: Now we are going to bring in the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, who joins us from the beating heart of the nation - Canberra. Prime Minister, welcome back to our show.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Good morning, James. Glad to be with you.
GLENDAY: Now, I think we asked you pretty much the same question last week about home value, so I'm going to ask it again. Is this what you wanted to see? Some really big declines to help more people into the market?
PRIME MINISTER: Now, I'll give the same answer, which is the Treasury estimates are that there'll be an increase in the value of homes, but it will be slightly lower than it would have been without these measures. The great news is that this Saturday, like last Saturday, first home buyers would have rocked up to auctions and not be competing with investors who want to negatively gear their properties and have taxpayers backing in those investments. So, a level playing field. What we're seeing increasingly is stories of right around the country of people who had almost given up on owning their first home, getting access to a roof over their own head.
GLENDAY: With the greatest respect to Treasury, they are often wrong. It's hard to forecast things well into the future. Is this real world evidence that perhaps the impact of these changes is going to be bigger and much more severe than was initially forecast?
PRIME MINISTER: No, it's not, James. Treasury forecasts aren't week by week. They're serious forecasts done based upon modelling and a range of other economic modelling showing exactly the same thing.
GLENDAY: Some other forecasts are suggesting a decline of 10%. You think that's wildly inaccurate? We definitely won't see that in Australia.
PRIME MINISTER: I've said the same answer that I gave last week as this week. You don't assess things like property on the basis of a day-to-day basis. What you do is assess what will happen and Treasury have done that. As a result of these changes, there'll be increase in the value of houses. It'll be slightly less, 2% to be precise, than it would have been otherwise.
GLENDAY: We'll come back to it later in the year, no doubt. Now, two EY graduates have been sacked. One charged after he allegedly used the Commonwealth Bank systems to access your personal details. Do you know what information of yours was accessed?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, it's before the courts and I'm not about to go into the detail of that. It's appropriate that charges have been laid.
GLENDAY: Were you alarmed by this?
PRIME MINISTER: This is a serious issue. Well, accessing anyone's privacy, any Australian's privacy is alarming. Let alone someone from a contractor who's not an employee of Commonwealth Bank being able to access that information.
GLENDAY: This is just the latest scandal involving big consulting firms. Do you personally think they can be trusted with secrets? I mean, especially Australian government secrets? You know, contractors do all sorts of work inside the Australian government.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we've cracked down on that and we'll continue to examine these issues quite clearly. The behaviour of some of these big accounting firms has been completely unacceptable. In some cases it has involved breaches of the law and they need to be held to account, if you'll excuse the pun, because they simply have engaged in behaviour that's not consistent with Australian law or consistent with the way that people would expect big corporations to operate.
GLENDAY: It is the 1st of July, a whole raft of changes coming in. We had your Minister, Mark Butler on the show earlier. He took us through them very comprehensively. One of the changes is a pay rise for low paid workers. The RBA has expressed some views about this and its effect on inflation. Do you think that unions have too high an inflation expectation? Is this pay rise too high?
PRIME MINISTER: No, unions stand up for workers and for increasing their wages and conditions. That's their job. And I've got to say, when it comes to an increase in the minimum wage, this is the fifth consecutive increase in the minimum wage. It takes it up above $1,000 a week for the first time. That is a good thing. When you combine the increases in the minimum wage with the fact that the first marginal tax rate has gone from 19 cents when we were elected down to 15 and will go down to 14 on July 1st next year. That's a significant change. We need to recognise that low income workers by definition are struggling more than higher income workers and therefore support for them is, I believe, absolutely welcome. And that's why the government made submissions to the Fair Work Commission to support an increased wage, something that a Coalition government has never ever done.
GLENDAY: Just before we let you go, it is Territory Day. It's a big day in the Northern Territory. However, for many people Territory Day is synonymous with fireworks. We've been asking our audience about this. Roger reckons all states should be bringing back fireworks at least once a year. Diana doesn't love the idea. She says they're too noisy. What's your personal view? Do you miss the times when you could buy fireworks in parts of the nation, or is this a relic of the past?
PRIME MINISTER: I love fireworks, I've got to say. It's simple as that, simple as that. I think they're terrific. We had last week here in Canberra, we had a celebration at the US Embassy for the 250th anniversary of independence. And there was some pretty, pretty handy fireworks, I've got to say, going off at the US Embassy. And they were enjoyed by everyone who was there, and I would assume everyone from right around that part of Canberra, because they were quite spectacular. I think that the joy that comes from fireworks is terrific. They need to be done safely. Obviously, there were accidents. These can be dangerous. When I was a kid in primary school, one of my fellow students at St. Joseph's Camperdown there, got hit with a firework. So, we need to make sure that there's appropriate safety measures. But I think for the public, these big fireworks displays are always welcome, as they are at Vivid or on New Year's Eve. Of course, the world looks towards those fireworks.
GLENDAY: What about personal displays? Do you miss the days where you could just run down to Fyshwick, pick up some fireworks, maybe you could take them back, set them off at the lodge?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I wasn't at the lodge in those days, let me tell you. So, I think with appropriate supervision, I think is important and there is a need to recognise there were, every year there were stories of kids ending up in hospital because of accidents. So, we need, I think, proper regulation, but certainly with regard to public displays of fireworks, I think they're always a good thing.
GLENDAY: We're leading you astray slightly. Prime Minister, thank you very much for being a good sport and thanks for joining us.
PRIME MINISTER: We're on the big picture this morning. We're going off on ABC TV.
GLENDAY: The Prime Minister, thank you.
