Federal election 2022: Anthony Albanese forced to clarify turnback gaffe

Anthony Albanese is forced to deny a Labor government would dismantle offshore processing in a second major stumble after just four days of campaigning.

Anthony Albanese has been forced to clarify that a Labor government would not dismantle offshore processing if he was elected on May 21 in a second major stumble after just four days of campaigning.

With senior Labor figures conceding the first week was already a “write-off” after the Opposition Leader incorrectly guessed the unemployment rate at 5.4 per cent, Mr Albanese on Thursday threw Labor’s border protection policy into doubt and opened up a fresh line of attack for Scott Morrison.

Campaigning in the Hunter in NSW, Mr Albanese was quizzed on how he would respond to any attempt by people smugglers to test a new Labor government.

“We will turn boats back,” Mr Albanese said. “Turning boats back means that you don’t need offshore detention.”

The position was at odds with the ALP platform which maintains support for “an architecture of excised offshore places” to ensure that boat arrivals are prevented from making valid visa applications.

The government also questioned whether Mr Albanese was proposing a fundamental rewriting of Australia’s existing border protection policies on the fly.

Informed of the comments from Mr Albanese on 2GB radio, Defence Minister Peter Dutton responded by saying: “I doubt he said that.”

“That would be a remarkable departure from the Labor Party policy,” Mr Dutton said. “That would be a weakening of the policy that even Julia Gillard had … Maybe he’s made a mistake in a press conference again.

“The wheels are falling off the Anthony Albanese bus,” he said.

The front page of tomorrow's The West Australian #auspolpic.twitter.com/2K4HGHNBog

— Anthony De Ceglie (@AnthDeCeglie) April 13, 2022

Mr Albanese was forced to clarify his remarks a short time later, saying he was not suggesting that offshore processing would be removed – only that the success of the boat turn-backs meant there were fewer arrivals.

“At the moment, there aren’t people who have gone into offshore detention in recent times because the boats have been turned back. It’s been effective,” Mr Albanese said.

At the 2015 ALP national conference, there was a major factional fight over Bill Shorten’s push to embrace boat turn-backs in a bid to neutralise the Coalition attack on border protection.

Mr Albanese voted in person for a Left motion to insert a line into the national platform declaring that Labor “rejects turning away boats of people seeking asylum.”

The motion was also supported by Tanya Plibersek and Penny Wong through a proxy vote, but was defeated in a key victory for Mr Shorten.

Mr Albanese explained his position at the time by saying: “I couldn’t ask someone else to do something that I couldn’t see myself doing.

“If people were in a boat including families and children, I myself couldn’t turn that around.”

Campaigning in Tasmania on Thursday, the Prime Minister attacked Mr Albanese for initially opposing the Coalition’s tough border policy and argued that Australians did not know what the Opposition Leader stood for.

“Anthony Albanese has had every position on border protection,” Mr Morrison said. “He has supported everything he has opposed and he has opposed everything that he has supported.”

“We have seen that across so many issues. I am not surprised that Australians are confused about what he stands for.”

Mr Morrison also promoted his credentials on border protection as the minister who implemented Operation Sovereign Borders in 2013.

“If people want to weigh up and understand these issues of border protection, they can believe someone who came up with it, stood up to the opposition on it — which included Anthony Albanese — implemented it, safely stopped the boats, protected our borders, closed the detention centres and got the children out.”

“Or they can listen to Anthony Albanese, who has been a complete weathervane on this issue. Who is this guy?”

The clarification from Mr Albanese followed his day one gaffe where he incorrectly guessed the unemployment rate at 5.4 per cent – well above its actual level of 4 per cent – and could not nominate the Reserve Bank’s official cash rate of 0.1 per cent.