Peta Credlin: Notice how nothing is ‘not me’ Albo’s fault?

For the past three years, the Albanese government has put the Australian public last, and now it’s our chance to return the compliment, writes Peta Credlin.

Have you noticed how nothing is ever the Prime Minister’s fault?

Whenever challenged on what’s gone wrong, from losing the Voice referendum, to breaking his power price pledge, to dumping the inner west for his new central coast home, it’s always someone else’s fault or not his decision or it didn’t actually happen.

For “not me” Albo, the Voice result “wasn’t a loss to me” because “I am not Indigenous”; “it was their request”. Buying the $4.3m clifftop mansion at Copacabana somehow just materialised because “Jodie is a Coastie and spending time with her up there is awesome”.

And he was at it again last Friday. Out campaigning in a Western Sydney seat that Labor dramatically lost in 2022 to independent Dai Le, Albanese admitted that trying to parachute in former NSW premier Kristina Keneally from the other side of Sydney was a mistake. But even though he was the Labor leader at the time and had insisted that the local candidate be shunted aside, he’s now claiming “no, it wasn’t my decision”.

When asked about the million-plus migrants coming in on his watch, at The Daily Telegraph’s Western Sydney forum, he claimed it had nothing to do with his government because “record number of visas were not issued by any … of my ministers”.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Whenever challenged on what’s gone wrong, it’s always someone else’s fault or not his decision or it didn’t actually happen. Picture: Jason Edwards/NewsWire

Last week, when challenged to put the Greens last because of their unwillingness to condemn Hamas terrorists, Albanese said that decision was not his to make. Earlier, the installation of his hand-picked candidate in a South Coast seat (a three-time Greens candidate that’s upset Labor locals) likewise had nothing to do with him.

One of the PM’s most egregious evasions – verging on an outright lie – is his constant claim that a Dutton government would wreck Medicare. In fact, bulk-billing rates have fallen from 88 to 77 per cent on his own watch; meaning the Coalition has a better record than Labor and yet it’s the PM who is pulling out his plastic at every press conference.

Anthony Albanese pulling out his Medicare plastic. Picture: Jason Edwards/NewsWire

But it’s on cost-of-living pain that the PM has been at his most deceitful; perhaps understandably, because his government has consistently made it worse. His renewables-only energy policy has put power prices through the roof. His Big Australia immigration policy has hit wages and made it impossible for people to get into a home. And Labor’s wasteful government spending has kept interest rates higher for longer – adding $22,000 a year to average mortgage costs.

He knows that his government is largely to blame for the 8 per cent decline in living standards since 2022 – confirmed by the OECD as the worst in the developed world; for two years of negative growth per person; and for the collapse in productivity to levels last seen in 2016.

“Australians are paying higher prices for petrol and groceries as a direct result of Vladimir Putin’s aggression,” he’s said, despite the fact the Reserve Bank has said our inflation is largely “homegrown”.

Watch the PM this week do everything he can to distract voters with talk of the Trump effect on the Australian economy – because when he’s blaming Trump, he’s not having to take responsibility for his lies.

The PM’s promise to cut power prices was the biggest single commitment he made. It was based on what he said was the “most comprehensive modelling ever done by a political party since federation”.

Yet last week, faced with the manifest failure to deliver on this pledge, he asserted that it wasn’t his or his party’s modelling after all.

“It was RepuTex’s modelling,” he said half a dozen times, as if this modelling appeared out of nowhere.

But while repudiating the modelling, Albanese is still committed to the 82 per cent renewable electricity system by 2030 that the now-junked modelling was used to justify. How can any government push forward a radical plan to up-end Australia’s entire energy system based on modelling that it has never updated, never republished and now admits is not worth the paper it is printed on?

If this were a company, ASIC would have the directors in court.

Anthony Albanese only cancelled a Chinese company’s Port of Darwin lease after Peter Dutton had announced he would do so if elected. Picture Thomas Lisson/NewsWire

And as for his claim that “I’ve got what it takes to be PM”, for someone who’s so soft on China – and so comparatively critical of the US – effusive pro-Albo praise in the Chinese papers this week explains why he never cancelled the Port of Darwin lease until 48 hours ago, when Peter Dutton was doing it too.

For the past three years, the Albanese government has put the Australian public last, and now it’s our chance to return the compliment.

THUMBS UP

Peter Dutton’s move on Friday to end Chinese-linked control of the Port of Darwin.

THUMBS DOWN

The Victorian Labor government for agreeing to the Greens’ “Sam Kerr” clause to new race vilification laws. It’s now punishable by up to five years in jail for a white person to call someone “f--king stupid and black” but OK for a black person to call someone “f--king stupid and white”.

Watch Peta on Credlin on Sky News, weeknights at 6pm

Originally published as Peta Credlin: Notice how nothing is ‘not me’ Albo’s fault?