No FilterAustralian women will soon face a significant decision. In the coming weeks, they’ll help decide the next Prime Minister of Australia.
With the election on the horizon, we have invited both Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Opposition Leader Peter Dutton onto No Filter to speak directly to you.
The conversation you’re about to hear isn’t only about politics and policy positions. It’s also about the man behind the politics, the person who is asking you to put your trust in them.
Listen to our conversation with Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, here.
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CREDITS:
Host: Kate Langbroek
Guest: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese
Mamamia acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the Land we have recorded this podcast on, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to their Elders past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures.
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Mama Maya acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast is recorded on.
It's a critical election.
I think that what happens in Australia for the rest of this decade will either set us up for the decades ahead or or just tread water and what the world go past us. It's a fast moving world and one of the things that we've had to deal with is what I regard as a decade of inaction on areas like climate change, gender equity, education, health, so many areas where we've had to repair what I regard as damage or in some cases just deal with inaction.
You're listening to us episode of No Filter. I'm your host, Kate Langebrook. Soon Australian women will face a significant decision in the coming weeks. They will help choose the next Prime Minister. And it's a big election in a world that feels uncertain, with many concerned about their future, their immediate and their children's. Because our mission here at Mamma Maya is to make the world a better place for women and girls, we have invited both Prime Minister Anthony Albanezi and the Opposition leader Peter Dutton onto No Filter to speak directly to you. Today's episode is with a man who's been in the driver's seat of Australian leadership for the past three years. He'll open up about the personal toll of politics, handling the public perception of himself, who his friends are, and how he's scheduling in his wedding preparations. No other Prime minister has ever had to do that. Here's my conversation with Prime Minister Anthony ALBANSI. Oh, mister alban easy, although I feel I'm on Australian if I don't say.
Albow, absolutely welcome to No Filter.
Good to be here.
Last night I was actually listening to the last No Filter you did, which you did with Maya.
It was a while ago.
It was a while ago, it was before you were Prime minister. It was so extraordinary that I'm just going to say to listeners just go back and have a listen to it. Your life story, which I kind of knew in an you know, in a brief version.
I knew about your mom and you growing up.
In social housing and Da da da, but the story about your dad and never knowing your dad and thinking that he was dead and then you going to Italy after your mother's passing.
Yeah, no, it was I was told in detail with Maya that would have been before the twenty twenty two election.
Yes, and you were the leader of the opposition, I.
Was, indeed, and now you're much better job, I was.
Do you think this is better.
Because you can do things? Being Prime Minister is an incredible privilege. I sat down with some of my staff today signing approvals for funding various programs.
You can really make a difference.
And that's why I'm a member of a party of government, is that you can make change.
Well, my brother is a politician, and he's a liberal politician in Queensland and they, as you will know, spent just I think eight years in opposition.
They spent most of the last three decades in opposition.
When he's a lot happier now. I noticed that about him. He's a lot happier now and as a result of I think his engagement with his branch of politics. I've kind of stayed out of politics and not really like a lot of people, not had the time or the inclination to dive deep into it.
But this is a very important election.
It's a critical election.
I think that what happens in Australia for the rest of this decade will either set us up for the decades ahead or just tread water and what the world go past us. It's a fast moving world and one of the things that we've had to deal with is what I regard as a decade of inaction on areas like climate change, gender equity, education, health, so many areas where we've had to repair what I regard as damage or in some cases just deal with inaction which was there.
Or sometimes issues that didn't exist.
And that's true, and then you get things coming at you that you didn't anticipate. No one thought there'd be a land war in Europe that this week passed three years after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and that's had an impact on global inflation along with that long tale of COVID. People didn't anticipate when we're elected in twenty twenty two that there would be this global inflationary spike that impacted every economy in the world.
And there's so much stuff going on at the same time. And you mentioned in COVID, but I think as a politician, you probably have a very clear sense of this that people's relationships and how they feel about politicians is quite different post COVID.
Because it was such a brutal time for.
Many, Australians showed incredible discipline. I've got to say at that time overwhelmingly they responded to the health advice by getting vaccinated. They responded to some of the restrictions that were there by accepting them and complying with them.
But it was a tough time. Oh.
People understood that they needed to, for example, get vaccinated in order to protect their health. And Australians also have this sense of looking after each other, and people understood that if people said, oh, well, don't worry about the.
Restrictions, I'm going.
To go visit the age care home unvaccinated, not worry about the implications, that's not the Australian way. Australians did really look after each other during that period. I was opposition leader and we had to respond in a way that was constructive. We said to the then government, the Morrison government, that even where we disagreed with specific policies, we disagreed with people taking this super out.
We said that is a.
Mistake that will lead to less retirement and for people. But we also said we were going to not allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good, so we moved our amendments. When the amendments weren't carried, we allowed the legislation to pass.
Now that required us to put aside.
What historically in Australia is a partisan, competitive, adverse aial system. So we voted for all of that, and that was the right thing to do. It saved life.
That you say competitive and adversarial environment, I think a lot of Australians don't necessarily believe that, and believe that there's more of a UNI party than they would like to believe.
I don't think that's right.
There is certainly areas of agreement and that's a good thing. Australians also have conflict fatigue. I don't think they want to see a politicians yelling at each other. I don't think they want to see the polarization that we see in the United States. They want people to be able to have respectful disagreement and dialogue. That's something that I try to do, but it is it is hard because I think in canber for example, over cost of living pressures the opposition of chosen to vote against all of our costs of living support.
It's interesting because I think the personal is political, and much of your politics is influenced by your past experience and your growing up and even the way that you navigate the world. Like what that means, I think is that you can be seen as slightly populist, and that's seen as maybe being weak. And yet when I look at the list of policies that have come about under your leadership, they're quite extensive. How do you feel about your the public perception of you.
Well, Kindness isn't weakness. Kindness is a strength, is a value that I have. It is how I was raised. And one of the things that's happened from some sections of the media is that they confuse words and actions. You show you are strong through your actions, not by yelling, not by using language which is about conflict. And if you look at what we have done in taking on powerful vested interests, in pursuing changes that are pretty gutsy, no one in mainstream media came out when we said I'm going to change the tax cuts that have been legislated in order to take money off people at the top end and redistributed, so four and a half thousand dollars you will get instead of nine thousand dollars. Yes, but we're going to give it so that low income and middle income Australians who are hurting more than high income Australians get a tax cut. Front pages of the papers that we expected were strident, shall I say in their language personally abusive. That was a gutsy call and we're making that like it was a broken promise, and we did change our position. I went to the National Press Club and changed our position. I'm someone who has spoken at the National Press Club ten times as Labor leader. Peter Dutton's score is zero. It hasn't been near it.
Coming up after.
This break, the PM tells me what labor has done over the past three years and what's next on climate change, economy and the gender pay gap.
Well, what we are doing is taking serious action or climate change. We have worked through forty three percent target by twenty thirty, and not just an objective, but a vehicle to get there through We've got the safeguard mechanism that take the largest emitters. There's more than one hundred institutions place, so Tommago smelter or minds and they have to reduce their emissions over time or else there's a penalty for them to do. So we've got a capacity investment scheme that is working with industry on that transition to get there. And so we haven't done what the previous government did, which is set and forget that saw four gigawatts of energy leave the system and only one be created. We've approved enough renewable projects, for example, to power eight million homes in Australia in just we haven't been in government for three years yet, so we have made sure that we're working on that. You can't do it overnight because you will lose support for climate change action if someone walks into a room and flicks the light switch and the lights don't go on. So you need that transition and that's what we have been doing and been doing it i think effectively after that decade of inaction, and we've worked with industry and the environment movement. What I'm focused on is what I can do as Prime Minister who was elected in twenty twenty two, and what we can do is make sure that we look after Australia's national interests, that we have an economy that's growing, which we've got, We've got real wages growing five quarters in a row. We took on big companies like BHP objected to our same job, same pay legislation.
I've met young people in that.
Industry and others who are earning thirty four thousand dollars a year extra in their pockets as a result of the same job, same pay legislation. Workers at quantas, the same thing has occurred. So we've been prepared to do that in order to make sure that people are looked after. So we now have the economy growing, wages growing, inflation falling, interest rates starting to.
Fall as well.
We've navigated what have been really turbulent seas, but we've had our eye on that horizon of what's the objective of how do we build a faires society as well, because a fairer society is a stronger one.
Correct, and particularly when it comes to women and girls, and that seems to be an area if we can be referred to as an area that's.
More than half the population.
Well that's right, but often not treated like that. And so just some of the.
Policy at a policy level, you know, paid parental leave, the superannuation to be added to paid parental leave, policy changes in regards to contraception and support for menopause and indo, I wanted to ask you about to that end and apropos of your mum, whose experience we know about with the rheumatoid arthritis and often she was incapacitated and unable to work. And there are a lot of predominantly women in Australia who end up being cares. Yeah, you know we were talking earlier. Was you were really paraphrasing Rihanna? All of my kindness is taken for weakness, but that's what happens to women who are cares. Is there any plan to perhaps provide superannuation which I know will happen as part of paid parental leave from July this year? Rant, Is there any plan for that to happen for cares so that these women we know that there's a big issue with homelessness, particularly for older women, so that they are not punished for having done God's work or some might say government's work.
As second term agenda will be just as big as our first. But in our first term, as you say, we've had one of the first pieces of legislation was ten days paid domestian family violence leave. We introduced permanently now the leaving farllance payment. We've had more than the funding for five hundred community workers and Amanda Rishworth, our Minister, got the final sign off for every state and territory for our Joint Agreement on dealing with Domestic Violence that came out of the National Cabinet. Now that's a comprehensive plan. It deals with increased funding for emergency accommodation. We have had half a billion dollars of additional funding for community legal services that often are used by women to provide them support. In our first budget we had something that was dear to me was a single parenting payment and so the child used to be eight now it's fourteen, and some has identified in her report that that was a really important manner. We've had all fifty five recommendations of the Risks at Work Report done by Kate Jenkins implemented, and that included legislating that employers have a responsibility to provide safe workplaces where that is possible, but an obligation for them to give consideration to that, something that was resisted by some of the employers were reduced the gender pay gap to a record load.
That's not by accident.
We change the Fair Work Act so that gender pay equity is a consideration of the Fair Work Commission. So we've had three increases in a row, substantial lifting up the minimum wage.
During the last.
Campaign, the then government, the Morrison government, said the world would fall in and the economy would be ruined if we got an extra dollar an hour. Who were working their guts out the heroes of the pandemic, you know, our cleaners and real tail workers.
So we did that.
Were provided considerable increases fifteen percent for child care workers, early educators, more than that for age care workers. Those systems were ready to collapse. And it is feminized industries that had fallen behind. Because why do you think that is because women who are working and it is largely a feminized workforce in the age care sector, aren't going to go Now I'm going to leave maybson bill on their own and not going to work.
I'm going to take industrial action.
There's a different circumstance that they're in compared with a construction worker or a warfee. And hence that over a period of time had had an impact on the wage differentials, which had a real gender basis to them, and so the care sector had fallen behind. When we were lasting government, we fixed an award for sex for social and community service workers, again largely feminized, and that was one of the last things that we legislated in the Gillard and Rudd governments in twenty thirteen. But child care and age care had fallen behind.
Age care was in crisis.
People were leaving the sector because you could earn more stacking shelves than you could. Know, it's tough work lifting elderly people, caring for them.
It's tough, not.
Just physically and emotionally. They become their best friends. So all of those measures that we put in place, our tax cuts, by the way, by taking the tax cuts off the top end and redistributing them, that had an annoy almost benefit for women and young people because they got more in their pocket.
It's as simple as.
That, you know, speaking all of those measures speaking of really.
Important, they are important.
Okay, So all of those achievements, why aren't you a hitting the polls?
Well?
Why is that?
Governments around the world.
It's a diffult time with cost of living pressures and I think for some areas on tax cuts, we need to remind people that was a conscious decision and people who are on that first tax level weren't going to get a scent and people on middle incomes we're going to get far less. Will remind them of that, will remind them of wages.
People are under pressure, so.
They are all of all of those measures we will be talking about in coming weeks and months. And at the moment people judge the government or perfection, this election is about labor led by me, imperfection. Absolutely, governments are perfect and a coalition led by Peter Dutton, a labor government that is more than fifty percent women in our caucus first time ever.
That's diverse as well.
That reflects if you look at one side of the Parliament we look like Australia. The other side looks like a bunch of blokes, a bunch of Anglo Celtic blokes largely. And our cabinet chair, a cabinet that has eleven men and eleven women senior strong women in senior positions, Pennywon, Katie gallaher, all of those people are so strong and that has an impact on policy, on what we do because there's people who are connected up with those communities, and it means that gender isn't an add on, isn't like a nice to have a curiosity. It's just what we do in every cabinet submissions. What is the gender impact now, Peter it doun't's talking about sacking thirty six thousand public servants, talking about reflecting what's going on in the US as well with this attack on diversity and inclusion.
Well, this is interesting.
Do you think that appetite that's manifested in America will be reflected here?
I think we're a very different societ and we need our Australian values to be reflected. There was criticism of the government of me when I appointed Sam Mouston as the Governor General of Australia and the second woman to be appointed. Sam Moston is an incredibly qualified, accomplished woman, the first woman to be an AFL commissioner, someone who's the daughter of a senior Australian Defense Force person her dad and grew up in that Defense Force environment.
So I was aware of that aspect of the job.
Someone who's been on the Business Council of Australia executive, been on multiple boards of Transurban and virgin and a whole host of major ASXST did companies. She's someone who is incredibly well qualified. But it was why are you appointing someone again from the a former bloke from the military.
Or not a former bloke still a blow it's still a bloke, but formerly from the military, imagine, And.
I'm really proud that we did that.
I'm proud that we have appointed women to senior positions across the whole range of areas.
You know, the head of the Productivity.
Commission across a range of areas, women's in charge of finance, and that is reflected in our government. You get it's not tokenism. You get a stronger outcome when you're mobilizing the talents of all of your people, not just half.
That's not all of my conversation with Prime Minister Anthony Albanezi after this short break. We talk about his meat with Jody, his partner, how the wedding plans are going, which no other Australian Prime minister has ever planned a wedding while in.
Office, and also his dog Toto.
Against this backdrop of the work that you have to do and that you chose choosing to do. Your personal life was also evolving at that point. I'm interested in how those two things run concurrently. And you've spoken before, and you've spoken quite publicly, and it's an experience that a lot of Australians share with the end of a relationship, a significant relationship, Your wife, Carmel, and how you had to pick yourself.
Up from that? Was New Year's Day?
You said, did you say New Year's Day?
Well, that was a decision that she made and I had to come to terms with that and just accept it. She made a decision that she wanted her life to go in a different direction.
I accepted that.
I went away to the UK and to Portugal for a couple weeks before the twenty nineteen election, and it was quite good to just spend some time with myself.
And how was yourself came back at that time?
Were you?
Oh, Look, it was a difficult period because it wasn't expected and always difficult, of course, and we had spent thirty years together. But I came back, threw myself into the twenty nineteen campaign. We were expected to win and of course weren't successful, and then I was elected unopposed as Labor leader. So threw myself very much into that as well. It was a diffult time for the Labor Party because there was this expectation that Bill Shorten would win that election. You just pick yourself up and dust yourself off, and you move on. And so I threw myself into being Labor leader, into resurrecting the Labor brand and to making us competitive at the twenty twenty two election.
And I remember, actually I think we had you on the project, yes, and it was the first time I'd seen you in quite some time, and make you look sharp, and you look like you were ready. It was kind of like Rocky, you know what I mean. It looked like you'd been training for this. Because there is the the physical must have such a toll taken on it. Obviously there's the mental, the emotional of what you're doing. But just the hours that you're doing.
Oh, it does.
But I'm someone who's never been frightened of hard work. I do laugh at the moment where people will write outcles saying mister Albanezi has been to five states in three days or something. I've been doing that for years. I have a strong work ethic. I get adrenaline, I enjoy engaging with people. Someone who doesn't just go into protected environments.
I walk through shopping centers.
I engage in environments where you don't know what's going to happen, things can go wrong. I like nothing better than attending an event like the Lunar New Year Festival in box Hill or different events you engage with people.
Are there times when because I know that's a thing also particularly probably in every political party, but with Labor, sometimes he's a the perception that there's not real world experience and that you've you know, so have you when was the last time that you were exposed to people and you went, oh, that's a good idea, or I haven't thought of that, or that's changed my mind.
All the time, I get out and about and engage with poople all the time, whether it's walking around. Yeah, it was indeed. So there I was at a dinner in Melbourne and someone sledged me when introducing me about being a South Sydney supporter. And there's this whole thing about a random souseperson who's everywhere anywhere in the world you go, there'll be someone wearing a Bunnies jumper, even at the Wimbledon tennis or at the goal for Russell Crowe exactly, and so I said, oh, there's always a random south person here, and Jad yelled out up the rabbit os and so I went around and talked, went around the tables, meeting people as I do, getting that engagement, and there I met Jody. And then there was another event a couple of weeks later, and Jody was there again by coincidence.
Yeah, what was she? She was there for work?
Yeah, at the time, she was working for a superannuation outfit, and so she was there for work and I was there for work. And we said hello again. And I realized then that she was living in Sydney. She lived in my electorate at Stanmore and I was living at Marrathon and so she sent me a message and we.
You've got to meet. Cute story.
We caught up for a drink at Young Henry's Brewery there in Newtown on a Friday afternoon after work.
Did you have security with you?
Do you have to?
No? No, it's opposition leader.
I chose, so you were just yourself. I chose not to. And were you nervous?
I was there not really because I just thought it was a catch up. Enjoy Company with people, and I just thought it would just be a beer and I actually was talking to the young Henry's guys are quite big with beards, and Jodi thought, oh, you know what's going on because you walked in and I was already there. And so we caught up for a drink and ended up having a drink became dinner that night, good date and then yeah, and then we caught up again. But it wasn't it didn't start off as a date. That started off as just catching up for a beer afterward.
It didn't start as a date. But that's a date. But that's the way to go.
Into it, absolutely, and we talked and engaged and it was it was very pleasant. So then we caught up a few weeks later.
And then at what point did you because that's a big thing for her to take on.
And then you became prime minister. Yeah, which no, girlfriend's hating that.
I don't know, No, I don't think so we might go like, oh my god, it's not what I expected, but secretly we're like, oh my god, it's the prime minister.
And she sort of grew into that role of being your.
Like your form me and my partner.
Yeah, yeah, your partner.
Yeah, and we and the relationship because of COVID as well, speaking of COVID restrictions for a while there there were months where we didn't see each other, right because I was in canber and couldn't go to s as well, So that slowed things up a bit as well.
And then when Nathan, when was the first time Nathan, your son met her met her?
I guess probably a couple of introduced.
Because that's so significant.
Yeah, and they get on. They get on very well. Nathan's grown into a fine young man. And Nathan and his mum and I get on.
Well.
And she was very supportive of you in your election campaign Jody.
Yeah, absolutely, she was out there, not front and Senna, you know, she works full time, she has her own professional career. She's an accomplished professional woman who has a very much her own identity, in her own values and views. And so she though at the campaign launch and at those events, she was there. And then of course post that her life is I think not what she would have anticipated five years ago.
No, I'm sure. And now you're getting married.
We are, and I came to the realization, you know that this is someone that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with and so we never discussed marriage before I proposed in did she know that.
She at all?
Not at all, even though it's a Valentine's Day proposal.
Didn't didn't see it coming, she says.
So she says, well, no, but I think that, yeah, we were obviously very committed to each other, and we made that commitment earlier on and you don't, of course need a legal bit of paper to make that commitment.
But I think.
There is something about marriage.
That there is you want to make.
That public decoration in front of your close family and friends, and who.
Are you to do?
Who are your like? Who's your best friend?
Aside from Jody?
Now, aside from who's been displaced.
By Jody, Well, no one's been displaced.
I have a range of relationships with men and women. Some of my colleagues I'm really close to Penny and Katie Richard and Mark Butler, a whole range of people. But I have friends that I have had since I was a little kid. On the day in which I became Prime Minister formally in terms of the parliamentary sense, the first day of Parliament, they have an event at the War Memorial the day before on the Monday sunset service, and there there were I got a message from someone I grew up with with a photo and she was clear there Sharie, a friend of mine, and she sent this message. I was like you in Canberra and a bunch of my friends, the old housos who I grew up with in Campadown had come down to Canberra from all over Australia. Now Clayton's a warfie in Fremantle, Wendy from.
Melbourne people had come.
There were eight of them had come because their mate who they grew up with in public housing in Campadown was becoming the Prime Minister.
And so.
They hadn't told me about this. I just connected, you know, we keep in touch with each other. And so they came to dinner at the lodge that night and it was absolutely it was one of the best things that has ever happened to me in my life, was that feeling of connection with where I'd come from. We've got pretty good odds on the son of a single mum out born out of wedlock there in Campdown, who grew up in this little public housing community. It was city Council when I was younger and then got transferred over to the State Department of Housing and.
They'd all come and it was wonderful. I kept connected with those people.
Do you think that that will be possible for like Nathan's generation?
I hope. Yeah.
He's friends with kids that he went to Dully Public School at Dulwich Hill and they went right through what I still call Leichhart Hived is now called Sydney Secondary College, and then Blackwattell, which is the same school, went through with a bunch of close friends and they're still they're still his closest group of confidence and they look after each other.
I probably mean beyond that as well. Do you think that trajectory is possible for an Australian now to come from public housing?
Do you know what I mean?
Yeah, I certainly hope. So.
I want Australia to be the land of opportunity, where your trajectory in life should not be dictated by your postcode of where you were born or the circumstances into which you were born.
And I do think that's possible.
I look at the colleagues who've gone into Parliament, who are incredibly diverse, and sometimes we romanticize.
The past of it.
Yes.
The truth is that.
For eighty three years in South Wales, the largest state, every single member of the House of Representatives had something in common. Eighty three years, every election without exception, Labor, Liberal, Independent, They were all men, every single one day.
Jeanettekee was people to romantic.
Some people romanticized the presence we had.
We had very little indigenous representative. We have a First Nation's Caucus that has half a dozen people in it.
Now we have the first two Muslims being.
Ministers in a national government, ed Husick and Nla from twenty twenty two. We have an incredibly diverse parliament. That's a good thing. It's a good thing that Penny Wong is the Senate leader and someone called alban As is the House of Reps leader.
I've met him, he's all right.
Well, they were all Anglo Celtic before then. If you go back and look at the surnames.
Also, your name became part of just such an effective opposition slogan is life going to get easy under alban Easy?
What it will do is show the benefit of the hard work that we've done in this term. We've turned the corner we had inflation with a six in front when we were elected. It now has a two in front. At two point four. We had real wages had decreased five quarters in a row, five quarters.
In a row.
That has we have made that. Interest rates started to go up before the election. Now they've started to go down before this election. So we have made incredible progress. The progress that we've made on climate change, the progress that we've made on gender equity is substantial. In as I said under three years before the last election, I said, you couldn't change the country to what my vision was for it, a fairer, stronger country in just three years. You needed multiple terms to entrench it. We are not just saying what we have done. We're saying we'll reduce student debt by a further twenty percent on top of the three billion dollars worth cut off student debt, will have free tafe there permanently, will have cheaper child care. The next stage in the shift to childcare reform, getting rid of the activity tests that really penalizes particularly women in disadvantage positions.
We'll do that. We'll have a billion.
Dollars for child care infrastructure. The announcement that we made about Medicare and giving tripling the bulk billion center for everyone, not just for concession cardholders, will particularly advantage women and people who will make a judgment for themselves or their families.
Can I afford to see a doctor?
If we move back to what Medicare should be, which is free care to visit the GP In this case, our objective is ninety percent of the time, that will make an enormous difference.
At the same time, does your GP bult bill?
Do you get to see a normal doctor?
Yeah? Do you see a normal doctor?
Is there a prime Minister doctor?
No?
Get I get to see my doctor?
Yeah?
And grateful they do.
Yeah.
Very for a while there it was impossible to find a doctor that.
Was not built.
That's right, and that's because pleaded Dutton and froze the Medicare for six years. They had a conscious decision. Peter Dutton's position was that you shouldn't see doctors for free.
He tried to.
Abolish bulk building by having a GP tax every time people visited a GP, and indeed at tax every time people visited an emergency department as well, and at tax on pharmaceuticals. Fifty billion dollars out of the health system, out of the hospital system. They did that in their twenty fourteen budget and just two days ago Anne Rusten, the Health Shadow Minister, said again, well we never said that people should see a doctor for free.
Well, you know, the.
Basis of medicare is very different from the American system. I don't want to see the americanization of the health system. I want the Australian system, which is the best philosophy in the world, which is that if you need healthcare, so that my mum as an invalid pensioner when she ended up passing away in Royal Prince Alford Hospital, but more than one visit to emergency there when often long confinement, often a long time in hospital. Kerry Packer as one of Australia's richest people. When he had a heart attack, he ended up at Royal Prince Alford Hospital.
And I as a labor leader.
When I had a car accident and almost died, I was very lucky. In January twenty twenty one, I ended up an emergency department in Royal Prince Alfred Hospital as well.
What was the last thing that you and Jodi had an argument about? Because I would not if I was your girlfriend.
I wouldn't want to. We don't. We actually get on incredibly well, like.
He's walked the dog? Or who didn't get milk?
No?
No, well we both love the dog and Toto's very spoilt. Toto is certainly the first dog and she knows it.
Is Toto going to have a role in the wedding.
Of course, ring bear, she's got to be the ring bearer?
Really is she that well trained?
Oh? She's pretty good. Yeah, No, she's very discipline.
Knows to walk Toto around Marrickvil and she will never ever run off.
And she's now of.
Course, had a tiny backyard as bad as big as this.
Studio in Maryville.
She's now the backyard yeah, a bit bigger these days.
Is the backyard going to stay big? Is my question to you?
Well, that will be up to the Australian people. What do you think they're going to stand coming months? Well, I'm confident that we have not just a record of seeing Australia through what has been very tough times, turning that around. We have a program for an agenda for a second term and our opponents have three policies six hundred billion dollars nuclear plan sometime in the twenty forties free lunch that all your listeners will pay for but won't get up to twenty thousand dollars and cuts to pay for all of the above that they won't tell you about till after the election. I've never seen such a lazy opposition. We had went to the election in twenty twenty two with cheap of childcare policies, the Future Major in Australia Agenda, a whole series of policies, age care reform. They haven't done the hard yards and they're not ready for government. And my government has been really orderly disciplined. I've got a fantastic team.
You know, this is a forum to speak to a large cohort of Australian women.
What is your pitch to them.
That we are a government that are defined by in part one of our core objectives, not something that's an add on, not something that's an afterthought. How do we promote economic equality for women and that is something that's at the core of what we do, whether it's in economic policy, whether it be in social policy. We have a record of achievement in our first three years, but we recognize there is more to do and my government will always be respectful and engaging. And I believe one of the key differences between my government and our opponents is whether we take gender equity seriously.
All right, here's a proposition for you, should you win the election. I would like to invite you back in a year's time so that I can check your KPIs done on what you have done for women, policies that have been executed that have changed the lives of women in Australia. Absolutely, it's a deal, Albow. I don't see you in a year's time. See you then, possibly as Prime Minister. Possibly is a normy. He's just dropped by to say hello.
Hope, we're both still here in every sense, fantastic, thank you, thanks.
For having me on self with us.
My pleasure.
There's more to Albow's story, and Maya actually sat down to.
Talk to the PM before he was the PM.
It's the most extraordinary story of meeting his father for the first time when he was in his forties. There's a link to that the show notes and if you'd like to hear from the Leader of the Opposition, I also spoke to Peter Dutton. There's also a link to that discussion in the show Notes. I'm your host, kateline Brook. Thanks for listening.
