Peter Dutton says Anthony Albanese “is over,” queries takeover from Jim Chalmers, Tony Burke

Defending media scrutiny against historic share transactions, Peter Dutton has gone on the attack against the PM, positing a change in Labor leadership.

Peter Dutton has claimed his political rival’s leadership “is over”, with the Opposition Leader amping up his attack of Anthony Albanese as a leader “in a desperate position,” and teasing a change in the Labor leadership.

Mr Dutton’s comments follows days of intense media scrutiny over the acquisition of bank shares he purchased in the days before Labor announced a pre-GFC bank bail out in 2009, with a senior Labor minister questioning whether he had found out about the deal prior to its announcement.

However, Mr Dutton said the accusations from Labor were signs of a Prime Minister struggling to gain ground ahead of a federal election, due by May 17, adding that the “leadership is on”.

“The Prime Minister, who’s in a desperate position, knows that he’s about to lose his leadership to (Treasurer) Jim Chalmers or (Home Affairs Minister) Tony Burke (and) is out there throwing this mud,” he told Nine on Friday.

“I’d prefer to be talking about how we can help Australians recover from a disastrous three years of Labor … and that’s what this election is about, not something that was declared 16 years ago, that the government has had a chance to trawl over for all of that time, but has chosen not to do so.”

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said he believed Anthony Albanese’s days as the Prime Minister were numbered. Picture: NewsWire / Richard Dobson

Mr Dutton also reiterated comments that the shares had been “declared in the register”, and denied that he had known about the bail out prior to the announcement by then prime minister Kevin Rudd.

“I think a lot of Australians were buying bank shares at the time because the Australian banks were strong”.

“So there was an opportunity to invest. I disclosed it, declared it as the rules require, and it is,” he said.

Speaking to reporters on Friday, Mr Albanese claimed he was still “hopeful of getting a majority government,” despite most polls tipping a tight race between the two leaders.

Earlier the Coalition’s defence spokesman Andrew Hastie also targeted Mr Albanese over the government’s handling of Beijing’s live-fire drills in the Tasman Sea, and why the Australian Defence Force was not notified of the exercises prior to an alert sent by a Virgin Australia pilot.

China’s ambassador to Australia Xiao Qian has since said Beijing did not violate any international laws, adding there was no reason “the Chinese side should feel sorry about that”.

The Coalition’s defence spokesman Andrew Hastie accused Mr Albanese of ‘weak leadership’ over the handling of China’s live-fire drills off the coast of Australia. Picture: NewsWire/ Martin Ollman

Mr Hastie also issued concern over a video which showed US President Donald Trump appearing unaware of the AUKUS pact, which Mr Hastie said showed “weak leadership” from Mr Albanese, dredging his past comments in which he said that Mr Trump “scares the s**t out of me”.

“President Trump’s comments illustrate what we already know – Prime Minister Albanese has left Australia flat-footed.

“This is at the detriment of our economic and strategic interests,” he said.

“That is the cost of weak leadership. Money matters, reform matters, confidence matters and above all, leadership matters.

“Under a Dutton-led government we won’t have a Prime Minister who has confessed to being scared of President Trump.”

Fronting media on Friday, both Mr Dutton and Mr Albanese quelled concerns around Mr Trump’s AUKUS slip up, and said he had forgotten the acronym.

“Not everyone you know gets the acronyms, and all the rest of it, but there’s no doubt in my mind that the President strongly supports the alliance between our three countries and strongly supports AUKUS,” Mr Dutton said.

Similarly, Mr Albanese said: “There’s a lot of acronyms in this business, and you know, we all get thrown at them from time to time … He went on to speak about the really important and positive relationship with Australia. That’s consistent with the discussions that I’ve had with President Trump, that included, of course, talking about AUKUS”.

Originally published as Peter Dutton says Anthony Albanese “is over,” queries takeover from Jim Chalmers, Tony Burke