Radio Interview - Hit 99.7 Riverina MIA

Transcript
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese
Prime Minister

MATT ANDERSON, HOST: We are live at the brand new Griffith Regional Sports Centre, and I'm very privileged right now to be joined by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. How are you?

ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: I'm very well. What a great day it is here.

ANDERSON: Yes, the weather held out very nicely. Was that your doing?

PRIME MINISTER: It did. Well, I'm taking a bit of the credit. Last time I tried to come to Griffith, I had to have two aborted landings, so we ended up landing in Canberra to refuel and came back when the Bush Summit was on. So this is my second visit to Griffith as Prime Minister and I'm told that I'm the only sitting Prime Minister to ever visit Griffith.

ANDERSON: There you go. You must have heard about the good food here or something like that.

PRIME MINISTER: The food here is fantastic. A mate of mine, Tony Catanzariti, who served in the Legislative Council, he just came along and gave me a beautiful homemade salami.

ANDERSON: Oh, good one.

PRIME MINISTER: And the food here in Griffith, of course, it's part of the food bowl of the nation.

ANDERSON: It is, a lot of food produced out here.

PRIME MINISTER: Indeed, and good Italian food as well.

ANDERSON: Good Italian food, of course. Now, what's the significance of such a great facility like this for our region?

PRIME MINISTER: This is a centre for the community. It will provide a space where young people can come and try different sports, learn about teamwork. They learn how to win and they learn how to lose. They learn the value of teamwork, but also it will be used for meetings and for other facilities. It will be a centre for the region as well. This is outstanding. There's certainly nothing like this in my electorate in Sydney, of this quality and this size. And it means that sporting teams around New South Wales and indeed around the nation, I think, will come to Griffith. It will generate economic activity and jobs. But it will also be just a real source of pride and bringing the community together.

ANDERSON: Yeah, it's fantastic to have such a great facility in our own backyard here.

PRIME MINISTER: We're seeing it too with the youngsters, in particular, are so excited. Whether it was the netballers or the athletics or people trying hockey or basketball. People are really excited to be here, and it's a great day and a great credit to the people of Griffith who have campaigned and talked about this as a vision for 20 years and today it's a reality.

ANDERSON: Yeah, fantastic. Look, we're so grateful that you've come out today. Now, if you were to try one of the sports on the brand new facility, Mr Albanese, what are you playing?

PRIME MINISTER: I've already done it, you missed the opportunity to see me very, very ordinarily try basketball and netball.

ANDERSON: Basketball, oh there we go.

PRIME MINISTER: And netball, I haven't had a shot at netball before, but I did score a point. It wasn't the first throw. But I did get there in the end.

ANDERSON: Yeah, there we go. Well, practice makes perfect.

PRIME MINISTER: I had a good little coach.

ANDERSON: Yeah, a good little coach, awesome. Well, Mr Albanese, thank you so much for joining us. Make sure you check out the new facility down here at the Griffith Regional Sports Centre, we're at West End. Thanks again, Mr Albanese.

PRIME MINISTER: Good to be with you and everyone. Big shout out to all those who have contributed to this fantastic achievement.