From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. This is inside politics. I'm Paul Satchell, filling in for Jacqueline Maley. It's Thursday, May 15th. Today we bring you a very special episode with the newly elected Prime Minister of Australia, Anthony Albanese. Chief political correspondent David Crowe and I speak to the prime minister about his new labor cabinet, his thumping mandate, plans for the term ahead and a new phrase the prime minister's trying out progressive patriotism.
Our guest today is the prime minister, Anthony Albanese. Thank you for having time to talk to us. Good to be here. And so soon after the the formation of your new ministry. And just as you head off on some important overseas travel. Many things to talk about. I thought we would start with one of the things that you're heading overseas for, which is for the inaugural mass
for Pope Leo in Rome. You mentioned this this week as an important moment for you to go and meet world leaders, but it also has an important aspect of faith. And you were raised a Catholic. Catholicism was important to your mother in her life, and I wanted to ask about that as an opening question. How important is your faith in what you do in your job as Prime Minister?
I think these issues are a matter of your own development as well, and it's a part of who I am my upbringing. During the campaign, one of the statements I made that resonated indeed during the channel nine debate was that kindness isn't weakness, and that really is something that's a part of how I was raised in the Catholic faith about having compassion and kindness for people, particularly vulnerable people. I believe in a separation of church and state.
So I choose, for example, today I've always chosen to do an affirmation because I think that as the Australian Prime Minister, I represent people of every faith and no faith. And so that for me, that's a personal decision. Other people who swear on the Bible or the Koran in Ali's case, is perfectly up to them. It's a personal choice. But for me, that's a personal choice that I make
and have made. But I say I was raised with three great faiths the Labour Party, South Sydney in the Catholic Church, and it will be an incredible honour for me to be at Pope Leo's inaugural mass. I have in my office downstairs a papal blessing that my mother sent away from for to the Vatican from Pope Paul VI, who visited Australia, of course, and went to my street, Pyrmont Bridge Road, Camperdown, because the children's hospital was across the road. And that was a great moment in my
mom's life. I remember it, uh, very deeply. And I still have the book that my mom had. All the memorabilia from the papal visit at that time is one of my cherished possessions.
There's a lot of cynicism about politics from observers that don't have a lot of faith in it, but that does not capture, I think, the entirety of what politics is about. Do you think that there is a moral purpose to politics, and how does that guide you?
Uh, I think there absolutely has to be a moral purpose to politics. Uh, for me, it's about how do you make people's lives better? Uh, it's captured in a statement that I made many times during the election campaign. No one held back. No one left behind. Uh, that that is a part of our purpose in politics is to make a difference to people's lives.
Looking around at the caucus last week, Prime Minister, which was in the building, there are lawyers, there are teachers, there are multicultural members. There are lots of young people. It struck me that it is a caucus that represents the face of the country. I wonder what you think the election victory and the drubbing that it was, says about the nature of Australia and whether it, in your view,
proves that in a more cosmopolitan world. Labor is the natural party of government, not your opponents.
I certainly have depicted labor as the natural party of government. I think if you look at what we seek to represent and who we seek to represent, people who are working people, members of unions, people who are self-employed, people who are vulnerable and dependent upon support from the state, the people who many people really need a Labour government to make a difference to their lives. I think that our destiny is to try to be the natural party
of government rather than look for dividing people. It's one of the increasing issues, I think, in the last campaign was who was seeking to bring people together and who was seeking to divide people, and that's why things like culture wars are so unproductive, because they seek to pit people against each other.
Do you feel like you've you've managed to place labour at the centre of the political spectrum and dominate the centre and push your opponents out to the fringes?
Well, we are a centre left government, but we very much so concerned about social justice. We see there is a role for the state in improving people's lives, but we also very much believe in markets and that markets are a democratic mechanism as well, through the economy of expression. I believe in a private sector being the key driver of growth, but the public sector should step in where
there is market failure. I think that during the campaign as well, we had a progressive patriotism, if you like, is one way that it's been called. You know, we spoke about doing things the Australian way, not looking towards any other method or ideology from overseas to try to copy. If we get this right, we can be increasingly successful. I look at the caucus and I have very consciously tried to bring in to the caucus as well, a
broad range of people from different backgrounds. We are so much more.
A lot of them yourself. Right. A lot of these caucus members, you you played a more hands on role in picking candidates than most party leaders.
Well, I had a focus from 2022 of where are we going to be at in 2025 and work our way back rather than just go through. And you've got to be. It's a bit like, uh, I guess the coach of a footy team. You don't win the comp in May or June, you win it in September. How do you peak in September? How do you get the right personnel? How do you get the right policies? How do you get the right framing so that when it really matters, you can very clearly put your offer to
the Australian people going forward? Uh, that's something that I did from 2019 through to my first term as, as opposition leader to bring us into government. It's something that we consciously speak about, uh, around, uh, the various forums internal to the party that we engage with as well, not just the parliamentary party, but the organisational wing as well.
You used a really interesting phrase a moment ago, progressive patriotism. I'm not sure whether I've heard that from you before. I'm interested in what you think it means, because a lot of people regard Patriotism is a bad thing because it can be overdone sometimes. So were you conscious of that as a factor through the campaign, and is it going to be something that guides you now in this second term?
I was conscious of it, the whole Medicare campaign and strengthening Medicare. I see that as something that puts us apart from other countries. It's a health system that says that whether you're Kerry Packer, a billionaire or myself after a serious car accident, or my mum and invalid pensioner who on Mother's Day in 2002 ended up at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in emergency after having an aneurysm, you get the same care. It matters. And that's something we
should be really proud of. We should be proud of what we've created here. And I think in terms of the broader global issues as well, that at a time where there's conflict in the world, where people are often divided on the basis of race or religion. Uh, here in Australia, we can be a microcosm for the world that says that we're enriched by our diversity, that we have respect for people of different faiths, that we try to bring people together, that we don't bring turmoil overseas
and play out that conflict here either. And that's really important. This is a project, if you like, that's not just about strengthening Australia, but also being a symbol for the globe in how humanity can move forward.
Susan Lee is now the leader of the Liberal Party and the opposition leader for the coalition. With something like 40 plus seats, Labour obviously has got more than 90 seats. So the contrast is huge. Does the government actually need a strong opposition? Is there a danger in having an opposition that's too weak? Does it make you lazy?
Not at all. Web focused is what we are. And we've just had just a short while ago, we've just concluded the first full ministry meeting. People are hungry to make a difference. I said prior to the 2022 election, you couldn't do change in just one term, that I had a plan for more than one term for a
long term Labour government. That's how you entrench reform. And that is why so many things that we've set out for this term were things that built on what we had laid the foundations in our first term, whether that be housing, childcare, employment services, so many, the completion of the NBN, the strengthening of Medicare, the work that we've done to get the economy in better shape with inflation going down, but keeping that unemployment low to put us
in a stronger position going forward. Now there are new challenges. The productivity challenge, the work of reform is never done. But my team are really enthusiastic. They've been, I think, re-energized by not just the election campaign, but the outcome as well. And they feel that sense of obligation, that getting that trust of the Australian people in us has given them.
What do you think of the observation that's been made by commentators that you're now a certainty for three terms because of the size of the number of seats that you got in Parliament, that you can not just have this term, but the next one as well.
Look, politics changes from day to day, and you cannot take anything for granted. And some of those same people were writing us off six months ago. I've always been focused. I've been determined. I was clear about the objective that we had for a may election and that we could be successful, and we put those measures in place and we received the support of the Australian people. I want to get our primary vote up higher at the next
election than we did this time. But if you look at the work that we've done, it is significant that over a period of time it had been dropping. We did turn that around and that's a very positive thing. And the outcome clearly exceeded the expectations of all of the commentators, I think. And, you know, we we therefore regard the commentariat as that's their job. Our job is to be a good government.
Did it exceed your expectations?
I expected us to win a majority government the whole way through. I responded patiently to the number of times I was asked about negotiations, assuming a minority government. I never saw that as what the outcome would be the outcome when you're when you're putting together an expectation, if you like, you think, well, we might win here, here, here and here. But chances are you don't get all of that. The truth is, we did. You look at
the seats that I went to that I thought we'd win. Uh, bass. Braddon. Dixon. Brisbane. Griffith. Banks.
Can I just ask.
Bullwinkel.
On those seats? Prime Minister, sorry to interrupt you. One of your ministers said that when you would talk about those seats during the tougher periods of the term, some of your colleagues would politely nod along and think, does this guy really believe what he's saying? Did you believe it the whole way along? You bet. People might have called you delusional. Why did you believe it?
The evidence is there because I thought we had the right policies. I think that the, uh, the whole way through, I also saw that I know what it takes to take an opposition into the government. I did serious policies, fully costed in budget replies. I did serious speeches, a series of vision statements. I went to the National Press
Club regularly. I did press conferences regularly, I was accountable, we did hard work and I didn't see the opposition doing laying that groundwork that you need and thought they would be very, very vulnerable during an election campaign. I unusually agreed to four debates. Some in my own team said that was crazy brave. I think it was the right thing to do. Went to the National Press Club. I did all of that. And I also thought that
the Greens political party were vulnerable. I saw that in my local community that they had lost their way in blocking Labor's housing reforms and not being a party which concentrated on the environment and on issues that mattered most to people.
Just on the on the size of the win, Prime Minister, do you feel a sense of and I think there's an element of this in the progressive patriotism as well. I think Trump allowed you to project as a centre left leader that sense of patriotism that's so often dominated by the right, which was lucky in one sense because no one expected Trump to come around. Do you feel that the combination of Trump and Dutton was the best bit of luck you could have ever got? And is
there a chance that we're overanalyzing the Labour win? Because the strength of the negative that Trump gave to Dutton and Dutton's own performance actually handed you the win?
No, I think that, uh, some of the commentariat have, uh, looked for reasons why their commentary was so out of touch last year.
In the media.
Yeah. And I think that a government that in, uh, serious polls was always in, you know, a pretty good position for a government if you look historically in Australia for polls that have been around for a long period of time, like Newspoll, we were in a worst case scenario, we're on 49 is going into an election is a strong position for a government. You know, if you're in trying to get to government, you've got to have a narrative,
an offer. We had as well, I think, a record that we were proud of that we could talk about, that people could recognise. The Australian people have done it tough over Covid under the former government, and then that due to supply chain issues and a range of things, including international factors, led to cost of living pressures. People know that we were trying to do something about it. Peter Dutton opposed all of those measures and we had
got inflation down, interest rates starting to fall. Real wages up and employment was strong. There are a set of economic numbers that are the envy of other parts of the industrialized world. So we had a good story to tell. We've done that whilst at the same time doing major reform. The aged care reforms are the biggest reforms this century. The clean energy transformation, what we're doing on a future made in Australia, the childcare reforms, the completion of the
National Broadband Network, the rolling out of infrastructure projects. We had done a pretty comprehensive plan across the range of portfolios that were there, but we also had the forward offer that we started to roll out, uh, from last November with the free TAFE extension, with the 20% cut in student debt, and then had a series of major announcements, including the most significant of which was strengthening Medicare that we did in Launceston in the electorate of bass. And
so we had a very clear plan. I outlined that to colleagues. I also outlined where it would be successful. It's no accident. The major announcements that we made prior to the election were being called. Were in Sturt, in Griffith, in Bass. That's where we were thinking that we could be positive in and seats like Braddon. There's no doubt in my mind that if Anne Urquhart doesn't agree to be.
Incredibly generous in leaving a Senate spot which she wasn't even up for election on, to risk running for a seat where Labour was on 42% at the last election. She could win that seat and she did with, the largest swing in the country, 15%.
We have some other questions about commentators a bit later. But first up on the mandate on what this election means for you, you've made commitments about what you'll do, but how much flexibility does that give you in being bold on reform, on things like productivity? And the context for that question is one of the remarks that Ed Husic, the outgoing industry minister, made where he mentioned the timidity
of the first term. Do you accept that there was some caution in that first term, even timidity in the way that you approached some of these big policy questions? And will that change in the second term?
I view that we were ambitious in our first term, that people have completely underestimated the extent of the reforms. The biggest economic transformation that's occurring since the Industrial revolution is the clean energy revolution that is transforming the way that green metals will be produced, for example. There's nothing timid about that. We intervened in the gas and coal markets to put a cap on gas and coal prices.
If you had of said we were going to do that prior to 2022, then some of the commentariat would have completely lost any perspective at all. We did it firmly, clearly, because it was in the interests of the Australian people. We changed our mind for good reasons and explained it on the tax cuts to give a tax cut to every Australian. We transformed the first stage of reforms on childcare. We repaired our relations with the world, with China, with Asean,
with the Pacific Island Forum. We were a government that were ambitious across economic, social, environmental and international politics. And, uh, We did it in a way that attempted to bring people with us wherever possible. I mean, we did to note just one example in a specific area, the ban on live sheep export. We were told some that that would cost us, you know, every seat in Western Australia
and would cost us dearly. The truth is, we've not only held every seat with increased margins, most of them are in WA. We've won Bullwinkle and have won more. People said that was a high watermark for labor in WA. Well, that high water mark just rose. And that was a decision where I sat down with the industry in my office. I met people in Kalgoorlie. I told them why we were doing it. We had a commitment to do it.
We carried it out and we won. the argument, if you like, and we have a package to bring people with us, and hopefully now people will say, okay, this transition is going to occur, how do we protect people as that transition occurs? How do we grow more jobs? Because you get more jobs from processing sheep meat than you do from putting them on a ship and shipping them to the Middle East? How do we get advantage
of that? But, you know, I completely think that, you know, my government did what we said we would do in some areas. We went further because circumstances changed, like the cap on gas and coal prices. But my government is also determined to look at what it was that we took to the election on May 3rd and to set about implementing that agenda, which is a very large agenda indeed.
Now, we said that we'd ask you a bit about commentators, so here goes. You said to us back in 2022 that you'd been underestimated your whole life, or you felt that way. Do you think the media underestimated you in the lead up to the election?
Well, that's something for commentators to I'm very.
Interested in your opinion.
To commentate on. Well, people, you know, I think that the result certainly exceeded what some of the commentators said would occur.
Um, and your expectations as well?
Well, I fully expected us to be a majority government. There is no time where I said anything different privately from what I was saying publicly. I expected us to have an increased majority. That's what I was focused on. If you have a look from day one of the campaign, what was the first seat? I went to Dixon. Now, for those people who said that was playing mind games. I said to anyone who said that? No. We're serious. Ali, France can win this seat. I think she will win this seat. And she did.
And those words on the day. So I'll put my hand up on that one. And you told me I was silly on the day. Yeah.
Well, you know, see, I was very direct.
One of the questions about the campaign is whether the News Corp media were too hard on you. We reported last year that you told cabinet colleagues that News Corp was out to get you. Do you think they were out to get you in that campaign?
Well, I didn't I didn't say that. Um, but look, people will make up their own judgment as to what some of the media coverage was, uh, during the campaign. There is nothing to be gained from complaining about media coverage. What, uh, my job is to do is to go out there and put forward Labor's positive agenda. And I think as well that people if there is a consistent view coming through and people can have a look themselves at what the editorials recommended, for example, then people will say, yep,
they take that into account. I think they know that that's the case. And so my focus is, uh, on just, uh, us implementing our positive agenda. I feel incredibly humbled and privileged to have this position. Uh, you and I have known each other for some time. Uh, when I came into, uh, this building, I didn't come here with an expectation of being prime minister. I think, uh, perhaps not having that sense of destiny has been one of the things that
was helpful during the campaign. Uh, a number of people, uh, in the media said to me, you look like you're enjoying it. And, yeah, I was, uh, I loved the campaign because people are engaged and focused. It's an opportunity to talk to the Australian people about their future. And now our task is to make sure that we deliver on that better future. I think that the policies that
we've put forward across the board are. About that, and I think we have the incredibly strong personnel to be able to deliver it.
Prime Minister, thank you very much for having some time to talk to us on the Inside Politics podcast. We appreciate your time.
Thanks very much.
Today's episode was produced by Julia Carcasole with technical assistance from Zack de Silva. Our executive producer is Tammy Mills, and Tom McKendrick is head of audio. To listen to our podcast as soon as they drop, follow Inside Politics on Apple, Spotify or anywhere else you listen to your podcasts. To support our journalism, subscribe to us by visiting The Age or smh.com.au. Subscribe. I'm Paul Circle, thanks for listening.