Scott Morrison swipes Anthony Albanese over NDIS question slip-up

Scott Morrison has eagerly taken the opportunity to swipe Anthony Albanese over Thursday’s press conference slip-up.

Scott Morrison has taken the opportunity to swipe Anthony Albanese over Thursday’s press conference slip-up, where the opposition leader failed to answer a question a key policy pledge to improve the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).

When he was pressed to detail the six key points in the plan, it quickly became clear he couldn’t bring them to mind.

Instead of admitting he couldn’t recall the six points, he kept responding to repeated questions about them by simply saying Labor would “put people at the centre of the NDIS”.

Journalists threw further questions at him about the policy which he dodged until towards the end of the press conference.

He was handed the policy on a piece of paper by an adviser, looked down at his notes and detailed the six points.

“He‘s only had three years,” Mr Morrison told Paul Murray on Thursday.

“And this is the challenge. I mean, he spent three years having a crack at me every day. He’s just got up and had a crack at me about how he could, you know, say how the game could be played on the Monday after the game, every single every single weekend.”

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said it was disappointing the opposition leader could not answer a question on a key policy pledge.

“After all this time I would have thought, this deep into the campaign, that they would have had some clear plans. But the few plans that they have, he didn’t know what they are.

“And I think what we’re seeing as people look at this campaign and it is a choice he wants to make it a referendum about me as you know, but it is a choice. And I know people are looking in there going. ‘I can’t see it in this guy’.”

Mr Albanese fronted up to a sit-down with Q&A host David Speers on Thursday night in front of an audience of voters after being grilled on the campaign trail earlier in the day.

He voiced his strong opposition to “gotcha questions” designed to unfairly pin politicians to create a separate story on their apparent ineptitude.

“The point here is putting people back in charge of the NDIS and at the centre of it and one of the things I reckon that really alienates people from the political system completely is this idea that politics is about a sort of series of gotchas and game-playing,” Mr Albanese said.

Labor leader Anthony Albanese refers to his notes during a press conference at the Smart Energy Expo on Thursday.

Political commentators suggested it was harsh to expect Mr Albanese to remember every single detail of every Labor policy at a moment’s notice.

“I think Anthony Albanese did need the notes and should have been able to recall a couple of the points at least more freely. I do,” the ABC’s Patricia Karvelas said on air after the press conference.

“And I do think being across detail matters.

“But I believe we’re now getting into a culture of catching everyone out rather than the sort of macro, becomes a little... pedantic and futile.

“I believe it’s a bipartisan comment, that the Prime Minister should be able to look at his notes and so should the Opposition Leader and I don’t know - is it just about having an encyclopaedic memory?

“I watched the film Rain Man. I know some people can recall things very brilliantly, others less so. Is that your only test for a good leader? I don’t know if it really is the only test.”

Originally published as Scott Morrison swipes Anthony Albanese over NDIS question slip-up