[Australia Tonight has relaunched their channel tonight, with audiences switching on their tv’s to see Yala Talama’s face in the iconic Australia Tonight studio for the first time in years. The following is the transcript of the interview with Prime Minister BellmanTGM.]

Yala Talama: Good afternoon, and welcome to Australia Tonight. As a part of our relaunch, we will be conducting an interview series with the candidates putting their name forward on the ballot this election. These interviews are unscripted, and will be uncensored excluding where TV regulation requires. Continuing our series, I have with me the Prime Minister of Australia BellmanTGM. Welcome Bellman.

Bellman: Thank you Youm- uh I mean Yala

Yala: A common confusion I assure you. To begin, we will start with the same question to everyone, who are you, where are you running and why are you running?

Bellman: I am BellmanTGM, Australia's caretaker Prime Minister and until recently the leader of the Australian National Capitalist Anti-Authoritarian Party. I am now the Deputy Leader of the Liberal National Party, and I will be running in the seat of Robertson. I'm running, as many I'm sure are aware, for the cause of liberty for all Australians. Specifically I'm running in Robertson because it's the area that I was born and raised in. I've travelled a lot and lived in so many places so it's hard to say exactly where home is sometimes, but to me Robertson has always been a home because it's where I went to school, where my parents' home is and it's where I first fell in love with politics.

Yala: A lot to unpack there, lets start with the local level. Why the interstate shift in seat just before the election?

Bellman: Well as I explained, I have a personal connection and passion for Robertson. I likely would have stood there in the past election except we ran another local candidate in SurfingNooty at the time. Of course, there's strategic reasons, being in a new party there are new plans in play from last election, but genuinely I just really wanted to stand here. These are my people. That's not to say I wasn't fully committed to the people of Hotham- I absolutely was. Caring for constituents is my number 1 priority no matter where I am. But I'm moving on towards retirement now, it seems, so I think it's time to head home, you know what I mean?

Yala: I understand what you mean. Speaking of retirement, you announced today the merger of ANCAAP into the Liberal National Party. What happened to lead to your party collapsing in this way?

Bellman: Well I wouldn't describe it as a collapse, it's just a change in direction. Obviously it's not an ideal situation, I would have liked to keep the party going forever. But as I've said before, our membership never really expected for things to go as well as they did. And with success comes responsibility and workload. And many of us weren't really prepared well to sustain that level of commitement long term. I'm really happy with how we went this term, we got a lot of shit done, passed a budget for the first time in several governments. And we didn't want to end on a tragic defeat after all that, but we just couldn't all commit to the same degree that we were only just able to hold together for this term again. So we all decided to go our separate ways. Many outsiders have been feeling like we were collapsing from the inside with a few of our members leaving, but in reality we had all discussed all those moves beforehand. I had encouraged most members to wait until term's end before they left, but I understand that people wanted to get their plans going earlier for the good of the party they were joining.

Yala: What would you describe as the achievements of your government?

Bellman: Well the budget is the big one. Lower taxes for all Australians, a more efficient welfare system powered by the NIT, and much more. I'm also proud of all the changes we made to a lot of criminal and other legal areas to better establish to rule of law. Removing a lot of that ill-determined privilege that politicians had been allowed before. We're here for the people, not the other way around. There's no reason why we should have more protections than the ordinary Australian. Arguably we deserve less, but at the end of the day we're just ordinary Australians too- that's the rule of law.

Yala: Were there any mistakes or failures you believe occurred during your tenure?

Bellman: Of course, if anyone ever has a perfect term, well, I imagine I'll soon wake up because that could only be a dream! Obviously it took us a few goes at the budget- all on our end. Poor communication with our Independent friends made it a much more difficult job then it should have been. Similarly, our superannuation reforms failed to get through. I hope to still be able to make those happen in the coming term, but it was a shame that we couldn't get our flagship policy from the campaign through even though we won a convincing government. The flag change was a more time consuming process than we anticipated and so unfortunately never got to finalise everything that happened. We did get all the other leg work done though so hopefully a future government takes over that from where we left off- the design was chose, it just needs to be ratified in the legislature. And of course there were some things we couldn't control- the death of both trees and mediocre centrist was a huge blow to us, emotionally more than anything else but there were practical repercussions as well. Nivea chapstick's death also was a tragedy. And then at the end of term surfingnooty's hospitalisation. It was an incredibly tragic term really. Still, glad to have accomplished so much amidst all that adversity. Our successes far outweighed our failures and that's the most a government can hope for.

Yala: The Independent member for Brisbane mentioned that he was not given the opportunity to review the budget at all until the third attempt at passing it, and labelled your government as incompetent. What do you say to this allegation from someone who held up your government?

Bellman: I'm honestly not too sure what happened there. I do know that at least on the second occasion we were under the impression that all parties had looked at it, but clearly there was some communication breakdown there. We're just glad to have got it through in the end. So I totally understand where porridge is coming from, but I think the rest of our term and the way we ended things kind of proved that we weren't incompetent at all, even if we had our... moments haha

Yala: What made you choose the Liberal National Party over one like the Commonwealth Party?

Bellman: Well they were our coalition partner so it was the logical choice. A few of our members had history with the CPA so they've decided on their own to join, but it seemed like the majority of our supporters would lean towards the LNP given our in parliament affiliation. Of course we were close with the CPA as well so it could have gone either way, but at the end of the day the members who were most keen on the CPA decided they wanted to leave and join them directly anyway so we went ahead with the plan to join the LNP. And of course Riley was our close colleague in parliament as well, and I'm personally very excited for the plans he has to reinvigorate the party after it's gone pretty quiet in the last few months. So I'm excited by what the LNP brings to the table, and hopefully our ANCAP supporters will feel the same.

Yala: What are your thoughts on the Commonwealth Party leader's comments labelling your new party as right-wing extremists?

Bellman: I haven't seen those comments so I'll withold too much criticism- the CPA and I have had a good relationship in recent days so I'm surprised to hear this. To address the comment a little bit though- we may be right wing, but hardly extreme. ANCAP was definitely the more extreme of the two haha. But I know better than anyone how unhelpful labels like right or left wing can be, as a libertarian I don't really fit neatly into either box. But I can say that the LNP is far more moderate in the majority of its views, for better or for worse. But at least we have somewhat of a clear position, unlike the CPA which seems to have only one thing clear about their positions: win at any cost. And that's not really how I prefer to do politics. We believe in things here, and that's a good thing. It comes down to the voters to determine if Australia agrees with our beliefs or not.

Yala: How confident are you in your chances of election, both locally and your party nationally as a whole?

Bellman: Hugely confident. I think Labour's confidence has been its own downfall, and we're already seeing them capitulate. The end of their term was filled with pointless and lame motions. They don't care about productivity or progress, and I think the Australian people are taking notice.

Yala: Are there any non-LNP candidates you are hoping to see join you in parliament if successful?

Bellman: Of course, I'd love to see Forza re elected in Cunningham, Porridge in Brisbane and we're also rooting for Youmaton in Canberra. The latter might be a surprise to many, we hardly align politically but we have a lot of respect for them and they have a really big heart for the city. It's been a long time since they've been back in the game so it would be great to see them come back with a bang. It will be a tough competition though with ALP bigshot TheSensibleCentrist in the race, but only time will tell what will happen. It's safe to say almost every other party will be united to try and get Youmaton the win there so it could happen.

Yala: What would the first month of Member for Robertson Bellman look like, what would you do differently to this term?

Bellman: Well I'm hoping to relax a little more hahaha, Prime Minister was a great gig but at my age it's hard to maintain the energy required to do it well long term. I'll be looking to reintroduce my superannuation bill or a variant. But aside from that, we're still working out our exact gameplan post merger. Riley has a lot of plans that I'm looking forward to seeing happen

Yala: As a hypothetical, now that you are in a party not led by yourself, if your party proposed a bill that would go against your values or would harm your community, would you break whip to vote against it?

Bellman: I don't think so. I wouldn't say that the party goes very far against my values. I believe in the vision Riley has, and he believed in mine. That's why he was eager to offer us supply and confidence in the last term. I look forward to being a part of the policy making process without having to be the leader of the discussion. It will be a nice change. And yeah, I'm not joining someone random here. This has been a well thought out move, and I expect a productive term coming up.

Yala: Is there any final message today that you have to the people of Robertson as they decide on who they support next week?

Bellman: Yeah, well, I think the people at Robertson will know what they'll be getting with me, which hopefully translates to their support. I'm a local, born and raised member of the community and I always put the constitutents first. So please if you have any questions or concerns or important issues you're worried about, feel free to contact me or my office. I'm sure there is a fair bit of confusion surrounding the merger, but please trust me when I say this isn't the end of the ANCAP movement- it's just the next step. So please continue to support us and me as we look towards another term in government!

Yala: Thank you for your time Bellman.

Bellman: It was my pleasure, Yamaton- ah sorry I did it again. Always happy to chat with you