JANE NORMAN, NATIONAL PRESS CLUB DIRECTOR: Prime Minister, thank you for your address today. It’s very detailed and lots of questions will be coming from the journalists here today, but I wanted to start by asking about the crisis we’re currently in and the wakeup call that I feel it’s presented Australia. As you say, we’re an island nation. We import the vast majority of our liquid fuels. We’re at the end of a very long supply chain. So, I’m wondering, what is your government’s long-term plan to make Australia either self-sufficient or far more self-sufficient when it comes to liquid fuels?
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: We have to be more self-sufficient and less vulnerable. We had, fortunately, at the beginning of this global crisis, the largest fuel reserves that we’d had in Australia for 15 years. And importantly, our fuel reserves were here, not in the United States. Now, six of our refineries were open when we left office in 2013. When we came back in 2022, there were two. Two. So, if you look at what we’ve done, whether it’s in Mount Isa, Whyalla, Nyrstar in Tasmania, Gladstone, we have been prepared to intervene and not just say, “Oh, well, we’ll just let the market operate and we won’t worry about what happens because we’ll be right, we’ll get stuff from somewhere else.” We’ve been prepared to intervene to make sure that we are more resilient and self-reliant. That’s what the Critical Minerals Strategic Reserve that we announced during the last campaign was about as well. So, it’s that principle of a Future Made in Australia that I spoke about prior to 2022. I spoke about it on this very platform in one of the speeches I gave as opposition leader. And it’s that theme that we’ll continue to work on. How do we deal with these issues? So, partly one of the things we’ve done this week, for example, is to increase the Finance Minister’s emergency fund, if you like, so that she has a greater capacity. There’s some smaller improvements that we can make to potentially produce more diesel here. We’re looking at all of those options.
NORMAN: Increasing capacity, more refineries. What are the kind of practical ways –
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we’re looking at all of those options, but it all needs to start with the principle of, we can’t assume, as I said in the speech, that we’ll get it from somewhere else because it’s cheaper somewhere else and this market will operate, that that is the world that we’re in. We are not. We’re in a world where economic relationships are linked to national security. We need to continue to do that. So, if you like the principle that we were elected on in 2022, which included in I think it was the first or maybe the second Budget Reply I did, I announced the National Reconstruction Fund. That was about making more things here. It was about being more resilient. And it’s that principle that if anything we need to now turbocharge rather than back away from. But I think we were right in drawing that distinction prior to our election. We’ve been putting in place those measures since then in a range of areas, but we’ll continue to do so.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, there have been many calls for a super profits tax to take advantage of enhanced gas exports. What’s your view of that sort of tax? How do you see the pros and the cons of it?
PRIME MINISTER: I think it needs to be viewed in the context of where we are now. So, one of the things that we’ve been very clear about, for example, is that just as we expect countries that supply us to stick to agreements which are there, we think it’s very important that the contracts that we have be fulfilled completely with countries in our region. That’s the quid pro quo, if you like. And I think that is very important as we go forward. So, to be clear, our first priority is supply. Supply depends upon those relationships being adhered to. And some of the commentary that is there ignores a whole range of the issues. They take some select areas, pretend that there isn’t a return to the Australian people from the resources sector which is there, which is a real strength for us. So, we’ll continue to engage. The tax priority, the only tax policy that the Government has adopted at the moment, of course, is the income tax cut that comes in on 1 July.
JOURNALIST: Thank you for your address, Prime Minister. Going back to the gambling announcement, a lot of the recommendations in the Murphy Report haven’t been addressed yet. A lot of them around harm minimisation, a levy to fund online gambling harm reduction, a duty of care, national regulators, stuff like that. Can you please explain why you haven’t addressed those principles in this announcement and whether or how soon you’re going to release a full response to the Murphy Report?
PRIME MINISTER: We will be tabling a response to the Murphy Report on the first day that Parliament comes back, when it returns. Cabinet adopted these positions today. This is a position that we will take forward in legislation when Parliament resumes. One of the things that people are looking for here is certainty, and the Government decides positions, not committees. Government can be informed by committees, but the Government determines positions. And one of the things that sporting codes need, or dare I say it, here at the National Press Club, TV channels that have broadcasting deals – all of that is tied up with certainty going forward. And what we will do is present a final position that we have. It’s informed as well by the key elements going forward. Some of it is about the Murphy Report, but the Murphy Report isn’t where it started and ended. And when we look at gambling as well, one of the things that I have said to some of the advocates, overwhelmingly, more than half of problem gambling is about poker machines. That’s not covered by any of this at all. And so, we will deal with things appropriately. With regard to a duty of care, we’re considering a duty of care when it comes to online that’s much broader than just this. So, it’s that context of reform is what we’ll be taking forward.
JOURNALIST: Look, just back to Jane’s question, PM, on fuel security. The 2019 election, your predecessor Bill Shorten had a policy to restore our fuel stocks to 90 days in accordance with the IEA requirement. The import fuel stocks. That was opposed by the then-government as prohibitively expensive. When you said to Jane, you’re looking at everything, is it your intention to try and return those stocks to 90 days? And do you think people now experiencing what they’re experiencing may be prepared to, say, cop a levy at the bowser when prices return to normal to help fund it?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, just bear in mind that the 90-day reserve considered by the IEA isn’t a reserve for domestic use. It’s a reserve as we’ve seen at the moment for a global crisis to be released. So, that’s why it’s there. One of the things about Australia, because of the size of our continent, is that the cost would be around about $20 billion annually. And the other thing is because fuel can’t be just kept, it has to be topped up, then the challenge for us is very different from a smaller country in Europe, for example, that has a larger population. We certainly will consider what we can to increase our fuel security. We’ve been doing that. That’s why at the beginning of this crisis, we had the largest reserves in 15 years. So, we’ll consider all those measures, but in a practical way going forward as well, because you’ve got to look at opportunity costs as well of what the best method is to increase fuel security. That is certainly what we’ll be examining with our – 2019’s a long time ago. We’ve moved on. And we’ll continue to examine what is the best policy to further increase that security. So, there’s a range of measures, there’s biofuels, there’s a range of new technologies as well that can add to our security.
JOURNALIST: In announcing these gambling reforms, you’ve pitched it as protecting Australian children. Australian adults lose about $32 billion a year to gambling. It’s the highest per capita in the world. One of the measures talked about in the Murphy Report is actually a full ban on ads. Something that ACMA has found is that partial bans tend to result in more ads being played when they are allowed. So, why are you confident that these partial advertising restrictions that you’ve announced will actually deliver the protections, not just for future generations, but the current one that is losing billions of dollars a year?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, more ads can’t be played. That’s the point behind having a restriction. From the average, when we were talking about a couple years ago – in 2024, for example, were eight. Eight. So, three is obviously cutting it by more than half. It’s about getting that balance right. And the nature of it as well is that if a footy player is running around with a gambling company on their football jumper, that’s not eight an hour that there was. That’s constant for the 80 minutes plus injury time that a game’s going on. We think we have got the balance right. I think that going forward, this is a significant reform. It’s the most, to be clear, the most significant reform on gambling that has ever been implemented, following the previous most significant reform that gambling had ever had, which was what we did in our first term.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, the President of the US had just spoken as you were getting up. I’m not sure if you’ve been briefed yet. You can take my question as being nearly verbatim quotes. He says the US’s war efforts there are nearing completion. He also says, a week after raising the prospect of a deal with Iran that might have opened the Straits, he now says it’s on allies who need to use the Straits, which obviously we very much do need to. It’s on allies to take the lead in terms of opening up the Straits. I wonder what your response is to his comments.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, with respect, Paul, as much as I trust every journalist in this room, it’s a bit hard to comment on President Trump’s statement, which was I think done in part while I was sitting up here. But my position I’ve made very clear, which is we do want to see a de-escalation. As I said in my speech, the objectives that President Trump outlined at the time of him launching the action against Iran have largely been achieved and we want to see a de-escalation. We want to also see it taken into account the economic costs that this is having right around the world.
JOURNALIST: Happy that he’s nearing completion? Is that a welcome sign?
PRIME MINISTER: I think that’s totally consistent with what we are seeing and what I’ve said, which is I want to see a de-escalation, yes.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, in your speech, you talked a lot about ambitious reform, but it seemed to me it was through the prism of economic resilience. Is that what you’re defining the reform in this Budget as being about? So, is that going to be a bigger focus than, for example, some of the tax reform measures that have been floated? And with taking that into account, do Australians need to get used to a bigger role for government over the coming years compared to the Hawke and Keating era that you say we need to move on from?
PRIME MINISTER: I fully respect the reforms that the Hawke and Keating Government implemented. They led to decades of prosperity here in Australia because they opened up our economy at a time where we had globalisation and global trade and relationships between trading nations which stuck. The WTO, the emergence of the creation of APEC, which was in part an Australian creation, free trade agreements. What we’re seeing now is a very different world, and Australia has to respond to that. And when it comes to economic resilience, it means two things. It means not being at the end of supply chain, so the establishment of a Future Made in Australia agenda. But it also means, as my speech said as well, it’s about that social licence and social cohesion as well, giving people a stake in the economy. I think that is very much a part of economic resilience as well. Young people feeling like they can get a fair crack. That’s why we did the student debt relief. That’s why we need to look at issues including whether younger generations think they’ll ever get into home ownership. Those issues are all important for economic reform, and we’ll examine that intergenerational equity aspect of reform just as we’ve done an extraordinary amount of work on gender equity, whether it be the largest women’s health program that Australia has ever seen by big margin – can you imagine the other mob coming up with, or even thinking, or even getting on the agenda, endo and pelvic pain clinics? It just wouldn’t have happened. And so the whole range of things that we have done – I mean, I found it remarkable that there had been no new contraceptives put on the PBS for 30 years. If there’s a bunch of blokes sitting around the Cabinet Room, maybe that’s what happens, but it doesn’t happen in a government that has a majority of women around the Cabinet Room and a majority of women in our caucus.
JOURNALIST: But given the world has changed, as you said, economists are calling for government spending to be pulled back to make more room for the private sector. Do you think this is actually inconsistent with what you view as the geostrategic reality and that government spending will need to be expanded to make some of these investments?
PRIME MINISTER: Not at all. You’ve done well there to sneak in an extra one, but congratulations on that, Greg. Not at all. We’ll continue to look for sensible savings. We’ve had $114 billion, I think the figure is, of savings so far. We’ve saved massive amounts in terms of where debt would have been and where it was projected to be. We produced two budget surpluses and lower deficits than they anticipated when they handed down their budget in March 2022. We’ll continue to have savings in this Budget. There are only two sorts of people in my Cabinet, those who are on the ERC and those who are glad they’re not, because they have more time.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, Donald Trump in recent days and weeks has abused his oldest allies. He started a war without consulting those allies, and he’s used military assets that have Australians serving on them, including nuclear submarines. What work needs to be done to rescue the social licence for the $350 billion AUKUS pact?
PRIME MINISTER: The US alliance is our most important. That remains the case. And we’ve relied upon it. 1951 was when it was formalised, but the truth is, it was really formalised in World War II by John Curtin when he said, “Australia looks to America.” And ever since then, they’re our most important military partner. The AUKUS relationship makes sense for us. If you look at what we are doing, whether it be the nuclear powered submarines that we’ll be building at Osborne in South Australia, whether you look at the work, job creation, and flow on benefit for high value manufacturing in Western Australia in particular, but also the reports today of my friend, the Defence Minister, working with his German counterpart when he was here, going to look at Ghost Bat and Ghost Shark, the development of these new technologies Australia are exporting, not just becoming more self-reliant on defence. The AUKUS relationships are a part of that. So, one of the things that my Government is really proud of is that we have cemented our relationships with our traditional partners, the United States and the United Kingdom, but we haven’t said that’s enough. We actually recognise we’ve repaired the relationship with China. We have strengthened the relationships with ASEAN nations, cemented the ties with our North Asia trading partners, South Korea and Japan, as well as the role that we’re playing in the Pacific Island Forum and looking towards the emerging superpowers, India and Indonesia, for the opportunities that that presents.
JOURNALIST: But do you concede that Donald Trump has damaged the social licence for AUKUS?
PRIME MINISTER: People will have different views on President Trump –
JOURNALIST: I am seeking yours.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, my job as Australian Prime Minister is to develop relationships with world leaders. That’s what I do and that is what I have done, with some scepticism from some of your colleagues, over whether I could do that or not. We’re able to talk. We’ve had three face-to-face engagements, multiple phone calls. That’s important because it’s in Australia’s national interest.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, to continue the theme of President Trump, you said at the start of your address here, “it’s not clear what more needs to be achieved when it comes to Iran.” So, to be clear, is your message that you want this war to end now or can you live with the two-to-three week time frame that the President has laid out?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, to be clear, as I’ve said, and people are aware, Australia wasn’t consulted before this began. The United States is a sovereign state and they are the world’s largest economy. And President Trump, I think will continue to make announcements. What I have said, very clearly though, is that I do want to see a de-escalation and I want there to be recognition as well, greater clarity about how this ends, and I haven’t seen, to be fair, the timing of President Trump’s speech. So, I’m reluctant to talk about what he’s – the content of his speech. But I’ve been pretty consistent about this as well, that we need to account for what the end point is here and what the objectives are and that the objectives that were originally put forward by President Trump, I think have largely been realised.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, your address to the nation last night, the previous two during COVID, Scott Morrison announced $18 billion underwriting the economy. JobKeeper. In the global financial crisis, Kevin Rudd announced about $10 billion including stimulus cheques to families –
PRIME MINISTER: People have forgotten one. The previous address to the nation was after Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth died and I gave it.
JOURNALIST: There we are. In your second address to the nation last night, Prime Minister – well, and on the basis of the two in crises, and maybe the Queen’s death is a crisis of sorts, both the Prime Ministers announced significant packages underpinning the economy. We’re now in a fuel crisis that’s threatening the economy. You’ve laid out a fairly cogent case for that. So, two things. Why no detail in that address last night? Why just a group hug? And secondly, are you considering some cash stimulus for families as your predecessors did in similar circumstances as part of that cost-of-living relief?
PRIME MINISTER: I make two points. One is the details in the National Fuel Security Plan, that was agreed. Second point I’d make, is that the world’s different from when I had the privilege of serving as a Minister in the Rudd Government. One of the things that’s occurred in recent weeks, during this global crisis is the amount of misinformation that’s out there. People now, with due respect to Channel Seven News or anything else, used to get their information from Seven or Nine or ABC or Ten or SBS. They’d get their information there and there would be a consistency about it. Now they’re getting it on their device. It’s telling them all sorts of things that aren’t true. They also – we have, unlike during COVID where you won’t find anything, any old talking points sent out to Shadow Ministers while I was Leader, such as the talking points that were distributed by the Leader of the Opposition’s office just yesterday, telling people essentially to talk up the issue of difficulties when it comes to fuel. You won’t find that. We acted responsibly. So, I took the opportunity to talk directly to the nation. That is more important than ever. Because the nature of noise that is out there, the conspiracy theories that are out there, which propagate, which we can’t do anything about and you know, we can’t wish the world was back so that everyone got their news at 6pm or 5 or 7 when they watched TV at night. Or they all read their paper that they held in their hands. And because of that, it is now more important than ever that people take every opportunity. I mean, this week we’ve had more than, I think 24 questions yesterday and we’ve had more questions in the last fortnight. I’ve allowed or encouraged Question Time to go for as long as possible. I’ve held full scale press conferences, Friday, Saturday, Monday, over and over. I’m here at the National Press Club on Holy Thursday. I’m taking every opportunity to try to put out facts about where we’re at and to show people that we do have a plan. There’s no need for people to go and fill up jerrycans and put them on the back of utes and go off and do that as well. And that’s why directly talking to people is an important opportunity and I think was worth 3 minutes and 17 seconds to do so.
JOURNALIST: I’m sorry, and the stimulus payments?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we’ll have a Budget in May. We’ll have a Budget five weeks away. We’re working through all of those issues. But I’ll tell you what a stimulus payment is. It’s a tax cut that’s coming in July. It’s a difference that we’ve made in terms of fuel security of 32 cents off every litre. It’s a difference that we’re making as well in the heavy vehicle road user charge that will have a downward pressure on everything that is on those heavy vehicles as well. So, we will always look at cost-of-living measures, a range of which have kicked in this year, including the ones that I outlined in the speech. But the May Budget of course is an opportunity as well as for us to outline savings, investments and a way forward.
JOURNALIST: I just wanted to refer you to a comment that was left under your video on Facebook last night that has about 2,000 –
PRIME MINISTER: That’s always a mistake. Never read the comments.
JOURNALIST: I think this one taps into the national mood, if you’ll allow me – “Hello, Prime Minister. Please reserve addresses to the nation for things of importance such as a declaration of war, an announcement of a pandemic or lockdowns or something of national significance. Reassurance for the public can be done as a social media campaign or press conference. Being told hours in advance that our national leader is going to address us on our television set at a predetermined time slot can cause a lot of anxiety for people thinking that it’s going to be something dire.” For eight hours yesterday we heard people were going out to the bowser, fearing fuel rationing, preparing to work from home. There was a lot of anxiety in the community in that eight-hour window.” Do you accept that, in trying to quell fears and calm people down, it did inadvertently cause some panic?
PRIME MINISTER: I spoke to your editor, as I spoke to every editor yesterday afternoon. We had, myself and Chris Bowen, had an off the record briefing about what we were doing, what the context was. We continued to, and that was very constructive. We did everything we could to try to get the message out there. But I refer to previous answer. We need to talk directly. The truth is that the demand spike in fuel had occurred, was continuing to occur. There hasn’t been a single ship that was due to arrive in Australia in March that had not arrived. In addition to that, what we had done of changing the fuel standards for both diesel and petrol meant there was more supply than there would be otherwise. And the 20 per cent release of the reserves meant there was more supply on top of that. So, quite clearly there was an issue that we needed to deal with. And I will take every opportunity to talk to the Australian people directly because that is showing them respect and I respect everyone’s right to have a comment and a view. But a social media post didn’t stop the, in some cases, 100 per cent increase in demand on fuel that had occurred, even though that information has been out there very directly.
JOURNALIST: Earlier in the week in Parliament – this is a different topic altogether. In Parliament, you were accused of having a secret plan to expand the size of Parliament. That came because your Special Minister of State thinks it’s a good idea. You said in Question Time you were highly satisfied with the 94 of 150 seats you hold in the House of Representatives, and you didn’t think that your National Secretary would be happy if you tried to upset that. At the end of the table here sits one of your Senators for the ACT, who represents 228,000, I believe, ACT people. In Tasmania, your Senators represent 80,000 people or thereabouts. My question to you is, in a world where we’d like to have the idea of one vote, one value, with respect, were you being serious or were you being flippant?
PRIME MINISTER: No, I was being very serious about the House of Representatives and the quotas which are there. It’s in our constitution that Tasmania have five seats, and that isn’t going to change. And I was very serious about the fact that in my view, and people will have different views, but I have never been engaged for one minute about an expansion of the size of the House of Representatives. I know that’s not a uniformly held view and that’s fine because – there’s an argument about when I was elected there were about 90,000 people, I think, in my seat and now there’s about 145,000. I understand all of that. But in today’s world as well – I mean, I have to respond to the real world as it is. And the sort of campaign that would be run against an expansion of Parliament would, in my view, not be healthy for our democracy and would end up where it was with the – remarkably, I think, at this time – the fact that the Coalition used Question Time of all things to talk about that this week, I found quite bizarre, frankly. Given that they didn’t ask, the Shadow Treasurer didn’t ask a question of the Treasurer yesterday on the last Question Time before the Budget says everything about their priorities. My priority is getting on with things and that’s what I intend to do.
JOURNALIST: Thank you for taking the time to take our questions. I think there are a few more hoping for the same treatment. Prime Minister, we took to the streets this morning and one construction worker said he thought your address to the nation last night was a load of rubbish. He said that there was nothing in it. But that’s because he’s worried about his job. It’s one of those sectors which is at the front lines of what could unfold over the coming months. It’s a sector with 1.3 million Australians working in it. Every cost has gone up from piping to plastic to petrol, and most builders are on fixed contracts. So, how are they going to sustain their workforce over the coming months? The question I have is, will the industry get under stage four of the National Fuel Plan, a priority for fuel supply? Do you see that as necessary? And what do you say to people in that particular industry who are now wondering if they’ll have a job to come back to after Easter?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, the construction industry is important and one of the issues that we’ve been dealing with in the meetings, in rooms I sit around, is PVC piping, for example, that’s so important. Look, we’ll continue to do what we can to engage, but part of what last night was about as well was saying we recognise there are challenges there. This is not something that we asked for, but something that we are dealing with, practically. Going through not just issue of fuel, but fertiliser, PVC pipe, all of these things that go into. So, you know, we are doing and will do the best that we can to work through those issues, but there are real pressures as well and we wanted to acknowledge that. You know, there is a war on the other side of the world, but it is having an impact here and it’s having an impact here that won’t disappear, if President Trump had of announced during this lunchtime address, that it was over. The tail of it will continue for some time. Our job is to minimise the impacts which are there, and that’s something that we’ll continue to do.
JOURNALIST: And will they get that Stage Four – critical sector reassurance?
PRIME MINISTER: We are way away from Stage Four. We’re at Stage Two and our objective is to continue to work to stay at Stage Two. What we’ve done through the National Cabinet, though, is to foreshadow and to do that, very deliberately, to say we are thinking through what are the contingencies, if you like, how long could this last. You know, is it possible that if someone here knows exactly the date when it will end, please ask it in a question and you’ll, you know, do something that Australia wants to see, I think. But the truth is we’re living in uncertain circumstances. That’s just the truth. And to pretend otherwise is not real. What our job is, is to deal with it as best as possible, understand that people are anxious about that. They’re anxious if you turn up to a petrol station, there’s not petrol there. But you’re also anxious if some of the supplies as part of that supply chain that you’re involved with, if you’re uncertain if they’re going to be there months ahead. But that’s why we have put forward the four levels. We would only go from two to three first, through a National Cabinet process. And the Fuel Supply Coordinator is working through all of those other issues as well, with states and territories, about supply of things that are critical.
JOURNALIST: I’d actually like to just follow up on your answer to Anna’s questions. You say, obviously, there are a lot of uncertainties, but I think the public was looking to your National Address last night for some clarity. So, when you talk about the challenges ahead, can you be a bit more specific about what that is, how bad it could be and what that looks like for the average Australian family or worker?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, what I don’t want to do is to pretend that there are absolute certainties going forward. I’m not going to do that, because that’s just not real. Because we don’t know how long this will go for, we don’t know when it will end. And therefore, the consequences of this are connected with that. What we can do is to say where we are now, to encourage voluntary measures, which is what we’re doing, encouraging people to take what they need, to keep the economy moving, to make it very clear that we’re not in a position of saying “this is like COVID” – which is one of the things that has been around over recent weeks. I can assure you that – people want to look at comments on my social media. I’m sure you can find comments there because we’ve got emails saying, “are we going to have lockdowns? Are we going to be able to see people at Easter?” People, because they’ve gone through in this country, the Global Financial Crisis, then they’ve gone through COVID. Now this is an issue that uncertainty is there. All we can do is to provide reassurance of where we are now, but also to make it clear that we have plans to adjust any mechanisms if things do deteriorate as the plan says, you know, level three is ongoing supply disruptions. Now, if that occurs – it hasn’t occurred to this point in time, okay – in terms of the amount of supply, which is there. But what there has been because of the spike in demand, is that some people have been doing it really tough.
JOURNALIST: It is going to be a tough Easter. Do you think it’ll still be a tough Christmas by the end of the year?
PRIME MINISTER: We will come through this. We will come through this. And my job is to provide appropriate reassurance, which is what we are doing. The governments are working together. There were reports, for example, that the states and territories hadn’t agreed to the GST to further reduce fuel costs. Those reports have been proven to be not correct. How? Because we’re able to work with different state and territory governments across the political spectrum to achieve an outcome that is in the national interest. We’ll continue to do that each and every day.
NORMAN: On that note, please join me in thanking the Prime Minister for his Press Club address today.
