Federal election 22: Albo says he’ll ‘take the fifth’ when asked if he’s smoked marijuana

Anthony Albanese must been prepared for curly questions when he sat down with Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O – and then came the marijuana one.

Anthony Albanese has carved out half an hour of his time on the second-last full day of the election campaign to sit down for a wide-ranging interview with Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O in Sydney on Thursday.

The man hoping to be prime minister come Sunday morning has “taken the fifth” when asked if he’d ever smoked marijuana, and said the luxuries that come with being PM would take some getting used to.

He’s also recommitted to no new taxes, and spruiked his plan for cheaper childcare while on the commercial station.

His appearance was delayed after his security team carried out a “bomb sweep”, according to host Sandilands.

“Your friends were in here earlier, making sure there’s no bombs. We did a joke where we pretended there were drugs,” Sandilands jibed.

Federal Labor leader Anthony Albanese speaks to a rowdy media pack in the Sydney electorate of Bennelong, visiting kids at Goodstart Early Learning Centre, with Labor candidate Jerome Laxale on left. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

Mr Albanese said his security team were “pretty good”, but it had taken some getting used to having multiple police cars parked outside his “pretty ordinary” Marrickville house.

Sandilands asked Mr Albanese if he had told his partner Jodie Haydon to “start packing up the s***, we’re moving to Kirribilli”, to which Mr Albanese laughed off.

“We’re not getting ahead of ourselves. We know what happened in 2019 where everyone expected Labor to win and we didn’t get there, so we’re not taking anything for granted,” he said.

Mr Albanese did get a taste of the high-flying lifestyle while on the campaign though, and told Sandilands and Jackie O he’d been enjoying flying in the air force planes.

“It’s a pretty nice plane,” he said.

KIIS FM’s Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O.

Mr Albanese went on to talk about Labor’s plans for social housing, aged care, childcare, mental health and improving the wages of minimum wage workers.

“Australians are going backwards,” he said.

Mr Albanese ruled out any changes to the income tax rates, but did deny a request from Sandilands to legalise marijuana, even if it would generate revenue for the government through taxes.

“You can tax (marijuana crops) like California did and they got rid of their whole state debt,” Sandilands offered.

“We’re not going down that track,” Mr Albanese said.

Sandilands went on to ask Mr Albanese if he “smoked weed” to which he responded “no”.

“You’ve had a bong though?” Sandilands asked to which Mr Albanese replied: “I’ll take the fifth”.

Mr Albanese is starting the day in Bennelong on Thursday before he heads north to Queensland.