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RUBY:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ruby Jones. This is 7am.

It was almost one year ago that Anthony Albanese did what no Labor leader had been able to for 15 years: win an election from opposition.

Archival tape – Anthony Albanese:

“Tonight the Australian people have voted for change.”

RUBY:

It was a momentous moment for him personally, and one that shifted the political landscape after a decade of conservative government.

Archival tape – Anthony Albanese:

“No matter where you live, who you worship, who you love, or what your last name is. That places no restrictions on your journey in life.”

RUBY:

But a year on, just how much has been done? Is Albanese living up to the promises he made on election night? And is he willing to go beyond them? Today, columnist for The Saturday Paper Paul Bongiorno, on a year of the Anthony Albanese prime ministership.

It’s Friday, May 19.

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RUBY:

So, Paul this weekend, it'll be one year since the election of the Albanese government and you actually sat down to speak with Anthony Albanese to talk about that win and how he's performed as prime minister since coming into office. What struck you about what he said and the way that he's reflecting on this first year?

PAUL:

Well, there's no doubt that Anthony Albanese is quite comfortable in his own skin. He said to other interviewers that he's relaxed in the job. And I think that does come from the fact that he's quite an astute observer of politics. It's interesting, he has an anecdote he tells about the advice he'd received from his mentor and father figure, a minister in the Whitlam and the Hawke government's Tom Uren.

Archival tape – Anthony Albanese:

“He used to say to me, Son, you've got to grow every day. You got to learn something new every day and you've got to grow as a person every day. And that's the philosophy that I have, is to try and learn something new every day and to try and grow as a person.”

PAUL:

And he told me, as he's told virtually every interviewer in the last few days, talking about his first year in government, that that's exactly what he's on about, that's what he's dedicated to. And he says he has learnt a lot, not only over the last 27 years in Parliament but even before. And I think we do see that in the style that he has brought to the prime ministership.

RUBY:

Hmmm, Famously, Anthony Albanese didn't necessarily always see himself as Prime Minister material. So, as we come up on the anniversary of his election. What are your memories of Albanese when he first came to Parliament?

PAUL:

Well, Ruby, he first came to the Parliament 27 years ago in the 1996 election in which John Howard won.

Archival tape – Anthony Albanese:

“Defending and extending multiculturalism and reconciliation with Indigenous Australians will be one of my primary concerns as a member of Parliament. In this context, I am deeply disturbed at the election of candidates espousing racist views.”

PAUL:

…and he had a reputation as a lefty firebrand famously.

Archival tape – Anthony Albanese:

“Australians deserve a courageous leader. They don't deserve the kind of leader that used to dob on them in the schoolyard. They don't deserve John Winston Howard and in time, they'll put him out to pasture.”

PAUL:

He was the Assistant General Secretary of the Labor Party in New South Wales and the Sussex Street headquarters of the party were dominated by the right and there were stories about how the office they gave Albanese was a cupboard literally. So he came as someone who was not afraid to go on the left foot and not afraid to state what he believed in.

Archival tape – Anthony Albanese:

“You can trim the eyebrows; you can cap the teeth; you can cut the hair; you can put on different glasses; You can give them a used milk facial for all I care. But to paraphrase a gritty Australian saying ‘same stuff, different bucket’.”

PAUL:

…and certainly in Labor Party national conferences, both in young Labor going way back into the eighties, he was a champion of what you would call left radical causes. So he's come a long way from then. I do remember in 2013 after Labor lost government again and he stood for leadership against Bill Shorten and that was the first time that the Labor Party members got a vote in the leadership and there was a 30 day hiatus while that was happening and I ran into him in Parliament House, one of the corridors, and he said to me, I'm not feeling the love. And I looked at him quizzically. At that stage, of course, I was on Network Ten. Maybe he wanted me to be saying on Ten News every night that everyone should go and vote for Albanese. He said, I see a quizzical look. What I've got to offer is authenticity. Well, he didn't win that election, but he did win the last one as we've been discussing. And I do think that that authenticity is coming through. I do think that people see that they've got here a rough diamond and not quite as rough as he was. He's got better suits now. He cuts his sparse hair pretty well. And he's quite assured in the way that he talks to people, the way that he deals with people.

RUBY:

Hmm. Yeah. And I think one thing that has maybe stuck is a characterisation of Albanese is this sense that he is a cautious reformer. He's keen to try and bring the public on board slowly. And if you look at the environment, for example, Labor didn't introduce a new emissions reduction policy which might have been ideal. Instead they amended the safeguard mechanism, which is something that they inherited from the Coalition and was much less politically risky to continue on with. But are you saying that a year in, Albanese would disagree with that characterisation of cautiousness?

PAUL:

Well yes I think he would. He says people confuse his small target strategy, which helped win the election with his big agenda. He came to our conversation with a big checklist that ran two three A4 pages about what his government has achieved in the last 12 months, and he has got quite significant legislative reform through the Parliament. He sees that legislating the 43% target and legislating the net zero by 2050 as a real legislative achievement. Although he says and he told me that he bristles at the suggestion that he should be doing more to get to net zero because, he says when you listen to the critics, they're talking about zero emissions. Well, nobody believes that we could get to zero emissions, he says. They'll always be some role for coal and gas and fossil fuels, but his government's going further than any of its predecessors to diminish the dependence in Australia on fossil fuel energy. When I put it to him that maybe the Albanese government will be too timid to push forward with reforms going forward. Well, you could have cut the air with a knife. He said to me, Look, there's nothing timid about putting caps on gas and coal prices.

Archival tape – Anthony Albanese:

“We're taking urgent action to shield Australian families from the worst impact of these price hikes.”

PAUL:

He says there was nothing timid about backing wage rises after ten years of wage stagnation.

Archival tape – Anthony Albanese:

“I believe the minimum wage should at least keep up with the cost of living.”

Archival tape – Reporter:

“Does that mean you would support a wage hike of at least 5.1% just to keep up with inflation?”

Archival tape – Anthony Albanese:

“Absolutely.”

PAUL:

Nothing timid about accepting the 15% wage rise for aged workers.

Archival tape – Anthony Albanese:

“I'm very proud of the 15% wage increase that has been granted again independently by the Fair Work Commission. But the Government made a submission.”

PAUL:

And nothing timid about putting into practice what the Royal Commission into Aged Care suggested in terms of 24 hour nurses in aged care facilities. He also said there was nothing timid about his early commitment to putting to referendum constitutional recognition of First Nations people and giving them a say in matters that affect them.

Archival tape – Anthony Albanese:

“A proposed law to alter the Constitution to recognise the first peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voice. Do you approve this proposed alteration? That's the question before the Australian people. Nothing more, but nothing less.”

PAUL:

He says that this is a generous offer. He's confident that the Australian people have big enough hearts to accept it. But he does say that it's very disappointing that he couldn't win over Peter Dutton and the Liberal opposition to back the referendum. He did tell me though that he's still hopeful that it will be successful.

RUBY:

We'll be back after this.

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RUBY:

Paul, we've been talking about Anthony Albanese's first year as prime minister. And it sounds like when you spoke to him this week, he was determined to shake this idea that he's been too cautious or too timid so far this term. So emphasising how important the agenda was that they took to the last election, Which begs the question, does that mean that Albanese is willing to take a bolder agenda to the next election? Is he willing to actually take some risk when he next faces voters?

PAUL:

Well, Albanese says his record in the last 12 months speaks for itself and there have been significant reforms, especially in the area of parental leave, domestic violence leave, reforms that are about to come in on childcare, which is not to be sneezed at. There's been reforms, for example, in renewable energy investment. All of these things have in fact been achieved. And he will have, he told me, an agenda for 2025, but he didn't go anywhere talking about things like the stage three tax cuts. Those tax cuts overwhelmingly favour the wealthy and men, a figure very instructive here. Anyone earning over $200,000 will get a tax cut of $9,000. Anyone on $40,000 gets a tax cut of 100. You would think Albanese would have to address that, but there was no hint in the conversation that that's what he's about to do or planning to do in the years ahead. So Albanese says that the task for the Government in the next year is to bed down the reforms of the two budgets his Government's already delivered. He nominates the agenda of inclusion. But it's instructive to note the way in which he deals with three of his backbenchers in city seats where the Greens are yapping at their heels over rental affordability and housing availability. Well, they want the National Conference of the Labor Party to discuss things like the overly generous tax concessions on negative gearing and capital gains tax that are in fact driving up the cost of housing and in fact limiting supply. Well, Albanese didn't knock that down. He didn't disagree with it at all. He just said, well, he came to the 2022 election with a plan and he's got a plan for the 2025 election. I guess we might have to wait another 12 months, probably till the next budget, to find out more of what that plan could possibly be.

RUBY:

Hmm. Okay. And so, Paul, if we were to set aside what Anthony Albanese might one day deliver and just focus on in his first year in office, where do you fall? Ultimately, is this a bold reformist government or has it been too cautious in your opinion, when you look at what's actually passed Parliament?

PAUL:

Look, we have to say that this is the most successful first year of an incoming government that I've seen in the 35 years I've been in Parliament that covers the Hawke government all the way down to the one we've got now. There have been no senior ministerial resignations, no ministerial resignations, in fact, either forced or otherwise. There have been no damaging leaks out of the Cabinet. There's no hint of internecine rivalry or warfare. And what we're seeing is a very competent ministry. And I think this goes a long way to the style of Albanese. He's very happy with the way all his ministers are performing and we had four of the major News Polls after the Budget and they give pretty big support to this view of Albanese. The average of the four published opinion polls has Labor's lead increasing to 14 points, which if there's an election held now to be an absolute wipe-out. But that support for the Albanese government comes in spite of the fact that the polls found that people weren't of the view that they personally would be better off as a result of the budget. Newspoll found 36% of people thought the budget would leave them worse off personally, compared with 20% who thought they'd be better off. You have to draw the conclusion that voters see this budget as responsible and appropriate. Even though for the moment it doesn't do much for them.

RUBY:

And it seems like ultimately Anthony Albanese is a Prime Minister whose instinct for reform is balanced by this desire to right wrongs or to correct the weaknesses of past Labor governments. So ultimately, do you think his prime ministership and his success will come down to how he manages to balance those two things?

PAUL:

Well, I think so. Albanese says that he wants to be transformative of Australia for the better. He says he's a social Democrat. That means that he believes in markets. He believes in capitalism. But he also believes that governments have a role and a duty to intervene in those markets, to intervene for the national interest. And you'll certainly be judged by the way in which he delivers this transformative change that he talks about, the way in which he balances private interest and the market over against national interest and a fairer society and a more prosperous society. It's a pretty big task that any federal government's got. It's a task that Albanese obviously relishes.

RUBY:

Paul, thank you so much for your time.

PAUL:

Thank you. Bye bye.

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RUBY:

Also in the news,

Coalition frontbencher Stuart Robert has officially handed in his resignation and will leave parliament.

Robert announced his resignation earlier in the month, but continued to be paid as a Shadow Assistant Treasurer and Shadow Minister for Financial Services despite failing to show up to parliament. Robert is leaving politics to spend more time with his family.

And...

The unemployment rate in Australia has defied expectations, rising to 3.7 per cent for the month of April, meaning that the economy lost about 27,100 full-time jobs

I’m Ruby Jones, see you tomorrow.

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