Federal election 2022: Anthony Albanese ducks questions on Labor’s housing policy

Anthony Albanese watches Jason Clare take questions about Labor’s housing plan. Picture: Liam Kidston

Short on policy detail? Never fear, Jason Clare is here.

Anthony Albanese stepped out with Clare, his housing spokesman and star stand-in for the leader during his stint in Covid isolation, and made sure his practice in front of the media wasn’t wasted as the press pack scrutinised Labor’s new home-ownership scheme.

Of the 15 or so questions asked during a sweltering 45-minute press conference, Clare was called in by Albanese to a third of the exchanges to calm the reporters as they probed for detail on Labor’s policy which would have the government take a joint stake in homes with about 10,000 qualifying punters.

Clare jabbed and stabbed at the Coalition with puns and metaphors, revealing himself as the zing king of the campaign.

Clare said the government was pushing “more baloney than a New York deli” and quipped that the government needed more “sour cream and sweet chilli” in the cabinet room to account for all its wedges.

Having tripped up on policy detail early in the campaign, Albanese made sure to use his specialist this time around.

Grilled on his ownership of more than one property and how the pool of housing was constrained because of people like him, Albanese called in Clare, who explained succinctly the housing policy was “not about individuals”. Pressed to answer the question himself, Albanese repeated the line that the solution wasn’t about individuals, including him.

Asked how some children of parents who bought into Labor’s equity sharing scheme may be forced to sell the property, Albanese handballed to Clare.

“What we’re doing here is helping Australians to pass on their wealth to their kids rather than passing on nothing because they’re renting for the rest of their life,” Clare said.

He followed the answer with an example from his own life with his grandfather having rented all this life.

“When he died, he died in intensive care, and he was in intensive care for three weeks,” he said.

“The only reason we had enough money for the coffin and for the funeral is because he was in intensive care for three weeks and his pension accumulated.

“This is good policy ... If they qualify under the eligibility rules, everything is sweet. Nothing changes.”

Clare later fielded a following question on supply and about whether Labor would speak to premiers to get more land released, despite the journalist asking for “Mr Albanese’s view”.

Again Clare whipped out the polished response.

“You don’t get this done through bullying and blaming and berating the states,” he said.

“Go back and google Scott Morrison or Michael Sukkar on this and you’ll see all they do is blame the states.”

Asked about his steady hand and his quick quips during the presser, Clare joked that he’d been on comedian Shaun Micallef’s show, Mad As Hell.