[Albanese spoke for about 8m30s then took reporters' questions for about 19 minutes]

QUESTION: But is it still, is it still your starting point for this campaign, given your your thin majority, that there'll be no deals in the event you are reduced to a minority government?

ALBANESE: Yes, I intend to lead a majority government.

QUESTION: Labor in 2022 commissioned modelling on how your policies would affect car prices over the next three years. Have you modeled for the next three years? If not, why not? And if so, when will you release it?

ALBANESE: What we're doing is making sure that we work on the energy transition. We're doing that, and we have continued to see a system that has the support of the private sector importantly. We have that investment occurring because we have put in place not just a plan to lower emissions and to increase energy supply, but a path to get there through the safeguard mechanism and the capacity investment scheme. Unlike our opponents, Peter Dutton had the word nuclear mentioned once last night, just once, and he has a $600 billion plan that he has no idea how to pay for.

QUESTION: Prime Minister, no one would argue that Australians are better off than they were three years ago. So why does your Government deserve another three years?

ALBANESE: We have governed through what have been turbulent seas, but we've governed by providing cost of living relief. If Peter Dutton had had his way, and his opposition to our cost of living measures had been put in place, Australians today would be $7,200 worse off on average. He has no plans for cost of living relief going forward. Last night, all we saw was a very dark speech, a negative speech. We had no plans except for jacking up taxes for all 14 million Australians.

 QUESTION: If Labor wins a second term is it your intention to serve a full term as Prime Minister?

ALBANESE: Yes.

QUESTION: inaud...East Coast gas

ALBANESE: Well, the code of conduct that we introduced, that was opposed by Peter Dutton, has already delivered six times more petajoules—644 petajoules of domestic gas—than Peter Dutton promised last night. He opposed the cap that we put on gas prices of $12. He had an opportunity to actually do something and support the mechanisms that we brought in as a government in December of 2022 and he opposed all of it. We've heard this before from the coalition, where they said there'd be a gas-led recovery. But under the coalition, gas prices went up seven-fold, and they left us with a gas market crisis to clean up, something that we've been doing.

Mark?

QUESTION: Prime Minister, what do you say to those Australians who are considering how they are going to vote in this election today, and they're hearing that the economy is turning a corner, but they're not feeling that in their household budgets. What sort of hope can you give them that what they're hearing from leaders like you will actually impact their lives?

ALBANESE: That will continue to have their back. One of the things that we have done is to craft cost of living measures so that we continue to put that downward pressure on inflation. Because unless you tackle inflation, the inflation, which was 6.1 when we inherit, when we came to office, that rose, of course, in 2022 to peak with a seven in front, which now has a two in front at 2.4 in the bottom half of the Reserve Bank band. That has been important.

At the same time, what we've done is deliver things that have made a difference for Australians, whether it's the three lots now of energy price relief, whether it be the cheaper childcare, the cheaper medicines. We have real wages that are growing, that are growing; going up.

We very consciously changed Scott Morrison's tax cuts to make sure that people who were really doing it tough, low and middle income earners, got a tax cut. People under $45,000 wouldn't have got a single dollar from the former tax cuts. We intervened. Difficult decision. Went to the National Press Club owned it, went out and sold it, and now we will deliver, including for those people on that first marginal tax rate, not one, but a further two tax cuts. Peter Dutton has promised to actually bring into this parliament legislation to increase the taxes of all 14 million Australians. We know, we know that people have been doing it tough. That's why we have acted. Peter Dutton has opposed every single one of those cost of living measures.

QUESTION: Prime Minister, Peter Dutton will go around the country asking people: Do you feel better off than you were three years ago? And do you concede that most people are going to say no.

ALBANESE: What we will be saying very clearly is that people would be $7,200 worse off if Peter Dutton had had his way. There wouldn't have been cheaper medicines, no cheaper childcare, no energy bill relief, no tax cuts for people on low incomes, and middle Australia would not have been the great beneficiaries of our tax cuts. Real wages would not have been growing. We want people to earn more and to keep more of what they earn.

On the first on people earning more. Peter Dutton has gone into this election saying he will abolish same job, same pay that has benefited people in the airlines industry, people in the mining and resources sector, people out there who are working side by side their fellow Australians but because of manipulations, some earning up to—

I've met a woman who is now earning $34,000 more a year because—someone working in the mining sector in the Hunter Valley—because of same job, same pay. The definition of casuals has been changed so that that can't be manipulated and people can't be denied their superannuation, their entitlements.

David?

QUESTION: In your opening remarks, you said that Australia is a great country; it doesn't need to borrow ideas from other countries. Is that a way of suggesting that Peter Dutton is copying ideas from Donald Trump?

ALBANESE: Well, people will make their own judgments, of course. But people will have a look at the mass sackings of public servants and wonder, how is it we've just been through a flood in Queensland, where, in Harvey Bay, where I was, 15 public servants working out of a caravan to make sure that those Australians got the money that they were entitled to and deserved. They're gone under Peter Dutton.

The National Emergency Management Agency did not exist before we came to office. Now they've had a stockpile of sandbags, a stockpile of generators. That didn't exist before we came to office. That's the hard work that they've done. They're gone under Peter Dutton.

Veterans, 42,000 of them were in the queue for entitlements, men and women who have served our nation in uniform. They were denied entitlements. People passed away without getting the entitlements that they deserved. Peter Dutton regards that as waste.

Now there are a range of ideas that have been borrowed from others. We need the Australian way. The Australian way is that we look after each other, is that we're a country that in the language that we use with each other, fair dinkum, fair go. They're part of the Australian lexicon.

This card [holds up Medicare card] is part of Australian values, the Australian values that say when Kerry Packer has a heart attack, he goes to the emergency department, went to the emergency department at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, the same hospital that I went to when I had my car accident when I was leader of the Labor Party in January 2021, got the same level of care. But most importantly than that, on that evening, I was in the same room that my mum was in when, as an invalid pensioner, she got taken up the road after having an aneurysm, and she never left RPA, but she got the same care that Kerry Packer got. They're the Australian values. That's what I'll fight for.

Andrew?

QUESTION: Prime Minister, would you say to Australia's strategic competitors who might use the next five weeks to cause mischief, be it cyber, military, mis-, disinformation?

ALBANESE: Anyone who tries that, I say to them, back off. Our Australian Defense Force, our Australian security agencies. They're still in place. We're a resilient country. I don't talk this country down. We have an extraordinary capacity to look after our nation. They're not taking five weeks off.

QUESTION: You've spoken about the economic concerns. Heading into week one of the campaign with an interest rate decision, Liberation Day today in the US, how concerned are you that that could hinder Labor's campaign?

ALBANESE: We will continue to, of course, argue Australia's case. The decision on interest rates is, I'll refer you to the previous 5,124 answers saying The Reserve Bank are independent of the government.

...continues for another nine minutes.