Q: As you’re aware, the Coalition is planning a whole lot of cuts. One of the things that it proposed was slashing the EV tax break. This is something that was designed by Treasury. It was meant to cost $55 million a year. It’s costing more than $500 million a year. That’s a shocking blow-out. And a lot of these very-well-fed, … lovely people in this room would probably be getting that tax break. So, what justification is there for such a generous tax bnreak to go to the well-healed, and will you pledge now to at least look at revising it?

Albanese:

One of the reasons why it costs more is that it’s been very successful. Is that more people are participating in it. And it was designed to support lowering our emissions by addressing a change which is occurring. We’re having – I was Transport Minister a long time ago, and I remember going to a conference in Tokyo, of all the big manufacturers and transport ministers around the world. At that time, 2008 I think it was – might have been 2009 – the manufacturers – whether it be Japanese, American, European – all were saying there wasn’t any research being done into an internal combustion engine vehicle. And what we’ve seen is Australia move beyond the sort of nonsense that the Coalition did of having – saying that you can’t – you know, you can’t have a ute, you can’t tow your boat, you can’t… all that nonsense. We do have a shift in technology when it comes to transport around the world. We were one of two nations – the other one being Russia – that didn’t have any fuel standards.

We’re the only ones. It meant we were only getting the really expensive vehicles. What’s happening now is that Australians are getting access to cheaper vehicles – that’s a good thing.

Q: Yes, but if your Medicare increase was not costing $8.5 billion but $85 billion, you would revise it, wouldn’t you?

Albanese:

Well, we have costed policies, and we are…

Q: Clearly not very well, when it comes to this one.

Albanese:

No – what’s happened, and what often does happen with technology, is that Australians are great uptakers of new technology. It’s actually one of the things that will lead us to success, is the fact that my government makes no apologies for being involved in things like the quantum issue and a whole lot of other issues. We need to shape it as we go forward. This is one of the ways that we have done that. And it is in place.

Q: My question is… ..why you have to exaggerate in this campaign. Why can’t you win this election by telling the truth?

Albanese:

We are absolutely telling Australians – as Peter Dutton did on Sunday night in the Channel Seven debate, to give them a free ad to match Channel Nine’s ad – that, when asked about Medicare, he said the reason why he tried to abolish bulk-billing and introduce a GP tax every time people visited the doctor was he wanted it to be sustainable. He belled the cat. That’s still his view. In saying that, just days ago, he was saying that Medicare is not sustainable. Sussan Ley has stood up in the parliament and spoken about the Liberal Party doesn’t value things which are free. Medicare’s free. Free TAFE. A whole lot of things are free that are important, that Australians value.

Q: So he’s going to abolish Medicare?

Albanese:

He tried to abolish bulk-billing. He tried. He tried, and then he tried, also, to introduce a tax – a payment – every time people visited a hospital: He tried to increase the costs of pharmaceuticals by $5. When he couldn’t get his way, he froze the Medicare rebate for six years. He ripped $50 billion out of hospitals. This is a matter of record. And Peter Dutton said that, if you want to look at future performance, look at past performance. Look at past performance. What I did on income taxes was to come here, front up, say, “I have changed our position.” Why? Because there are cost-of-living pressures on people, and it wasn’t sustainable to, on 1 July last year, to say that you and I get $9,000 and the people who’ve served this meal, the people who’ve cooked it out the back, the people who’ll clean up after us in this room when we leave, get a big duck egg. That is not the Labor way. I fronted up. I had the argument. I won the argument. And they voted for it.

The Labor people in the room give him applause for htis.

Q: I want to come back to Michelle’s point about revenue raising or lack of restraint to get the budget back out of the red. I know you’ve ruled out a lot of things, but it’s a pretty known secret around Canberra that Treasury wants to go after trusts – it’s something that Labor looked at back in 2019 and there is support in your ranks for it in the past. Is it something that you would look at after the election in terms of the tax treatment of trusts?

Albanese:

What we’re looking at is what we’re putting forward at this election campaign. We want Australians to get lower income taxes – that’s what we’re looking at. And we have a comprehensive plan that we’re putting to the Australian people.

Q: What about making money?

Albanese:

Well, what we have done, also – I mean, you’re speaking to – there’s a Finance Minister and Treasurer just here who, two days ago, put out our fully costed plan. Where is the Coalition’s? We are now just three sleeps away from the election date – but, importantly as well, many millions of Australians – 1 in 4 – have probably voted already. Already, either through postals or in pre-poll. And people have no idea about what their cuts are.

And Peter Dutton, in the debates that have been held, has actually said and quoted John Howard as an example that you can’t actually come forward – it was in the Channel Nine debate, where you were part of the panel – you chose wisely [in your question] at that time, he said, “Oh, well, you can’t do anything because you don’t know the state of the books.” I mean, if I had have stood here at the last election and just … said, “Oh, we won’t tell you what cuts we’ll make. We won’t tell you how things add up. Just trust us – we’ll tell you after the election.” ..I would have had an interesting and appropriate response, I reckon.

And Peter Dutton deserves the same.

Back to the question of defence reviews – does Australia need a refresh given the last one was before Donald Trump was back in power?

Albanese:

You don’t need a refresh to tell any Labor prime minister, the party of John Curtin, that we need to defend ourselves. I think it was a Labor prime minister who understood that the kowtowing to the UK, as it was then, wasn’t going to defend Australia. And I’m very proud to be part of the same party that defended Australia – importantly, turned to Curtin not with an election, because the existing UAP government – conservative government – toppled out of office because people thought they needed the national interest defended, and it was Labor who did it then, and it’s Labor that’ll do it now.

Well, that’s great and all – but are we going to see any of that? Because so far, courage in politics on defence policy has been pretty impossible to spot.

A new Freedom of Information decision shows the federal government is still reviewing salmon farming in Tasmania’s Macquarie Harbour. The Australia Institute led the work that triggered the review, along with two other organisations. Federal government scientists and the environment department find salmon farming is the primary threat to the Maugean skate and that it remains on the brink of extinction. Despite this, the government and opposition united to gut Australia’s environment laws to protect the salmon industry – not the skate – in the final week of Parliament.

The FOI decision, which refuses to release the department’s latest advice to the Minister, shows the department is making the right call by following due process and listening to the science, while the minister is playing politics. Refusing to release the documents is based on the decision being under active assessment. In other words, the minister – whoever that is after the election – will have to make a finding on the impacts of fish farming in Macquarie Harbour.

Either the department has it wrong, or the minister does, but they can’t have it both ways. If the Minister insists the reconsideration no longer has to be dealt with,  then they are improperly exempting the documents and should instruct the department to release them, before any more people cast a vote at this election.

The department’s advice has been saying for 18 months now that fish farming in Macquarie Harbour is the primary threat to the skate and should be more comprehensively assessed under national nature laws. The salmon industry has never been subjected to comprehensive environmental assessment, despite operating in a World Heritage harbour and threatening the extinction of a world heritage recognised species, the Maugean skate.

Q: Prime Minister, given the increasing demand for government services, and the softening of some aspects of the revenue base, will whoever is in government over the next 10 years have to take some action to increase the taxation base?

A very good question from Michele Grattan and she is quite right. Australia is a low-taxing nation and yet we demand and deserve good and appropriate public services. If we only raised as much revenue as the average of advanced economies we would raised $135bn more a year. That might be more than is likely, but our Raising Revenue Right report suggests a number of areas that could raise more revenue and make a fairer economy and ensure we have enough revenue to deliver better services

Q: Thanks for observing the tradition, Prime Minister, of being here today. You mentioned a lot of times in your speech today the backdrop of global uncertainty and, while the US President has featured in our campaign, there hasn’t actually been a discussion about exactly where that leads us. So, I suppose what I would like to hear from you is – do you believe that, given these new uncertain elements in the global outlook, we need to tweak our defence posture towards one that’s more focused on the defence of Australia – aside from what we’re doing with AUKUS – and does it also mean, given that you’ve responded to the US position on tariffs by reaffirming our view of free trade, that we should perhaps be joining a regional free trade bloc?

Albanese:

Well, we have very strong trade relationships in our region. And we’ve built on them as well through the work that we’ve done with ASEAN, hosting every ASEAN leader in March last year in Melbourne. What was important about that was the fact that every leader came. There were no deputies. There were no vice-presidents. Every leader of those important nations came to Australia. I’ve hosted Prime Minister Modi here. I’ve hosted the Premier of China here as well, our most important trading partner. We have built up really significant economic relationships, and what will be the third-largest economy in the world as well. We’ve improved our economic partnership with India.

I think there’s a great deal in which that can grow. The US tariffs need to be put into perspective. Exports to the United States are under 5% of our total exports. Just to give one example – in the meat sector, what’s happened because of the disruption between the US and China is that Australian producers are opening up greater opportunities of exporting even more to China. So, out of some of these trade disruptions, what will emerge, I think, is – yes, some challenges, but also some opportunities for us.

And that is what I’m optimistic about, and that is what I mean by “serving our national interests”. On defence policy, let me tell you – the Defence Strategic Review was about defending Australia. That was what it was about. And that’s why things such as the production of missiles will happen. Manufacturing will happen here this year. So, not just purchasing, not just procurement from somewhere else, but how do we become more resilient as a nation in terms of our defence policy? And that’s why our $57 billion increase in defence investment is so important. But it’s very much targeted to what are Australia’s national needs as a result of our strategic review.

Q: Prime Minister, given the increasing demand for government services, and the softening of some aspects of the revenue base, will whoever is in government over the next 10 years have to take some action to increase the taxation base?

Albanese:

Michelle, we’re taking our plans that we intend to implement to this election. What it will do – and it is a big distinction – we’ll have not one, but two income tax cuts taking that bottom first rate, the $18,200 to $45,000 rate from 16 down to 15 and then down to 14.

We think one of the things that that will do, and the modelling when we changed the former government’s legislated tax cuts to make them Labor tax cuts – which, by definition, were fairer and delivered for everybody – part of the modelling there showed that it increased workforce participation, that it would actually have a benefit for the economy as well. We know that the Coalition is saying that they’ll jack up income taxes and they’ll undo that and ledges late for higher income taxes at the election.

Q: You mentioned it there in a big part of your campaign obviously has been the bulk billing incentives which you say your modelling says it will get bulk billing rates to 90% by 2030. The AMA and the RACGP say they don’t see that sort of uplift. So that voters can actually test this claim of yours in the modelling, what does your modelling say bulk billing rates will get to by 2028?

Albanese:

The AMA haven’t always been great fans of the whole concept of Medicare. That’s the truth. So we’re not shocked that occasionally not every doctor comes on board there. But the reason why we are so confident is because this is not some academic exercise. In last year’s Budget, we tripled the bulk billing incentive for concession card-holders and what that has done is lift bulk billing rates up to well above 90%.

Doctors under our scheme will go from getting – if they’re in a fully bulk-billed clinic, will go from earning around about $280,000 to above $400,000. The modelling that we’ve done shows that it will be in their interests to have fully bulk-billed service and throughout the country, I’ve got to say I’ve spoken to doctors from Bridgewater in Tasmania to regional Queensland, Perth, Adelaide, who’ve said exactly that, that that is their intention, is that this change will make that difference.

Q: Your modelling must have a 2028 figure, though? A percentage improvement?

Albanese:

What we’ve got is a 2030 target of achieving that and it will go up between now, 2025, we’ll, of course, this is a measure that was in our Budget, that was funded and that is our objective by 2030.

Albanese:

There is a real choice before the Australian people this Saturday. The Liberals and Nationals have spent three years raging about problems that their decade in office created, with not a word to say about solutions, no proposals of their own, just militant opposition to our cost-of-living measures and mindless negativity. The Coalition have spent three years trying to make life harder for Australians because they thought it would make politics easier for them. Talking Australia down to try to build themselves up.

The Liberals have not changed and they have not learned. It is very clear to all that they have simply not done the work that you need to do if you are to present as a credible alternative government.

Now, I can tell them this – the Australian people have worked hard in the face of unprecedented challenges – the worst global inflation since the 1980s, the biggest international energy crisis since the 1970s, conflict overseas, and natural disasters at home.

Australians have worked hard and today underlines the real progress that we have made together. When we came to government less than three years ago, inflation was over 6% and it was rising. Today, it’s down to 2.4%.

Real wages have grown five quarters in a row. Interest rates have started to come down, and more jobs have been created in the last three years than during any term of government since federation.