CHARLES CROUCHER, HOST: Well Boris Johnson, Ukraine, floods and a G20 showdown with Russia and China are all on the horizon. It's been a baptism of fire for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
SARAH ABO, HOST: And we are pleased to say he's found some time in his busy schedule to join us here on Today. Prime Minister, good morning to you.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Good morning.
SARAH ABO: Boris is out and it has been tumultuous. We're not going to see him gone, though, for another month. Is this good or bad news for Australia?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we don't comment on the internal affairs of our friends in the UK. I want to say to Boris Johnson, I wish him well in his personal future. Politics is a tough business, and what a reminder the events of last evening are. I met with Boris Johnson just a week ago, we had breakfast at the NATO summit. We talked about cooperation, we talked about the AUKUS deal between Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom, and now he's going, forced out by his own party. We will work with whoever the UK Conservative Party elect as the new Tory leader and therefore the new Prime Minister. Our relations are not relations between individuals, they're relations between peoples and our countries, and this is a difficult process for Boris personally, but I'm sure that the Australia/UK relationship will continue to thrive in the future.
CHARLES CROUCHER: We're looking at potential new prime ministers, Rishi Sunak, maybe Liz Truss. Do you have another Bunnies jersey for the replacement?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, there’s an endless supply of Bunnies jerseys and caps. There are no limits on our capacity to reach out. Liz Truss, I met with last week. I was on a forum with her at the NATO Summit, talking about international security and foreign relations. I was pleased to meet the Foreign Secretary. Whoever comes through this process we'll work with, I hope it's a quick process, because I think the idea that you have a couple of months where there's no-one in charge, no Prime Minister with authority, is not a great thing for the UK. But we'll allow them to have their own political processes.
SARAH ABO: Now PM, you've copped a little bit of criticism for being overseas during the flood crisis and you will be in Bali for the G20 in just a few days. ‘Airbus Albo’ is the name that's being bandied around. Should it stick?
PRIME MINISTER: Look, Peter Dutton, when he comes back from leave, should say which events I shouldn't have gone to. I didn't decide the election would be May 21, just a couple of days before the Quad leaders' meeting. Should I have not met President Biden, the Prime Minister of Japan and the Prime Minister of India? Should I have not gone to the NATO summit in Madrid? Should I have not repaired the relationship with France and advanced a trade deal between Australia and Europe that will create jobs and economic growth here in Australia? Or should I have said to Ukraine, "no, you're on your own, we don't want to express solidarity with President Zelenskyy when the Ukrainian people are showing such courage in the face of the brutal invasion by Russia? It's a cheap shot, frankly, and the Opposition need to be more mature in their response. To compare a visit to a war zone like Ukraine with a holiday in Hawaii, I think your viewers can draw that distinction.
CHARLES CROUCHER: Let’s look to your next trip and your next meeting because while they were all allies, the next meeting is Vladimir Putin. You said you would treat him with the contempt he deserves...
PRIME MINISTER: No, it's not, actually. The G20's later in the year, at the end of the year. Next week is the Pacific Islands Forum. We know that, during the recent times, the Solomons did a deal with China. That came as a shock to many Australians, and frankly, we dropped the ball when it comes to engagement in the Pacific. This is our backyard, the idea that we just sit back and don't respond, don't engage with the Pacific neighbours is, quite frankly, not in Australia’s national interest, and if Peter Dutton thinks that I should not attend the Pacific Island forum, as I said, when he comes back from leave, he should say so. I'm happy to have that discussion with him. But he can't send out these senior Shadow Ministers to make these absurd statements that they have made. I was in the flood zone on the morning after I returned. When I went to the NATO summit, and went to Ukraine, there was not the circumstances that were there, here in Greater Western Sydney and in the Hunter and the Illawarra that have occurred this week.
CHARLES CROUCHER: PM, let's talk about the pacific island forum then. Penny Wong is meeting her counterpart, her Chinese counterpart in Bali. Is this situation and the struggle between what is effectively the West and China playing out in the Pacific, is that salvageable?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we need to pick up our game in the Pacific, and Australia, the United States, New Zealand, have all acknowledged that. I will be meeting with Jacinda Ardern and her Ministers here in Sydney just this morning. We need to engage, I've spoken to all of the leaders of our Pacific Island friends. We've been the preferred security and economic partner for a long period of time with our neighbours in the Pacific. My government's changed position on climate change has been welcomed by all of these leaders. We need to continue to engage with them. We can't afford a circumstance whereby Australia is not the preferred security partner in our own region.
CHARLES CROUCHER: And just quickly before we go - petrol prices here in Australia back up well above $2. We know that temporary petrol relief is due to come off in the next few months. Any inclination that you would keep that on?
PRIME MINISTER: Oh look, we've inherited a trillion dollars of debt. And it was the former government that put in place the time-limited measure. We supported that at the time, in a bipartisan way. But you have to deal with the trillion dollars of debt which is there, and we will produce a budget in October that we'll be going line by line trying to repair the budget, to begin that process. That's important for people's standard of living in the medium and long-term that we begin that. People understand that that's the case. You can't continue to have the attitude that the former government did...
CHARLES CROUCHER: That's an attitude you supported at the time, though.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we supported the time-limited measure, but we didn't support the waste that was in the budget, and we will be cutting it out in our budget in October.
SARAH ABO: Prime Minister, thank you so much for your time this morning.