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“What’s tough is coming here, fronting up, as I did last year, saying that we have changed our mind on tax cuts. Fessing up … toughness is also about how you lead.”
With an election due by Might, Dutton and Albanese have stepped up private criticisms of the opposite. Dutton has mentioned Albanese reveals “weakness”, and the PM has accused his opponent of a “cold-hearted, mean-spirited” politics.
Albanese’s address to the NPC outlined a $626m pledge for incentive payments for apprentices, unveiled a new schools funding deal with Victoria and South Australia, ruled out further referendums in his second term, and rejected the prospect of governing in coalition with the Greens in the event of a hung parliament.
His speech mentioned Medicare 10 times, ahead of a campaign expected to heavily scrutinise Dutton’s record as health minister. While Albanese did not set out any further new promises, he noted growing wages and jobs, building new energy projects, lifting pay of nurses in aged care, and investing in education as key government achievements and priorities.
But Albanese’s prepared remarks also took aim squarely at the Coalition. He ridiculed recent policies such as $20,000 tax deductible business lunches, and Dutton’s reluctance to take questions from the press gallery. He said voters would choose between “two completely different visions for our nation” at the ballot box.
“It’s a choice between Labor’s plan to help Australians under pressure and reward their hard work, against the Liberals’ promise to cut what is helping and abandon people who are hurting,” he said.
“It’s a choice between our determination and optimism or their fear and negativity.”
Fighting an ‘imaginary friend’
Albanese noted it was his 10th address to the press club since becoming Labor leader in 2019, while Dutton had not made one such address since he became Liberal leader in 2022.
“There’s a reason my opponent hasn’t fronted up here, his whole time as opposition leader. He doesn’t like questions, because he doesn’t have any real answers,” he said.
Members of the Labor government regularly point out Dutton rarely holds press conferences in Parliament House either, a statistic Albanese repeated.
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Dutton regularly stages press conferences outside Canberra in key seats, and has held media appearances most days over the last fortnight.
Noting Dutton still had not announced a reshuffle of his frontbench, despite flagging impending moves for several months, Albanese claimed his opponent “can’t even stand up to people in his own party room”.
“We’ll continue to make difficult decisions in the national interest, even if at times, there’s a personal cost to it,” he said.
Albanese challenged his opponent to election debates on the press membership in the course of the marketing campaign, joking: “I’ll even offer to give Peter Dutton a lift down from Parliament House in case he can’t find it.”
Mocking Dutton’s criticism of local councils and businesses which declined to expressly celebrate Australia Day, he called on Dutton to join him in a bipartisan citizenship ceremony in Canberra on Sunday.
“I sometimes think Peter Dutton every year has a fight with an imaginary friend over something that most Australians are just getting on with, Australia Day. And one of the things that Australia Day celebrates is the fact that we’re not a Soviet-style command system,” he said.
“You know, like, just chill out, get on with life.”
