‘Liar as PM’: Peter Dutton warns Anthony Albanese has signed political death warrant

Anthony Albanese has been warned his leadership “dead, buried, cremated” as voters will not accept “a liar as PM” over his broken tax cuts promise.

Peter Dutton has declared Anthony Albanese’s leadership “dead, buried, cremated” warning that voters will not accept “a liar as PM” over his broken tax cuts promise.

The Liberal leader rounded on the Prime Minister on Thursday as Mr Albanese outlined what every worker will get under the changes at the National Press Club.

But as the Prime Minister defended the changes as delivering bigger and better tax cuts, he snapped at reporters as they grilled him over the broken promise.

“Every other Prime Minister who has broken a major promise has gone on to lose their job,” ABC host Laura Tingle said.

“Tony Abbott, cutting health and the ABC. Julia Gillard and the carbon tax and Kevin Rudd and the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. Why will Anthony Albanese be different?”

“We are being very upfront,’’ Mr Albanese replied.

Anthony Albanese addresses the National Press Club of Australia in Canberra. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

“When economic circumstances have changed, it is a responsible thing to do to change our policy. We are changing our policy for the right reasons.”

The Prime Minister was also pressed on why he listed factors such as the pandemic, recession and the war in Ukraine as reasons the policy change is needed given that all of these factors were known at the time of the election.

“I want to be known as a Prime Minister who had the [guts] to say what was needed and to set about doing it, even as I recognise that this would be controversial,” he said.

“Even at a cost to your personal integrity?” a journalist interjected.

“I tell you what my integrity is – not looking at lower [and] middle income earners and saying ‘sorry, I’m just the Prime Minister, I am not in a position to help you.”

But when he was pressed about broken promises by The Australian’s Joe Kelly, he snapped.

“You promised to do politics differently, to bring integrity, honesty to politics. Isn’t it important therefore you level with the Australian people today and admit that you breached an election commitment?” Kelly asked.

“I’m not sure if you were here for the speech, Joe,” the Prime Minister replied.

Leader of the Opposition Peter Dutton has savaged the backflip. Picture: Richard Dobson

“I don’t think you have said it was a broken promise yet, Mr Albanese,” Kelly said.

“I am very clear about the fact we have changed our position, we have changed our position for the right reasons,” the Prime Minister said.

However, Liberal leader Peter Dutton warned voters will not “support a liar as Prime Minister” and that the ALP caucus had made a “fatal error” in backflipping on an election promise.

“The Prime Minister has completely and utterly destroyed his credibility with the Australian public,” Mr Dutton said.

“And the Australian public won’t support a liar as Prime Minister.

“As it turns out, they made a decision in December, and they’ve got an ad campaign ready to roll. They already made the decision before Christmas and misled people.”