BERN YOUNG, HOST: If you could give the Bruce Highway a rating out of five, I wonder what it would be from your point of view. Have you driven it lately? Maybe you had a break over Christmas and New Year and drove part of it, a stretch of it. Currently, the Bruce Highway doesn't score even three stars out of five officially. The Federal Government today has announced a record $7.2 billion that they're prepared to spend, $9 billion in total so that it can get to this minimum rating of three stars.

SHANE DOHERTY, HOST: As you've heard, the Prime Minister's announced a massive $7.2 billion to fix the Bruce Highway. That's a 7.2 with nine zeros after it, for the entire 1,673 kilometres of highway from Brisbane to Cairns – or by my calculations, $4.3 million per kilometre. And I'm pleased to say the Prime Minister joins us on 4BC Summer Drive. Prime Minister, we know the what, can you tell us the when?

EMILY MAWSON, LABOR CANDIDATE FOR CAPRICORNIA: Well, thank you all for having us here again today. It's so great to be back here at the Urgent Care Clinic here in Rockhampton with the Prime Minister and with Senator Green. You know, the Urgent Care Clinic here delivers such crucial services to Rockhampton and takes much needed pressure off of our emergency systems.

ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Good morning everyone, and I look forward to being optimistic in 2025 about building Australia's future. We're here today for a very significant announcement. Before you hear from political representatives I want to introduce you to Wayne Sachs. Wayne Sachs is an Ambo who came to see me way back in 2009, in February 2009, in Parliament House to talk to me firsthand about his experience of attending accidents here on the Bruce Highway. Accidents which all too often resulted in fatalities or in serious injuries.

Queenslanders deserve a long term plan for essential infrastructure, and the Albanese Government is delivering that certainty as we build Australia’s future.

The Albanese Government will provide an additional $7.2 billion to upgrade and fix the Bruce Highway in Queensland, to bring it up to a minimum three-star safety rating.

This historic funding is the single largest investment ever into the Bruce Highway, and brings the Australian Government’s total outlay for the 1,673 km road to more than $17 billion.

ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Well, I do want to thank all of the volunteers and workers who've been showing us around this control centre here this morning who are doing extraordinary work. At the worst of times Australians show the best of their character, and we've seen that on full display here this morning. Whether they be local volunteers, whether they be professional firefighting services, or whether they be people who've come from interstate - Queensland, New South Wales, ACT, Tasmania, South Australia - in order to lend a helping hand.

The Albanese Labor Government is activating financial support for Victorians directly affected by bushfires burning in and around the Grampians National Park and Macedon Ranges – through the Disaster Recovery Allowance.

The Disaster Recovery Allowance provides up to 13 weeks of income support for workers and sole traders who have experienced loss of income as a result of recent bushfires in the Rural City of Ararat, Shire of Macedon Ranges, Shire of Northern Grampians and Shire of Southern Grampians.

LUKE GOSLING, MEMBER FOR SOLOMON: Good morning everyone, and welcome to beautiful Darwin, to the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, where it's just been an absolute pleasure to be taken through the new Cyclone Tracy exhibition. We're so thankful to have our Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, here with us in Darwin for this really special anniversary, the 50th anniversary of when Cyclone Tracy visited bad times, terror on this community, but in the aftermath of that, we rebuilt, and that's what we're also celebrating.

CONOR BYRNE, HOST: Your special guest this morning, spending his Christmas in the top end this year, your Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese. Prime Minister, good morning.

ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Good morning. Wonderful to be here for what's a really important commemoration of 50 years since Cyclone Tracy devastated this great city.

Honoured guests.

My fellow Australians.

Fifty years ago, children across Darwin went to bed dreaming of Santa Claus and Christmas and awoke to a nightmare.

The sound of torrential rain gave way to the screech of corrugated iron as sheets ripped from roofs hurtled through the sky and scraped across the ground at over 200 kilometres an hour.

Windows shattered.

Trees uprooted.

Cars upended.

Fibro walls torn clean away.

An entire city almost wiped off the map.