great songwriter.
CROWE: So just one call isn't going to be enough?
MALEY: I want to know who's at the end of this call, is it Taylor herself?
PRIME MINISTER: I shouldn't say, should I. But I'm sure that I may well be able to get a ticket.
CROWE: There are some benefits to power after all.
MALEY: It has been an absolute pleasure to have you on our podcast. We will see you at the Taylor Swift concert. You'll be in better seats than us but hopefully you'll give us a wave from the top table there. We really enjoyed having you, thank you so much.
PRIME MINISTER: Terrific, thanks guys.