It's been a big few weeks in Canberra and we've been hearing from you this morning about what sort of things could really help you deal with the rising cost of living. So, who better to ask than the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, who joins us now in the studio. PM, good morning.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Good to be here in Melbourne.
BRIDGET BRENNAN, HOST: Yeah, great to see you, PM. We're celebrating Lunar New Year, of course. Year of the Fire Horse.
PRIME MINISTER: I'll be in Box Hill this week, let me tell you.
BRENNAN: Oh, will you? You'll be eating some good things in Box Hill, for sure.
PRIME MINISTER: Of course, absolutely.
BRENNAN: Stability, endurance, strength. That makes the good, laying the ground at work for a very good policy year, you'd think, with a bit of ambition, do you think?
PRIME MINISTER: Hopefully so. We have a Budget, of course, in May, but we're continuing to roll out the cost of living relief. Already this year we had $25 medicines, the same price they were in 2004. On January 1 we started 1800MEDICARE, already tens of thousands of people have been able to just get on the phone and get some advice 24 hours a day. We're opening Urgent Care Clinics. Later this morning I'll be at a TAFE. There's 725,000 Australians have benefited from Free TAFE. And then I'll be at a hospital talking with nurses who benefited from Paid Prac. I reckon most people didn't know that when teachers or nurses, which we need more of, were going and doing their prac as part of their courses, they were actually, it was costing them money because they had to give up their part time jobs for some of them, or certainly they weren't earning any income. So, that Paid Prac is making a really big difference.
BRENNAN: Yeah, that is a big issue. We've heard from our viewers about that. We're hearing actually a lot from our viewers about cost of living, the different concerns they've got and we'll get to that in a moment. I just want to take you to that story out of Syria. Will that group of Australians make it back here, do you think? What are the government's concerns about this group of 34 people?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we won't repatriate them. And indeed the government was taken to court by one of the non-government organisations saying that we had a responsibility and they weren't successful in that. My mother would have said if you make your bed, you lie in it. These are people who went overseas supporting Islamic State and went there to provide support for people who basically want a caliphate. And you know, it is -
BRENNAN: Unfortunate for the children, though, caught up in that, isn't it?
PRIME MINISTER: It is. But we have a very firm view that we won't be providing assistance or repatriation. Of course, Australian law applies and there are obligations that Australian officials have, but we want to make it clear as well, as we have to the people involved, that if there are any breaches of the law then they will face the full force of the Australian law.
GLENDAY: If they come back. Alright, Adam has written in to say, please ask the PM about negative gearing and I'm going to combine that. There's a poll in the Nine Newspapers suggesting that winding back both capital gains and negative gearing would be popular if you combined it with income tax cuts in the Budget. As we talk about the cost of living, is that something you're weighing up behind the scenes?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we've got income tax cuts in the Budget already baked in, so it will come in on July 1 and then another tax cut the year after. When it comes to housing our focus is really on supply. So, we've had the five per cent deposits have already made a big difference. About 200,000 Australians in total have benefited from that since we came into office, getting into their first home. And talking with state governments as well about planning, making sure that we get faster than build of new homes is really important. So, that that's the main focus is on supply.
GLENDAY: But Capital Gains Tax, is that discussion you're having behind the scenes going, we could save a bit of money here and then maybe we could give that back in more tax cuts or more social housing? Things you're passionate about.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I'm not here to announce what might or might not be in the Budget because those deliberations take place every year.
GLENDAY: Is it being deliberated about though? I know you don't want to play this rule in, rule out game, but it feels like it's there.
PRIME MINISTER: No what we're focused on is income tax cuts. That's our focus on the tax system and what we're focused on in housing is supply.
BRENNAN: Danielle tells News Breakfast rather that her concern is that people with two full time incomes can no longer seem to afford a house. Does it worry you, you know when you're thinking, staying up late at night, I know you've got a million different concerns, but that someone aged around the age of 40 now seems to have a very different pathway to opportunity than those from previous generations.
PRIME MINISTER: Of course it does. And one of the issues that we are considering across the board is intergenerational equity. The fact is that younger generations are doing it tough. And that's why, for example, we had the 20 per cent cut in student debt. Now that's made an enormous difference, and already this morning I ran into someone at another studio who thanked us for that, making a big difference, just a bit of weight off them as well. But that's why we're doing things like the 20 per cent cutting student debt, the Free TAFE courses, the additional university hubs, the Paid Prac, all of these measures aimed particularly at the younger generations to give them a fair crack. Now, in the lead up to the Budget and on an ongoing basis, we'll consider all of these issues going forward.
GLENDAY: Why do you think Pauline Hanson seems to be doing so well in the polls at the moment? You've been around politics for a long time. This is sort of a high point for her, it would seem.
PRIME MINISTER: It is, but we've seen it before. We saw it in 1996, she was elected and then 1998 she won double digit number of seats in Queensland. No one made it to two years. It all collapsed. And that has tended to be what has happened. And we'll wait and see what the relationship is between Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce in a couple of years' time. Two very big egos put in one melting pot. Look, people are quite clearly frustrated and they're particularly frustrated with issues of government. I think trust has broken down. I think devices like that one are making -
BRENNAN: Can't put it down Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, they're pushing people, algorithms push people towards extremes and towards really simple, not solutions but, but identifying problems.
BRENNAN: So, you're concerned about the febrile nature of debate?
PRIME MINISTER: Absolutely. And One Nation have always been about identifying problems. And a primary thing of your problem in life is because of people who don't look like you. That division that they have promoted consistently in Pauline Hanson and the One Nation people who've come and gone, most of them have left the party on the way through. We'll wait and see what happens. But also, I think people are frustrated because the Coalition parties are such a mess. The Liberals hate each other and the Nats hate each other and the Liberals hate the Nats, and Nats leaving to join One Nation. It really is a bit of a mess on the right wing of politics at the moment, and One Nation represent certainty, no solutions, but certainty of identifying problems.
BRENNAN: Now, in my defence, I was bringing up a question from Ken, one of our viewers on the phone here -
PRIME MINISTER: I understand.
BRENNAN: Because he says he's a little bit frustrated by what he perceives as a lack of ambition from your government and he wants to ask about universal child care. A lot of our viewers doing child care drop off while they've got News Breakfast on in the background, getting ready. That's a huge, huge hit to the Budget. I mean, you did forecast back in late 2024 that you'd look at more reforms to child care. Are you looking at universal child care? Would you like it to be a legacy piece for you?
PRIME MINISTER: Of course I would, and I've said that. But on January 6th, part of our measures this year, the Child Care Guarantee, three days, began. Now, there was a real disincentive for people to get into work because of the way the child care system was operating. So, the Three Day Guarantee for subsidies is something that has begun this year. It's made a huge difference. The other thing that we had to do in both child care and aged care was pay the workforce properly. Those feminised industries that essentially had people leaving, people working really hard, people really working, going to child care or aged care for that matter, to look after our youngest or our oldest Australians out of commitment, out of satisfaction. But they needed to be paid properly as well. And our pay increases have made a real difference. People now aren't leaving the sector. That's the first thing we need to do, is retain those skilled workers. Because child care isn't child minding, it's early learning as well. They do, it is so important. Human brain development, over 90 per cent occurs in the first five years. So, we regard this sector as being absolutely critical.
BRENNAN: You could look at a flat fee though, couldn't you, for all Australians to be able to access child care?
PRIME MINISTER: What we wanted to do was to work through in steps. So, the first thing we did was to increase the subsidy. The second is the Three Day Guarantee and we'll look at further reform certainly as we go forward.
GLENDAY: Just on social media, because you pointed out Bridget's phone. I mean, how buoyed are you by the fact that it seems that the UK, France, a couple of other countries have noticed this, speaking about it going, 'gee, maybe we should act in a similar way to Australia'?
PRIME MINISTER: I think this should be a source of great Australian pride. We showed a lot of guts as a country. And this is something that didn't come from politicians, it came from parents who lost their son or daughter who campaigned so strongly. This really was a grassroots movement saying, you know, 'enough, we want kids to be kids and to have a childhood and not be defined by what they were finding on their devices'. And what we've seen now, Spain, France, Denmark, Malaysia, Indonesia, New Zealand, the UK, looking at it as well, is people modelling their systems on what we have done, taking on social media giants, ten of them saying, 'you have a social responsibility'. And I think it's a general issue as well, the impact that social media is having on our discourse and the way that we conduct debate in general. I think it's a global issue that we're grappling with. But for kids who are developing a sense of who they are, the fact that 13 per cent had been encouraged to take their own life online in surveys that were taken, just shows that we needed to do something and our government's done it, parents are welcoming it and guess what? Kids are getting used to it as well. And we know that when phones were banned in schools, educational standards lifted and behaviour lifted as well. People need to learn how to talk to each other. It's much better. Even simple things like us being in the studio here -
BRENNAN: Yeah.
PRIME MINISTER: Is a better experience, certainly for me and hopefully for you as well, than if we're on a phone.
BRENNAN: I'd be happy to be in the social media ban, actually, to say. Now, I want to ask you, because you mentioned your concerns about community cohesion earlier. Tens of thousands, thousands of calls have gone to 13YARN, the crisis line for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. A lot of those are related to racism, to what people are experiencing in the community. How alive is your government to this, given what's happened in WA on Invasion Day?
PRIME MINISTER: We are very alive and we saw, during the referendum, we saw a real increase in misinformation, but also in vilification of First Nations people. The Perth incident was, of course, a whole separate thing. I mean, that was a terrorist attack. It's been defined as such. The alleged perpetrator allegedly threw this device into a crowd. It was designed to really cause death and damage. It would have injured and killed many people had it exploded. And the people on the spot responded very quickly, to their credit, people immediately identified the issue. Police arrested, grabbed the perpetrator very quickly. But I think it's caused a great deal of distress, the idea that someone could be driven, in this case, driven by a white supremacist ideology, driven to that level of hatred to want to cause harm to someone they didn't know. But clearly on the basis of race is quite, quite frightening. And we have reached out, we set up the system so that people could get that mental health support and I just encourage people to reach out. I think we've got much better at not seeing it as a sign of weakness, but of strength to reach out and say, 'hey, I need help, I need to talk this issue through'.
GLENDAY: Prime Minister, we have to let you go. I've got one final question from a viewer. Tony wants to know - high speed rail, is it going to happen while you're Prime Minister? You're going to be building track. I know it's a burning passion -
PRIME MINISTER: It won't be open while I'm Prime Minister
GLENDAY: Will the first bit of rail be put down, do you think?
PRIME MINISTER: We'll have an announcement in a couple of weeks' time.
GLENDAY: Okay.
BRENNAN: What are you saying?
PRIME MINISTER: And look, I think that it absolutely makes sense. We have a small population relatively for a big nation, island continent. We're the only inhabited continent on earth that doesn't have high speed rail. And certainly Newcastle to Sydney to Canberra to Melbourne makes absolute sense. It's where most of our population is along that corridor. And what makes it financially viable is the economic development along the route as well that regional economic development.
GLENDAY: And I reckon you are the only Prime Minister who could name the stations, the bridges, the stops, the route, the whole thing.
PRIME MINISTER: I can. We did the study 10 years ago -
BRENNAN: I remember being at a press conference with you in about 2010 talking about high speed rail. Well, it'll be great to see any development in this area. Prime Minister, thanks very much for joining us.
PRIME MINISTER: Absolutely, great to be here.
