Top Minister Anthony Albanese On Changing into First Sitting Australian PM To March In Mardi Gras

Hi joining us now is the first sitting pm tomarch in Mardi Gras Anthony Alvin easy elbow what do you think it means for the country thatthe prime minister is Marching In Mardi Gras well it used to be a very radical thing to do toMarch I first marched in 1983 with young labor it was a very political focus and over the years asa society's changed and become more accepting and inclusive we had marriage equality granted fiveyears ago it's still a political event but it's also just an event of a celebration more andmore as well so there was a great deal there but it's important that we don't take those gainsfor granted as well that we continue to emphasize the need to have respect for everyone no matterwho they are and who they love I love seeing you in the parade we do need to talk about your looklast night because there was there was no leather.

There was no Glitter there was no assless chapswhat's going on Jen I've been in so many Mardi Gras that I know I'm no chance of competingthere so one of the things it is of course it is a celebration of who people are and you knowI'm I'm just a pretty daggy bloke from Miracle basically and uh the the look reflected that so noassless chaps for Mardi Gras 2024 just to be clear uh no no one wants to see that I'd vote for thatactually you know what I think you're right on that brother I think your instinct's correct primeminister uh now prime minister we do need to talk about something really sexy superannuation thetreasurer has been floating the idea of tightening tax breaks for those with more than threemillion dollars in their super fund why would you be talking about doing this when you promisedbefore the election that you wouldn't touch super.

Uh we promise no big changes and there won't bemajor changes to Super what we're doing is having a debate about the purpose of superannuationwhich is of course for people to save for their retirement and that's the context in whichsome people out there the Gratton Institute and a whole lot of people have raised these issues wecertainly have made no decisions about any of that what we are doing though is having a debate aboutuh the purpose of superannuation but I do want to be clear though about what you did say before theelection this was in May of last year these this is what you said then website we have no intentionof making any super changes one of the things that we're doing in this campaign is we're making allof our policies clear that's not just big changes not just major changes just you said there won'tbe any changes now let's say we had no intention.

And we certainly that's not the objectivehere but people are coming forward with ideas um we're not shutting down debate uh it isappropriate that there be debate about the policy future across a range of issues particularlyin the context of the trillion dollars of debt that we inherited but we have no intention ofmaking any major changes on superannuation we will have uh the debate about the purpose andthe definition of what it is and try and enshrine that in legislation so that people get uh what thepurpose is is much more clearer we saw during the last campaign a major proposal to allow people touse this super for housing and we saw also during the pandemic a whole lot of people reduce theirsuperannuation balances down to zero sure which will mean that they do it tougher in retirementprime minister I'm just going to push you on this.

A little more though because it seems like you'replaying slightly with the language and saying no major changes we're allowing a debate but thatdebate is being driven by your own ministers including the treasury you wouldn't be havingthis conversation unless you're thinking seriously about it and I wonder if it's really a question ofIntegrity for you given that you campaign so hard on on being Integris uh Hamish uh a whole rangeof bodies including the uh the Gratton Institute and others have put out various ideas uh in thisdebate uh they're the ones that are out there on the debate uh we've had no changes we're we're nothere announcing changes uh we are of course having a discussion about the purpose of superannuationand you know this is all hypothetical so if we if we make an announcement then you can scrutinizewhat that announcement is but we've made it.

Very clear that no decisions have been madeprime minister during these discussions about superannuation a graph has surfaced in the paperstoday which shows how many people are affected uh by the these possible changes right right at thetop you see here is one Australian who apparently has half a billion dollars in superannuationright for half a billion dollars in superannuation do you know who it is no no I don't well Ican guarantee it's no one there on the desk prime minister Anthony albertisi thankyou so much for joining us thank you bye

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