Election 2022: Government blasts Labor over ‘not my job’ ads

Labor has been accused of running a ‘dirty tricks’ campaign against Scott Morrison by taking the Prime Minister out of context in its advertisements.

Labor has been accused of running a “dirty tricks” campaign against Scott Morrison by taking the Prime Minister out of context in its advertisements.

The Liberal Party has demanded the ads be dropped and is asking Anthony Albanese for an apology, with campaign spokesman Simon Birmingham arguing that the ALP had been “caught out lying to the Australian public”.

ALP national secretary Paul Erickson announced Labor was launching the ad campaign on April 21, tweeting a video featuring the Prime Minister in Hawaii during the Black Summer bushfires and people refusing to shake his hand.

The end of the clip features three separate moments where Mr Morrison said “that’s not my job”. A voice over asks “next time something goes wrong, do you trust him to make it right?” while large text appears on-screen declaring “no more mistakes, no more excuses, no more Morrison”.

But the Coalition has uncovered the three separate interviews where Mr Morrison said “that’s not my job”.

The first was from an interview on the Today show where Karl Stefanovic asked Mr Morrison: “Why haven’t you personally lost patience with (Victorian Labor Premier) Dan Andrews?” He replied: “Because that’s not my job. My job is to keep focused on the challenge that I have to protect Australians every single day.”

The second was from a press conference where Mr Morrison said he would not tell Australians how to spend their money: “It’s their money. It’s their choice. I’m not going to go around telling Australians how to spend their own money. That’s not my job.”

Another clip is from a March 2020 interview with 60 Minutes reporter Tara Brown, where Mr Morrison is talking about whether the scale of Covid-19 infections in Italy could be replicated in Australia. Mr Morrison was asked whether he was frightened. He replied: “It’s not my job to do that.”

The Coalition will run a counter ad on social media with the clips in their proper context.