HOST, LJ: Joining me live is NSW Labor Senator Tim Ayres. Congratulations.

SENATOR AYRES, ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR A FUTURE MADE IN AUSTRALIA AND TRADE: Thank you.

HOST, LJ: What do you take from this victory?

SENATOR AYRES: I think it's—The victory is, you know, it's obviously larger in scale than anybody could have imagined. I see it as an affirmation that the government has been heading in the right direction, that it gives us, I think, a strong mandate to implement the agenda that we'd been, that we'd begun in the first three years to do that with some confidence and to keep, to keep on the track that we've been on.

HOST, LJ: There was a lot of feedback, you know, from focus groups and whatever else, which is all kind of academic and wrong on this Monday after an election. But there was, you know, people seeing Albanese as a weak leader. They didn't love him, we thought, going into the polls, but we now know they certainly didn't like the other guy and the other party either. Do you think this is an endorsement of Anthony Albanese or a repudiation of the Liberal Party?

SENATOR AYRES: Well, the short answer to the first question is yes. Anthony Albanese is Prime Minister for the times. I don't know how many times I've been on your show, for example, and you know, you're dealing with these extreme views from the Liberals and Nationals on one hand and extreme views from The Greens and others on whatever the policy area is, whether it's energy policy or foreign policy. What's been consistent is Anthony Albanese leading the Labor Party to a position that is all about the national interest, that really rejects that polarisation from overseas.

HOST, LJ: Yep.

SENATOR AYRES: And I think that's what Australians want. They want an orderly government that acts in their interests. There's bold policy there, but bold policy that we've sought a mandate from the Australian people for and that's what we're going to get on the deal.

HOST, LJ: What's the mandate for?

SENATOR AYRES: Well, I think look at housing policy, building all of those homes. It's going to change lives. 5% deposits for young Australians, their first home. That's life changing. The feedback I was getting on the booths from young people was that that was the first thing that they had seen for them that gave them a foothold in the market. In the area that I've been engaged in, Future Made in Australia, changing our economy to make it more resilient and building good jobs in the regions and the suburbs. These are life changing for areas of the country where investment has retreated from. We are going to re-engage Australians in regional Australia with this big national project, building a future manufacturing and industrial capability that will make Australia stronger but also build good jobs in the regions and suburbs.

HOST, LJ: I mean, I think you ran a really good campaign. There was a scare campaign in there and scare campaigns do work. And look, I'm not saying that this is only Labor that does this. They are the rules of engagement. The Liberal National Party, The Greens know the rules as well and they run their own scare campaigns. But you know, when you talk about, you know, integrity and being a Prime Minister for the times, do you reflect on some of the close to outright lies that were perpetrated during this campaign? Does it feel a little bit dirty winning in a victory like that?

SENATOR AYRES: Look, negative campaigns are called contrast campaigns where you're really pointing out what is the cost of the alternative. That only, in my experience, only works when it's true. It has to be true. And if you look at—

HOST, LJ: Let’s just take Medicare.

SENATOR AYRES: Yeah.

HOST, LJ: Because yes, you know, Medicare, Bob Hawke, Labor has this as their on their mantle, if you like. Yes. When Peter Dutton was the health minister 10 years ago in Hockey budget, he talked about a co-payment of $5 to strengthen Medicare. But this campaign, you got close to saying that Peter Dutton was going to abolish universal healthcare. That's just not true, is it?

SENATOR AYRES: Well, I'm very confident with what we said about Medicare and three times as confident as I would have been otherwise. Because Peter Dutton said it himself. He said in order to evaluate what the future's going to have to look like, you have to look at past performance. And his record, his record just demonstrated his own antipathy towards the publicly funded health system.

HOST, LJ: Yeah, but people can evolve. People called Anthony Albanese a socialist in his union days. He has evolved to be a moderate.

SENATOR AYRES: You know, I'm not sure that the Liberal Party has evolved, Laura. They have devolved.

HOST, LJ: Hard to disagree this week.

SENATOR AYRES: And I think people knew that when they talked about Medicare that their hearts weren't in it, that they were saying it because it was politically convenient to say it. But they had announced a nuclear program, an enormously expensive nuclear program that was utterly improbable, that the overseas experience demonstrated that announcements would be made about a $20 billion nuclear construction program, for example, in the United Kingdom, where there's an existing nuclear industry and now it's somewhere between $90 and $110 billion construction 10 years over due. Like people know that that would be very costly.

HOST, LJ: It’s actually 330 billion.

SENATOR AYRES: No, no, I don't—

HOST, LJ: Let’s not re-prosecute. I don't want to get bogged down—

SENATOR AYRES: But I just say that to say that they had on one hand a very poor record on Medicare and support for the Medicare system.

HOST, LJ: They didn't have a poor record in energy prices.

SENATOR AYRES: You know energy is difficult. It's a difficult area of policy. We're trying to rebuild a modern electricity system that's reliable and is the lowest cost. To announce in the middle of that an outrageously expensive program that would be taxpayer funded of course begs the question how will you pay for it? Because money doesn't grow on trees. Has to be— They said it would be publicly funded and that does, that would have meant big cuts for all sorts of programs including Medicare. I think we're absolutely entitled to do that. I think Australians understood what it was that we were saying.

HOST, LJ: Truth in advertising laws that you want to get through. I asked the same question of Don Farrell yesterday. Would you have met your own test?

SENATOR AYRES: 100%. 100%.

HOST, LJ: OK, well let's spar another time. You can have this, this morning it's been quite an historic victory for Labor so we'll let you enjoy.

SENATOR AYRES: Well we're looking forward to getting back to work and I know the Prime Minister's been back to work already this morning. I've got a big day in front of me. It's really a day not for dancing on our opponents’ graves. You saw the speech of the Prime Minister on Saturday night. We are getting back to work for Australians and for Australia.

HOST, LJ: Tim Ayres, thank you.