Television interview - ABC News Breakfast

JAMES GLENDAY, HOST: I'm happy to say we are joined now by the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, who is of course in Canberra. Prime Minister, welcome back to our program.

ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: G'day, James. Good to be with you.

GLENDAY: Now, industrial relations has been a big part of your government's agenda. You've spoken a fair bit about productivity as well, but I suspect productivity is going to plunge this afternoon. How should the nation's bosses be dealing with workers who are going to be insisting on watching the Socceroos?

PRIME MINISTER: Kindly and with thoughts of our national interest. I've got this beautiful - not sure if it's showing up there on the TV, hopefully it is, this beautiful artwork of wattle, green and gold in Australia's national colours just behind us. And it will be an important day, I've got to say. I've got a Ministry meeting here in Parliament House this morning. It will end sharply at 11:30am, I assure you, so that people can get in front of their TV screen, watch it on SBS and it will be a great couple of hours and I'm sure the whole of Australia will be cheering on the Socceroos. They've done so well up to now. All we need is a draw. But a win would be nice.

GLENDAY: So, very briefly and just to put you on the spot, our very own Catherine Murphy has been saying it's a half day officially. If workers call in sick, if they disappear at lunchtime, can they say the Prime Minister told them so?

PRIME MINISTER: No, I'm not giving people instructions. What I'm saying is that I know that Australian workers will be, of course, very passionate about the Socceroos and I know that Australian employers will be generous in their approach towards these things.

GLENDAY: I'm sure they'll -

PRIME MINISTER: Common sense should apply.

GLENDAY: A bit of common sense would be good. Now, just in other news, PM, we're seeing the horrific pictures of disaster come out of Venezuela after two big earthquakes. Do you know if any Australians are caught up in this? And is your government considering aid?

PRIME MINISTER: Look, we have just been alerted to this. I was briefed on this first thing this morning. These horrific consequences of this earthquake. It's not clear yet if Australians are caught up in this because Australians are great travellers, of course, right around the world. Given the numbers that have been impacted, it would, certainly is possible that Australians are caught up in it. We're continuing to monitor the situation and our heart goes out to anyone here who has relatives or friends in Venezuela because this is one of the worst earthquakes that we've seen in recent times with catastrophic human consequences, with the massive loss of life, but also massive infrastructure damage and real consequences for the people of Venezuela.

GLENDAY: You're on the verge of strengthening Australia's under 16 Social Media Ban. Now, I would love you to make the announcement on our program this morning, I'm sure you're not going to, but can you give us a broad brush about what sort of things you have planned in this space?

PRIME MINISTER: What we want to do is to make sure that the laws are as strong as possible and that they will withstand any legal challenges which are made. These are not uncontroversial. When I say that though, they're not controversial amongst the Australian public and amongst parents because they know that this is a world leading ban. And I'm really proud of the fact that we are leading the world, when we made this change to the law and it was made in a bipartisan way, it was a bold and some say, courageous step that we made because there are consequences for these big global giants that have so much power. And this is an attempt to wind that back a little bit, to say that no, there are real human consequences. And the great thing about this reform as well is that it was led not by parliamentarians, it was led by parents who'd lost their young children and who took that grief and channelled it into not wanting other parents to go through the tragedy that they had personally experienced. So, this is important. It's been mirrored in 16 nations. We're just looking at, are the laws as strong as possible, given some of the feedback that's there? Does the eSafety Commissioner have every power at her disposal? And we'll adjust things accordingly.

GLENDAY: Okay. Was a big night last night. The property tax concessions, negative gearing, capital gains were wound back. The laws passed Parliament. Would these have been easier for you to sell to the Australian public if you'd combine them with big income tax cuts or if house prices had actually been on the way up in our major cities instead of on the way down?

PRIME MINISTER: Well, they've been combining with the legislation, gave every worker a tax cut through our Working Australians Tax Offset -

GLENDAY: It was a relatively small tax cut though, wasn't it? The large tax cut, the kind that had been spoken about when this reform had been previously discussed, though?

PRIME MINISTER: The legislation that was carried by the Parliament last night gives every worker a tax cut and importantly gives every young Australian a fairer crack at owning their own home. And the interesting thing about this debate that has been quite, you know, quite willing since the Budget, is that there's no one out there arguing that the housing system is okay, that the status quo is working. Everyone knows that we have a housing system in Australia that is broken. We've had a 400 per cent increase in house prices at the same time that we've had less than half of that increase in wages. And that means that it is less and less affordable, more and more difficult for people to get into the market. And this is just about levelling the playing field and also treating income earned from wages more equally with income earned from assets. Now, most of your listeners will earn their income overwhelmingly from the work that they put in, they have, most Australians, the main thing that they offer up is their time to work and to have an income, to put food on the table and to look after themselves. So, that equal treatment or more equal treatment is also making the tax system fairer. This is important reform and it's good that it's been passed. And now that it's been passed as well, what you'll see is some of the scare campaigns about things that are not true and are not happening, that will be more difficult. So, for example, anyone who has a negatively -

GLENDAY: Well, they'll be put to the test -

PRIME MINISTER: Well, anyone who has a negatively geared property will not have that negative gearing change, for example. And so, they'll actually see that a whole lot of people think at the moment that they are impacted. They're not.

GLENDAY: Okay, I'm very conscious you've got other interviews and I need to let you go. Just before I do, the Today Show has confirmed that Karl Stefanovic is leaving the Nine Network. What are your thoughts about that? Is Channel Nine making the right decision?

PRIME MINISTER: That's a matter of course for Channel Nine. But words do matter, and what people who are very prominent in our public discourse do, how they conduct themselves matters as well. So, this is, of course a matter for Nine. And it's unfortunate the way that what has been a very big career has ended in this way. But that's a matter for Karl Stefanovic to think about his actions and the decisions that he's made. And Nine have made a consequential decision.

GLENDAY: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, we always appreciate your time. Thanks for joining our show today.

PRIME MINISTER: Thanks, James.