BEN DOBBIN:
We’ve got a special guest joining us on the line right now.
LUKE BRADNAM:
Hello Prime Minister!
PRIME MINISTER:
Hey, how are you?
LUKE BRADNAM:
We’re good! We’re very, very stoked to have you call through and be a part of the show for the very first time. Where are we talking to you from? Where are you right now?
PRIME MINISTER:
I am in Sydney.
LUKE BRADNAM:
And then, so what’s the day of the Prime Minister consist of? In other words, like, where did you wake up this morning? Were you at Kirribilli House or were you in Canberra?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I don’t, Luce and I don’t live in Kirribilli House. We live in our own house in Sydney and we just woke up this morning and set off this morning to do some great announcements about providing funds for research into cancer, for teens and young adults, adolescents and young adults.
LUKE BRADNAM:
So talk to us about that announcement then – let our listeners know.
PRIME MINISTER:
Okay, well, you know, one of the most important challenges we face, one of our commitments is to do everything we can to eliminate childhood cancer. And that includes cancers in teens and young adults. We announced today $207 million of medical research funding and, particularly, $5 million of that was going to an organization called CanTeen which provides fantastic support for teenagers and young adults with cancer.
So I was out at the Sydney Children’s Hospital with the Health Minister Greg Hunt and we saw some fantastic young people there who are battling with cancer. I mean, just so brave. Their parents are so committed to supporting them and great science, great nurses, great doctors. But all of them facing very tough challenges and what we need to do is to make sure we direct those research dollars to have the trials that will find a cure for them and of course in doing so find a cure for so many others.
So that’s what I was doing today and it was, you know, it was humbling to be in the presence of so many brave young people and so many brilliant scientists.
LIBBY TRICKETT:
Such an awesome cause. But also announced this week was something to do with the Gardasil vaccines. This isn’t just going to be available for young girls anymore – it’s going to go to all 12 and 13 year olds.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yeah, that’s right Libby. And it is, you know, the Gardasil 9, well Gardasil has been, which was Ian Frazer, he developed it - a great Queensland scientist – Ian developed that. It is a vaccine against the Human Papillomavirus which of course causes cervical cancer. It has been vaccinating girls since 2007 and boys 12 to 13 from 2013. And the new Gardasil 9 which we will be launching from the beginning of next year, it will provide protection against the HPV viruses that are precursors to 93 per cent of the cervical cancers that we’re, that have been identified.
So this is phenomenal protection for young girls.
LIBBY TRICKETT:
Yeah that’s amazing.
PRIME MINISTER:
And of course there are cancers in men too, by the way, that are caused by HPV but cervical cancer is obviously where the real focus has been.
BEN DOBBIN:
Prime Minister, we know how much you love this country, Australia and we’ve just had a quiz on our show a little earlier. I’d just like to know, because you are the leader of this great country, whether or not you’d know one of these answers.
LUKE BRADNAM:
What? To see if he’d win the thousand bucks?
BEN DOBBIN:
If he did I’d give him a thousand bucks.
LUKE BRADNAM:
Nah give him the question, cos, Prime Minister, this is our quiz alright? Its five questions and if you get one right you get a thousand bucks, and it very rarely goes off, maybe once or twice, you know once every probably two weeks. But some dude from Tallebudgera just answered this one correctly. Go on see if the Prime Minister will get it.
BEN DOBBIN:
Okay what was the name of the pandemic which killed over 1 per cent of the world’s population in 1918?
PRIME MINISTER:
That was the influenza, big flu pandemic after the First World War.
BEN DOBBIN:
That was a flu.
LIBBY TRICKETT:
That was very impressive.
LUKE BRADNAM:
Hang on you’re not getting a thousand bucks Prime Minister-
LIBBY TRICKETT:
Oh I don’t know.
LUKE BRADNAM:
It was the Spanish flu.
LIBBY TRICKETT:
It was better than our answers.
BEN DOBBIN:
Yeah but, okay this is more a bit local. How many albums did the late Slim Dusty record? He’s an Australian Prime Minister!
LUKE BRADNAM:
Nah, he won’t know that.
BEN DOBBIN:
How many do you think Prime Minister?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well this would be a guess - I’ll say 24.
LUKE BRADNAM:
Nah you’re about 80 short. Honestly the initiatives that you’ve launched-
PRIME MINISTER:
How many albums did he record?
BEN DOBBIN:
103.
LUKE BRADNAM:
103.PRIME MINISTER:
103! Isn’t that amazing?
[Laughter]
LUKE BRADNAM:
Huge.
PRIME MINISTER:
Wow.
LUKE BRADNAM:
Is it true - we were talking last week about having lost Hugh Hefner - that you were actually instrumental in Playboy coming to Australia?
PRIME MINISTER:
I was, yes. Kerry Packer sent me over there in 1978 to Chicago and I negotiated the deal for Playboy to be published in Australia with Hugh’s daughter Christie.
LIBBY TRICKETT:
There you go!
LUKE BRADNAM:
Thank you Prime Minister. Thank you. From a teenager back in 1990, thank you very much.
[Laughter]
LIBBY TRICKETT:
Would’ve never had known that.
LUKE BRADNAM:
Prime Minister, can I ask one more question? The beat up that everybody had about a grandfather having a beer at the AFL with his grandchild. Surely, what have we become?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, well you know it was, Libby will identify with this, this was our daughter Daisy’s joke about the limits of men’s ability to multitask.
[Laughter]
And she did the multitasking tag on the picture and the proposition was that this was the limit of male multitasking - watching the footy, having a beer and nursing the sleeping baby.
[Laughter]
BEN DOBBIN:
Good on ya.
LIBBY TRICKETT:
Pretty impressive.
LUKE BRADNAM:
I reckon your popularity skyrocketed as much as Hawkey’s when he sculled the beer at the cricket when he did that. Hey, we appreciate you so much joining us this afternoon and they’re fantastic initiatives and thanks every much for the time this afternoon.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yeah, great to be with you. Thanks so much.
LUKE BRADNAM:
Good on ya, thank you so much.
[ENDS]