PM defends economy, attacks Coalition’s Medicare record in 60 Minutes interview with Karl Stefanovic

Anthony Albanese has defended his government’s money management and attacked the Coalition’s record on Medicare in a wide-ranging interview aired on Sunday.

Karl Stefanovic grilled the Prime Minister on several pressing matters both at home and abroad in the pre-election sit down with Nine’s 60 Minutes.

But with Australians weathering soaring housing costs and higher bills for the basics, cost of living was the dominant issue.

Polls have consistently shown it is top-of-mind for Australians as they prepare to cast their ballots.

Stefanovic pointed out Mr Albanese’s job could be on the line if voters say they have “had enough”.

“Well, cost of living measures of course have been put in place by us,” Mr Albanese replied.

“All of them have been opposed by (Opposition Leader) Peter Dutton.

“And what we’ve managed to do here is to aim for that soft landing of bringing inflation down without throwing people on the unemployment scrap heap.”

Stefanovic pressed on, saying “a soft-landing” was hard to sell when Australian were paying record amounts at supermarkets.

“People are angry and some of that anger is being directed towards you because it’s been on your watch,” he said.

Mr Albanese noted that “global inflation … rose under the previous government’s watch” and accused the Coalition of “pouring petrol on the fire by having a $78bn deficit”.

“Now we turned that $78bn liberal deficit into a $22bn Labor surplus,” he said.

“We have produced two budget surpluses.

“You remember that the previous government produced zero.

“We have had a major repair job to do, but we’ve always been focused as well on the future.

“And that’s what this election campaign will be about.”

Pressure on Medicare has forced Australians to fork out more to see a GP, making it a cost of living issue as well as a healthcare issue.

The Albanese government has leant into revamping the health system with a series of major policies, including $573m targeting women’s healthcare and its signature $8.5bn pledge to make 90 per cent of GP appointments bulk-billed by 2030.

The Coalition took the wind out the of the latter’s sails by promising to match the funding and raise it by half a billion as Mr Albanese formally unveiled the election pitch to a rally of Labor Party faithful last week.

Labor has since ramped up attacks on the opposition’s handling of Medicare, particularly a rebates freeze last decade that independent experts have attributed to fewer GPs bulk-billing.

“Peter Dutton has a record that’s negative,” Mr Albanese said.

“He did rip tens of billions of dollars out of the health system.”

Stefanovic remarked that it sounded as though he was promoting “Mediscare 2.0”, a nod to Labor’s 2016 campaign that forced former Coalition prime minister Malcolm Turnbull to promise that “Medicare will never, ever, ever be privatised”.

But Mr Albanese insisted he was not pushing a “negative campaign” but “a positive one”.

“What I’ll do is go through the policies,” he said.

“I want to bring Australians together. I want to lift people up, not punch down on people.”

‘Trump has a different perspective’

The re-election of Donald Trump has prompted many Western capitals to rethink their relationship with Washington.

The experience in Canberra has been no different, with both Labor and the Coalition increasingly at odds with the Trump White House on century-defining foreign policy issues, such as Ukraine and Gaza.

Mr Albanese was among the many world leaders who publicly posted support for Volodymyr Zelensky and his country after the Ukrainian leader’s broadcast clash with the US President.

Stefanovic asked Mr Albanese how he was “going to deal with Donald Trump”.

“I’ll deal with him the way I deal with other world leaders — respectfully,” Mr Albanese replied.

Stefanovic pressed further, calling Mr Trump “a proper running renegade”.

“Well, Donald Trump has a different perspective from mine, that’s very clear, but we have so much in common,” Mr Albanese said.

“The trade relationship is very important. The AUKUS security arrangements are so important.”

AUKUS has emerged as an area of agreement between the new US administration.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in January praised the trilateral security pact between Australia, the UK and the US, as “almost a blueprint” for how Washington could work with allies.

The agreement, which will see the Australian Navy kitted out with nuclear-powered submarines, was forged against a backdrop of increased Chinese assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific.

A shared hawkishness on China would likely be welcomed by policymakers in Canberra following Beijing’s deployment of warships to lurk along Australia’s vast coastlines and conduct live fire drills.

On the Chinese flotilla, Mr Albanese said its “presence there is consistent with international law”.

“I’ve said with the relationship with China that we’ll co-operate where we can, we’ll disagree where we must, but we’ll engage in our national interests,” he expanded.

“Bearing in mind in the previous term, there wasn’t a single phone conversation, let alone a meeting.”

He highlighted the removal of trade barriers opening up some $20bn in exports to China.

“What that means is jobs here in Australia and economic growth here in Australia,” he said.