Albanese reveals two-term strategy if Labor wins

Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese has laid out an ambitious two-term strategy to roll out universal childcare, add superannuation to paid parental leave, expand the scheme and potentially hold a royal commission into the management of the pandemic.

The Labor leader said if he won government on Saturday he wanted to “change the way that politics operates in this country” by avoiding soundbites and “actually answering questions”.

Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese during a Labor campaign rally in Brisbane on Sunday.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“If you’re serious about rebuilding respect for politics in this country – and I believe it is an honourable profession – then you need to do that,” he said after a week in which support shifted towards Labor and Prime Minister Scott Morrison admitted to being “a bit of a bulldozer” and promised to change.

In an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age on the eve of the final week of the election campaign, Albanese would not answer questions about whether he would live in the Lodge in Canberra nor about what role partner Jodie Haydon – who has joined him on the campaign trail – would play in public life if Labor won.

“We are not getting ahead of ourselves,” he said.

But the opposition leader has a quiet confidence, marking a shift from the shaky early weeks of the campaign, when he made gaffes on the Reserve Bank’s cash rate and the unemployment rate, had to isolate with COVID-19, and faced questions about his support for workers receiving a 5.1 per cent wage rise.

Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese and his partner Jodie Haydon campaigning on Fitzroy Island, Queensland on Friday.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

If elected, Albanese said Labor “can’t repair all of the damage done in the first term; we will inherit a trillion dollars of debt and need to be economically responsible”.

“If we are successful, I’m telling people what I will do, I’m not promising things I’m uncertain I’ll be able to do because of the fiscal position. An example of that is superannuation on paid parental leave. I’m saying yes I would like to do it, but I’m not going to announce it unless we’re certain we can do it.

“[Another] example is childcare. We’re promising a better deal for 96 per cent of families and while that’s being implemented, the Productivity Commission will report over whether we move then to universal provision of affordable childcare. So we are already foreshadowing what might be the second term agenda on childcare reform,” he said.

Asked if a Labor government would expand paid parental leave from 18 weeks to 26 weeks – an idea the party came close to adopting during the last parliament – Albanese indicated it would be considered in the second term but “it will be difficult to do in our first term”.

“What I’m outlining at this election is a strategic framework for the next six years,” he said.

“I’m proud of serving in the Rudd and Gillard governments, but we’ve learned. It has proud legacies like paid parental leave, the NDIS, Infrastructure Australia, the apology to the Stolen Generations, [and] saving Australia from the global financial crisis”

However, “there are obvious weaknesses that were there that we all accept responsibility for, which meant that we had only two terms and one of those terms was in minority”.

On calls for a royal commission into Australia’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic – which Labor MPs and members of the crossbench have called for – Albanese said: “I can’t envisage a circumstance whereby you wouldn’t have a proper inquiry into the handling of the pandemic. The pandemic is still here now.”

“We will consider it in government in the context of there are still tens of thousands of people catching COVID and substantial deaths.”

He praised younger members of his frontbench, including Jim Chalmers, Katy Gallagher, Jason Clare, Ed Husic and Amanda Rishworth, and confirmed a handful of portfolio changes were possible.

Albanese said Labor would benefit from having a range of ministers who had served in cabinet before, much as the Hawke government benefited from having ministers such as Paul Keating, who had been blooded late in the Whitlam government, in its cabinet. Ministers would “run their portfolios” in concert with a “revitalised” public service.

Businesses, unions and civil society groups would be consulted and Labor would look to “reverse the centralisation of power in the prime minister’s office under Scott Morrison”.

But the buck would stop with him if Australians elect Labor on Saturday.

“The job of the prime minister is to lead and the leader of a team has to accept responsibility for the big calls that are made on the field,” he said.

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