Federal election: John Howard brands Anthony Albanese a ‘left wing inner-city bomb thrower’

John Howard has launched a scathing election attack on Labor leader Anthony Albanese, saying “nobody has gone to an election so policy-light as this bloke.”

John Howard has labelled Anthony Albanese a “left-wing inner-city bomb thrower” who lacked “any policy substance”, in a scathing election attack.

In an exclusive interview, the conservative icon has implored “grumpy liberals’’ not to vote for teal candidates because their objective was “to destroy the Liberal government.

“They are on an anti-Liberal mission, whether they admit it or not,” Mr Howard said.

Australia’s second longest serving Prime Minister gave a withering assessment of the Labor leader’s election gaffes, saying “his inability to get across the detail must ask the question is he really up to the job of being Prime Minister.”

“It’s a hard job and you’ve got to be across detail”

Mr Howard said what was so strange about the Opposition Leader’s memory lapses was that there was little for him to learn.

“I think of what I went through in ’98 to explain (the GST) in minute detail, and so did Peter Costello, the biggest overhaul of our tax system since World War Two,” he said.

“I think one of the strongest things to emerge in the campaign is that Albanese is not really up to it,” Mr Howard said.

“In modern times nobody has gone to an election so policy-light as this bloke.

“But there’s nothing. I mean this fellow, he’s a blank piece of paper on policy and that’s what makes, in my view, his failure be across the detail all the more blameworthy because there’s not a lot of detail to be across.”

Former Australian Prime Minister John Howard on the campaign trail with the Member for Ryan Julian Simmonds at a local Kenmore shopping centre. Picture: Sarah Marshall

Mr Howard said Mr Albanese, who was first elected to parliament in the same year he became PM, said the Member for Grayndler had never impressed him.

“I didn’t rate him very highly, he just seemed to be me to be a left-wing inner-city bomb thrower,” Mr Howard said.

“I didn’t think he had any policy substance and I didn’t think he was a particularly strong debater.

“I didn’t dislike Albanese, I had nothing against him, but I just didn’t see him as somebody who would ever be leader.”

Mr Howard said he had a lot of respect for Kim Beazley, who on policy, “was an intellectual giant compared with somebody like Albanese” how in his opinion few Labor people are the time has seen as leadership material.

“I was amazed when he made it (to Labor Leader).”

Mr Howard said he stood by his comments at the launch of the campaign for Bennelong last month that the teal movement was made up to “anti-Liberal groupies”.

“They are running only in hitherto quite safe, Liberal seats. If they were genuine, independents or centrist or whatever, other collective you want to use, they would run in some strong Labor seats: they would run in Maribyrnong, they would run in Grayndler, they would run in Sydney,” he said.

“But they’re not running in any of those seats. Now, that tells me that they’re unstated but nonetheless clear objective is to destroy the Liberal government.”

Liberal voters need to understand there was no chance the government would survive if the teal candidates were successful.

“The Liberal Party can’t afford to lose any of those seats without having its status as a government in its own right, put at risk, serious risk: that’s just the arithmetic,” he said.

“Therefore my message is very clear that any grumpy Liberal who’s thinking of voting for one of these people in the belief that they will act as a correction on the Liberal Party, but that it could still remain in office, is deluding themselves. Forget it. This is a binary choice. If you’re a cranky Liberal, who’s still at the end of the day wants a Liberal government, you’ve got to vote directly for it, don’t muck around.”

John Howard on a shopping centre walk with Rachel Swift this morning at the Mitcham Shopping Centre Picture: Kelly Barnes

Mr Howard said that in opinion the rise of the teal movement was in part “a manifestation of what happens when any side of politics is in power for a long time” but he also said was also a function of the major debates not being about huge policy changes.

“One of the advantage of having debates about big policy changes is that people take positions on the issues rather than on the general performance, I think that’s one of the explanations,” he said.

“I think, the other explanation is I suppose that to use a very old expression ‘the devil finding work for idle hands’.

“If you have very safe Liberal seats, you will always get some people who even though they’re not necessarily themselves anti-Liberal, they just sort of say, well, we’re going to stir things up.

“There’s an element of the enthusiastic affluent amateur about the performance of some of these people.”

Labor leader Anthony Albanese. Picture: Liam Kidston

Returning to Mr Albanese, the former PM said people were entitled to question whether he had changed his mind on some of the positions he had taken in previous years, whether on border protection or foreign policy.

“I think people should think about that his track record is not what he now declares to be his position,” he said.

“Let me let me use a comparison. I don’t think anybody doubts that I believe in industrial relations reform, so if I suddenly declare that I was in favour of the Industrial Relations Commission and going back to the industrial relations club, people would be entitled to say ‘pull the other one’.”

He said looking at Mr Albanese’s “not too distant pronouncements” in the past “including, in his early years in parliament indicated more left wing positions on national security.

“He has disavowed that now. But people are entitled to remember it and entitled to that into account in deciding whether or not they vote for him.”

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Originally published as Federal election: John Howard brands Anthony Albanese a ‘left wing inner-city bomb thrower’