The moment has arrived, the Prime Minister has made his way into the building and he joins us on the show right now. Anthony Albanese, hello. Good morning. How you doing?
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Good morning. I'm doing very well. It's beautiful day here in Perth.
CARLY PORTCH, HOST: Well, you've been, what is it, 38 times to the state now, just since being Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER: I have.
PORTCH: Does that include your holiday that you and Jodie took here?
PRIME MINISTER: No, that's 38 work trips.
PORTCH: Do you have a WA licence at this point?
PRIME MINISTER: I've got a, I don't even need a visa anymore. I just, you know, in I come. And this is a four day visit this time. We start off in Busselton on Monday. You know, went out on the longest jetty in the southern hemisphere -
VON: Did you take the train or did you walk the whole way down?
PRIME MINISTER: No, we walked.
VON: Did you actually?
PRIME MINISTER: The train wasn't operating.
VON: What?
PRIME MINISTER: We said, g'day to the person at the train.
PORTCH: Surely you could make a phone call.
VON: Yeah. You think they'd get it ready for the Prime Minister?
PRIME MINISTER: We wanted to walk. It was fantastic.
PORTCH: I love that. Sorry, we don't make any exceptions, train's not running.
PRIME MINISTER: We didn't want to get the train. The whole point of going on a walk, is to walk.
PORTCH: That is true. As someone that's walked that jetty though, I tried to take the train back and again, no exceptions. I didn't have a ticket back so I had to walk the whole thing. It's a big walk.
PRIME MINISTER: It is a big walk. Well I went, caught up with Tabitha Dowding down there, who was our candidate in the last election and she showed us around Busso and that was terrific. And the next morning - we had great dinner in the brewery, I've got to say there on the Foreshore.
PORTCH: Oh, at Shelter.
PRIME MINISTER: Shelter is awesome.
PORTCH: It is.
VON: Shout out to Shelter.
PRIME MINISTER: And the next morning went for a walk along the foreshore - great place. And then we went to Bunbury yesterday and had a Cabinet meeting there. Caught up with the Mayor and it was terrific. Went and had coffee at a coffee shop there and caught up with lots of the locals. And then went up all the way up to the southern part of Perth here at the Alcoa site and had a look at the critical minerals that are going to be produced there, and then up to Perth. So it's been a busy time and after this I'm going down to Stirling to the naval base there where we're maintaining subs that are visiting. And one of the subs that is being maintained there, it's the first time that there hasn't been a support ship. That it's been done by workers there - just a part of the jobs that will be created through the AUKUS project here in the West.
VON: So 38 visits since, I think it's 2022, isn't it?
PRIME MINISTER: It is. May 21st, 2022. But who's counting?
VON: There you go, there you go. So this is a bit of a double barrelled question because I think you've probably seen most of our state now. So, A, is there anywhere that you haven't been to that you'd like to in Western Australia? And, B, when you think about our state, what's the most West Aussie thing? Like what does Western Australia say to you?
PRIME MINISTER: Oh look, Western Australia says to me that people are relaxed and chilled - people are really friendly here. And that was the case in, in Busselton. We were having dinner there downstairs at Shelter and the AGM of the local Chamber of Commerce was upstairs and the CEO came down and said 'Oh, Prime Minister, we're having our AGM. Would you mind coming and saying hello?'
VON: What.
PRIME MINISTER: So I went upstairs, all the businesses were there, said g'day to them and it was just really friendly. And I've always found that. I think we might have spoken before on this show about my first trip to -
VON: Up Broome way?
PRIME MINISTER: To WA. No, my first trip around here in December of 1983 and January of 1984. So before you were born.
VON: Not me.
PRIME MINISTER: I came here and a friend was coming across to home for the summer and myself and my then girlfriend, we were students and it was like oh, free trip somewhere. Yeah, we'll sit in the car with you across the Nullarbor Plain. So, we were here for seven weeks and so I had Christmas Day on Roto.
VON: What?
PRIME MINISTER: And we went down Margaret River. First time I went to Busselton was doing that trip. We went and saw the big trees and went as far as Albany, and it was just fantastic. And I got to really know, if you spend seven weeks somewhere you get a real feel for it. And I've been coming here ever since. I've had holidays in Smith's Beach and Broome and Ningaloo and all of that. I think there's something a bit from being you're still in Australia but you're a fair way away from the East Coast and something a bit relaxing about it.
VON: Can't knock his local knowledge, Carly.
PORTCH: Yeah, he's all over it. Now Albo, just quickly it would be remiss of us to not touch on the cost of living crisis. I know we bring it up each time that we speak to you but I think we just want to make sure that we are moving forward because unfortunately we're still seeing people, hardworking families not being able to afford rentals and we're still seeing people paying phenomenal amounts for groceries and you know, we just want to know what is being done to try and level it out and bring it back to normal or is this the new normal?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, the first thing that we've done of course is cut inflation in half of what we inherited. So, when we came to office it had a six in front of it, it peaked at 7.6 and now is just over three. Just a tick over three. We'll continue to work on it but we're continuing to do measures like cheaper medicines comes in on January 1. We tripled the bulk billing incentive for people seeing a GP on November 1. People now, many of your listeners, will from now have got notification of how much their student debt has decreased by with the 20 per cent cut in student debt. There's 100,000 West Australians have benefited from free TAFE. There's more than 200,000 West Australians have gone to an Urgent Care Clinic and seen a doctor for free. We're busy building additional housing in partnership with the WA government. So, we get that people need that support. That's why we're putting in place a range of cost of living measures.
VON: Now Albo, we have put together a whole heap of questions for you as well and we want to make this short and sharp. So, we've got a minute timer to go.
PRIME MINISTER: Okay.
VON: And Carly is going to kick this off with the first question. So, give us the rundown. Carly, are you ready to go?
PORTCH: We're going to do a quick fire round of 'Ask Albo'. We're going to get your hot takes as quick as you can. First thing that comes to mind, your most honest answers a minute to do it. We're going to try and pump through as many of these as we can. All right, starting with most underrated Aussie snack?
PRIME MINISTER: Twisties.
VON: Who's the most famous person in your phone?
PRIME MINISTER: President Trump.
PORTCH: Are aliens real?
PRIME MINISTER: No.
VON: Who would play you in a movie?
PRIME MINISTER: Oh, I was gonna say something like Brad Pitt. Take the piss out of myself, basically. I wish.
PORTCH: Have you ever watched the Real Housewives?
PRIME MINISTER: No. Although it has been on in the background while Jodie's been watching it.
VON: One thing every visitor has to do when they come to Australia?
PRIME MINISTER: Visit WA.
PORTCH: What policy would you pass just for fun?
PRIME MINISTER: For fun? Oh, free beer.
VON: What did you think of the new Bureau of Meteorology website?
PRIME MINISTER: It was pretty ordinary.
PORTCH: What's your coffee order?
PRIME MINISTER: Flat white, almond milk.
PORTCH: Oh, okay. And oh, we've actually got time to spare. What's your favourite shape?
PRIME MINISTER: My favourite shape?
PORTCH: Shapes?
PRIME MINISTER: Barbecue, of course.
PORTCH: Right answer.
VON: What about pizza?
PRIME MINISTER: No.
PORTCH: Well, you did better than I expected, Albo.
PRIME MINISTER: I got through it with time to spare.
VON: I mean, all the meetings and all the world leaders he meets and you reckon that's the thing that's going to trip him up?
PORTCH: Well, I don't know. Well, Question Time goes for a long time, to be fair.
PRIME MINISTER: It does. Sometimes an hour and a half.
PORTCH: Don't you think that could, a lot of those could be emails?
PRIME MINISTER: Oh, seriously. The other leaders, when I meet with them, and I'm about to go tomorrow across to South Africa to the G20 - so the 20 biggest economies in the world. They can't believe that we have Question Time every day. They cannot believe it.
VON: It's excessive. Can't you do something about that?
PRIME MINISTER: Other leaders don't have to do what I do. I was with President Prabowo of Indonesia, just a bit north of here. He has not answered a single question in Question Time.
VON: Interesting. Well, Anthony Albanese -
PRIME MINISTER: Doesn't have to, but, you know, that's democracy, so I'm happy with it.
PORTCH: Yeah.
PRIME MINISTER: And that was good practice.
PORTCH: Great practice. So, you can get in, get your questions answered hopefully and get out of there.
PRIME MINISTER: Absolutely.
VON: Mate, thank you very much for coming on the show today. Really appreciate it. All the best with your WA trip.
PRIME MINISTER: Fantastic. Great to be on here again.
