Radio interview - HIT Central Queensland

DANNY LAKEY, HOST: We spoke to him a couple of weeks ago and the man is back. The Honourable Prime Minister Albo joins us on the show this morning. Hey, Albo.

ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Good morning. Greetings from beautiful, sunny Rockhampton today.

BRONTE LANGBROEK, HOST: Yes. Up there for Beef Week. We love it.

PRIME MINISTER: It is a very crowded Rocky at the moment. Impossible to get a room. There's been temporary accommodations set up. There were more than 600 people at the dinner last night. It was really, really positive and there was an amazing vibe in the room. Really proud farmers and producers who are really optimistic about the coming year and what's in front of them.

LANGBROEK: Good. We love it.

LAKEY: What's your favourite meat at a barbie, Prime Minister? You a sausage guy? Snag guy? T-bone lad?

PRIME MINISTER: I love a T-bone. You can't beat that. I'm a bit old-fashioned. I like a steak you can chew rather than some of the sort of beef cheek and stuff like that. So, it might be a risky, controversial comment to make during Beef Week.

LANGBROEK: No, no, we've had similar.

LAKEY: Don't apologise, Prime Minister. Medium rare T-bone with mushroom sauce. You're the people's man.

PRIME MINISTER: We could be twins.

LANGBROEK: Enough pleasantries, all right. This is serious.

LAKEY: You are up there for a bit of drought relief for farmers because we've got to make this country of ours more drought resistant with all the weather events that are happening. And of course, when farmers stop, you know, it affects everyone, doesn't it?

PRIME MINISTER: We sure do. And that's why today we've announced $520 million from the Future Drought Fund for drought mitigation. One of the things we need to do is to not wait for drought to occur and then deal with the consequences. It makes a lot more sense to look at ways in which we can mitigate that risk, in which we can prepare for drought, help farmers who are on the frontline. Of course, there's always been droughts and floods in this country, as we know. But what we also know is that because of climate change, they're more intense and they're more frequent. So, getting that money out the door to prepare is really important. And we've worked with farmers on the program and asked them, 'Okay, how can we improve it? What can we do to make a difference?' And all of them say that we've got to get ahead of these issues to build resilience. And so, we're backing our farmers by doing that with this announcement that'll be included in next Tuesday's Budget, along with tax cuts for everyone.

LANGBROEK: We need it.

LAKEY: Oh, everyone. As an everyone, as a member of the everyone, I like that, Prime Minister.

PRIME MINISTER: And of course, we wiped $3 billion off student debt this week with the announcement that we made there as well. That was about helping students. And we then made another announcement yesterday about paying students who are doing nursing and doing teaching and midwifery, social work, early learning when they're doing their prac courses because they shouldn't have to do those courses without getting compensated. It was a discouragement to go into those areas. We know we need more teachers, we need more nurses, we need more child care workers. And this is a really practical way to encourage people to go into those professions.

LAKEY: Well, good. A lot of announcements there. He's up on the announcements. You'll have no more announcements later on in the year, Prime Minister.

PRIME MINISTER: We've got the Budget next Tuesday. We're holding a few things back for that next Tuesday night, but Jim Chalmers, a great Queenslander, will be very proudly delivering his third Budget.

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