Anthony Albanese defends NDIS gaffe; Scott Morrison blasts Labor’s ‘carnival of chaos’

Anthony Albanese has defended his NDIS gaffe, which he said was part of a “bureaucratic gotcha game”, as Scott Morrison also attacked Labor’s election campaign.

Labor leader Anthony Albanese has defended his NDIS gaffe, declaring he “wasn’t given the opportunity” to answer the question, which he also said was part of a “bureaucratic gotcha game”.

In a one-on-one sit down with Q&A host David Speers, Mr Albanese addressed concerns over his “credentials” and never having held a major portfolio for finance, foreign affairs, education or health.

He noted the past three Labor Prime Ministers to win an election while in opposition — Gough Whitlam, Bob Hawke and Kevin Rudd — had served as ministers in government.

“I’ve served as Deputy Prime Minister. I’ve served as Acting Prime Minister on a couple of occasions. Now, I will lead the most experienced Labor team of any Labor government since federation,” he said.

Mr Albanese was grilled over whether his vision for Australia is bold enough to appeal to younger voters or if the major parties were too similar.

“I guess I’m wondering what hope there is for those of us who feel as though we’re on the Titanic and the two major political parties in this country are arguing over who gets to rearrange the deckchairs,” an audience member asked.

Mr Albanese compared his party’s more ambitious targets on climate change and plans to introduce a constitutionally enshrined Indigenous voice to parliament as two big differences.

“We have practical plans that are implementable in our first term. The alternative is three more years of drift,” he said.

“Three more years of a Prime Minister who says, ‘It’s not my job to solve the big challenges that Australia is facing’.”

Anthony Albanese on Q&A with David Speers. Picture: ABC

His comments came as Prime Minister Scott Morrison appeared on Paul Murray Live on Sky, where he attacked the Labor Party for not coming up with any good ideas for their election policies.

He said a Labor-Green government after the May 21 poll would be a “carnival of chaos” for Australia and he would not want voters to live with that for the next three years.

He also pointed out Mr Albanese’s mistakes he has made on the campaign trail, and how when his “human shield” of MPs goes, “we see what happens”.

Nationals Senator Matthew Canavan also criticised Mr Albanese’s performance at Thursday’s press conference, and said if the Opposition Leader can’t handle a Canberra Press Gallery, he “certainly won’t be able to cope” with China’s leader Xi Jinping.

Senator Canavan told Murray “a new pair of glasses and a suit” isn’t enough to hide Mr Albanese’s mistakes.

“As a leader, first of all you need to be able to be able to describe your own policies, second of all you need to advocate for them and actually know something fundamentally about the Australian economy,” Senator Canavan said.

“If you can’t handle a Canberra press gallery, you’re not going to be able to handle a Canberra bureaucracy.”

Later on Q&A, Mr Albanese said China was becoming more “aggressive and forward-leaning” as shown by a recent security pact with the Solomon Islands.

He said that warranted increased defence spending of whatever is necessary to defend Australia’s national interests, committing to above two per cent of GDP.

Mr Albanese said China would remain a challenge for whoever is in government.

“We live in an era of strategic competition between the United States and China, including in our region,” he said.

Mr Albanese said Labor’s stance was the same as the government on issues including Hong Kong, Taiwan, the Uygurs and the South China Sea.

Mr Albanese said the relationship needed to be managed to avoid the “catastrophe’ of an armed conflict.

“The consequences of military conflict - we’re seeing what’s happening in Russia and Ukraine. No-one wants that. But we need to recognise the competition is there,” he said.

He added China building a military base in the Solomon Islands would be “unacceptable” and that Labor would engage with the Solomons to stop it happening.

“Australia has been since the Second World War, the preferred security partner in the Pacific. What happened here is that we’ve had a dropping of the ball,” Mr Albanese said.

“We had cuts to foreign aid, we had a failure to take seriously the issue of climate change.”

Anthony Albanese on Q&A with David Speers. Picture: ABC

But, when it comes to Australia Day, he does not intend to change the date of Australia Day from January 26, and said Labor has committed to holding a referendum on establishing a constitutional Indigenous voice to parliament.

“We’re diminished until we recognise that we live with the oldest continuous civilisation on the planet and that is a great privilege,” he said.

He explained by not changing the date of Australia Day, “the idea there would be that you would recognise that history didn’t begin then, it went back at least 65,000 years, but it didn’t end then, either.

“Modern Australia is made up of, with the exception of First Nations people, migrants and descendants of migrants in this country and that might be an idea that might be able to bring people together in a unifying way.”

On aged care, Mr Albanese said the crisis had gotten worse and required an overhaul to increase transparency.

“We want to make sure that every dollar goes to better food, to better care - not into someone getting a new Ferrari or what have you,” he said.

“The fact that the Aged Care Royal Commission interim report was titled with one word, ‘neglect’, is just shocking in Australia in 2022.”

Mr Albanese said nurses and aged care workers would continue to leave the system unless issues of pay and working conditions were addressed.

He said more aged care nurses would need to be trained, many of which would likely come from overseas.

“I should imagine that immigration, just like our health system in general, for nurses and doctors, that migration will be a part of it,” he said.

He added that political discourse had also changed and was being broken down into “soundbites”.

“You get down to sound bites rather than philosophies and values of driving issues forward. I think that is helping to alienate people and divide people into camps,” he said.

“I gave a major speech today at the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry about productivity, about how you grow the economy. I’m sure it won’t be on the front page of the newspapers tomorrow.”

Mr Albanese also avoided answering whether pork barreling could be considered corruption. He said some of the actions of the current government were “red hot”.

“Some of the schemes that we have seen, when you have $30 million paid for a block of land that’s worth $3 million, where you have programs where only government members or candidates can apply or even know these projects exist and then they’re announced - there’s something wrong there,” he said.