Hey, it's Bailey for your Monday morning, and it's an absolute honour to say that the Prime Minister of Australia, Anthony Albanese joins me in the studio now. Thank you so much for your time, Prime Minister.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Great to be in Albury.
CORRIGAN: And I was saying to you off air, we brought some beautiful weather for you. Because we've had nothing but sunny weather for a couple of months now. Barely a spot of rain. And you arrived yesterday, and what did it do? It rained a bit too much.
PRIME MINISTER: It poured. We were going around in circles for a while while the storm was going on, waiting to land here. When we did land, you could see there was a fair bit of water around here.
CORRIGAN: And even though it rained a bit too much, it was desperately needed for us locals, so we were kind of happy to see it too.
PRIME MINISTER: Good for the dams.
CORRIGAN: Absolutely. And you arrived late yesterday, I believe you met with some locals. What did that entail?
PRIME MINISTER: We did. We went to the Soden's Hotel here and we caught up with some supporters with Senator Deborah O'Neill, who's our Duty Senator here for the Farrer electorate. And we met a whole lot of people there. And then we just talked with other locals as well. We ran into Vicky and her crew who she was celebrating her birthday and she had lots of her friends there. And then we just talked to people in the pub, people coming up, very friendly. And it was a lovely night, I've got to say.
CORRIGAN: Oh, very nice. And what did you have for dinner? Were you impressed?
PRIME MINISTER: It was very good. Very good. I had the Japanese fried rice. It was tuna with fried rice. It was terrific.
CORRIGAN: Oh, yum. So, you'll want to have that when you come back to Albury again?
PRIME MINISTER: It was very, very good, good food, good company, and a cold beer.
CORRIGAN: Oh, love it. Now, you're here today as well to go and visit the Border Urgent Care Clinic in Albury, which is taking some pressure off the local hospital.
PRIME MINISTER: Urgent Care Clinics have been a huge success. There's one here, one in Shepparton, one in Wagga Wagga, right around Australia. They are making enormous difference because people can go in if they have an urgent health issue, but that isn't life-threatening. It takes pressure off emergency departments, but it also means they can get the care they need when they need it really efficiently without waiting for hour after hour, and all they need is their Medicare card. So, it's made a huge difference along with what we've done on bulk-billing incentives for GPs, which, now there's 27 fully bulk-billed clinics in the Farrer electorate around this region. 18 of those are new, since we tripled the bulk-billing incentive. So, it's made a huge difference in just a few months, and that's continuing to rise.
CORRIGAN: Yeah, and it's fantastic. Certainly, an issue that the locals have been talking about for a fair while now is the lack of parking at the Albury Hospital. More and more often now, we're seeing people having to park up on paths where you shouldn't be parking just so they can go into the hospital. Do you have any updates with the progress of that?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I hope that it gets resolved. State governments look after, of course, the hospital network. What we've done is provide, through the hospitals agreement, a five-year increase in funding of $25 billion across the states and territories. So, the largest ever funding for hospitals that the Federal Government's ever given. And that was an agreement we did with the states and territories that was just finally signed off last Friday, just three days ago.
CORRIGAN: Oh, so good to hear. Now, lots of locals, they're going to have questions about the fact that Sussan Ley, the local MP, was dumped as Liberal leader. So what happens from here?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, there'll be a by-election sometime. Sussan hasn't resigned yet. I think she was pretty shabbily treated, frankly. She didn't even get to give a Budget Reply speech, and I think people will mark down the Coalition for that. Quite clearly, from day one, she was undermined by Angus Taylor and Andrew Hastie and a range of them who weren't really working to try to get her success. My party, I've been very lucky. We've been united. I feel the support of the entire team, and that's what you need. I think the Coalition at the moment, you know, we've seen them split twice between the Libs and the Nats. The Libs and the Nats might run against each other in the Farrer by-election, it looks as though. But we'll wait and see when the by-election's called. But I certainly wish Sussan Ley all the best in whatever she does for her future.
CORRIGAN: Yeah, very well said. And I suppose she was your Opposition, but it must've been so tough to actually see and hear all of the backlash that she was getting, especially towards the end there.
PRIME MINISTER: Absolutely. She served this electorate, as well, for 25 years. We had political differences, but we were able to talk with each other and it's, I think, unfortunate that politics can be a pretty rough game and that she was elected by the Liberal Party Caucus fair and square. She was the leader, but never even got to give a Budget Reply. I don't know if that's happened before. I'm not sure, but certainly she didn't even get one year in the office.
CORRIGAN: Which is pretty rough.
PRIME MINISTER: It sure is. But I'm sure she'll go on to do something else. Certainly, she'll have a more relaxed period going ahead, but she's taking time as well to go around the electorate and to say her goodbyes and thank yous, and that's appropriate. I've been to the Farrer electorate before as Prime Minister. I was up in Griffith opening the fantastic sports centre up there a while ago, during the first term. And it's good to be able to visit here over the last couple of days, last night, and this morning. I make sure I get out and about to the whole of Australia, regardless of who the local member is and what way people vote. I think that's my responsibility as the Prime Minister.
CORRIGAN: Couldn't agree more. Now, to something a little more light-hearted. We had our annual City 2 City event yesterday, which is where thousands of people run from Albury all the way to Wodonga, raising money for Albury-Wodonga health. There's a 15-kilometre run, a 10-kilometre run or walk, a seven and a half kilometre run or walk, something for all ages, really. So, if you were actually here for that yesterday and you were taking part, which one would you choose?
PRIME MINISTER: Oh, I'd choose the shorter one. I think probably I'd like to do the longer one, but I'm not sure how I'd go.
CORRIGAN: Yeah. Oh, don't worry. I'm the same.
PRIME MINISTER: But these things are good fun, and it's a great way of bringing the community together as well. So a big shout out to everyone who participated. Good on you.
CORRIGAN: Yeah, it takes a lot of courage. All right. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, it was an absolute honour to speak with you. Thank you so much for your time.
PRIME MINISTER: Thank you.
