Dutton uses campaign launch to make WILD accusation against Albo over the Prime Minister’s trainwreck interview on Chinese ownership of Darwin port: ‘Couple of wines’
Peter Dutton launched a series of personal attacks against Anthony Albanese during his campaign launch, even suggesting the Prime Minister had enjoyed ‘a couple of wines’ when making a major policy announcement.
Mr Dutton levelled the accusation on Sunday as he touched on the decision to return the Port of Darwin to an Australian government approved operator rather than a Chinese company.
Mr Albanese had called into ABC Radio Darwin at the start of April to unveil his plans to buy back the port if no private buyer could be found.
The Prime Minister immediately came under fire as he was accused of hastily making the call to get ahead of the Opposition after learning they planned to make an announcement about the policy as part of its election promise.
‘To give you an understanding of Labor’s approach, Mr Albanese heard that we were going to make this announcement, and after a couple of wines, it seemed he called into ABC Radio in Darwin,’ Mr Dutton said on Sunday.
‘And he tried to fumble his way through the interview to say what he was going to do, how tough he was, how he was going to take the Port of Darwin back.
‘The trouble for him was that the journalist who took the call knew a little more about the subject than he did.
‘And it started to unravel very quickly, and that interview didn’t end very well.’
The federal election campaign went deep into personal offence territory when Peter Dutton suggested Anthony Albanese was affected by alcohol when making a policy announcement
Mr Dutton added that ‘it demonstrated to me, and I think to the Australian public, that this Prime Minister does things on the run.
‘He’s always late to whatever needs to be attended to. And he doesn’t have the clarity and the vision and the strength for our country that’s required to keep us safe.
After Mr Dutton’s speech, he was slammed by ABC presenter Patricia Karvelas who said the Opposition leader ‘shouldn’t have said that’.
‘He is implying the Prime Minister was intoxicated if he said that. Well, he may not have liked the interview the Prime Minister did, that’s kind of a big accusation.
‘The other part of this is of course – the Prime Minister has not been drinking during the election campaign, famously so I had him on Q&A and he asked for non-alcoholic drinks, he is off the wines.’
Mr Albanese’s call to ABC came at 4.21pm on Friday, April 4 after the Labor campaign was tipped off that Mr Dutton was about to announce the Coalition would take back the Port of Darwin if it won the federal election.
So he made the call to get in ahead of the Coalition.
ABC’s Patricia Karvelas slammed Peter Dutton for suggesting Anthony Albanese (pictured) was ‘intoxicated’
Host Liz Trevaskis gave the Prime Minister a tough grilling where the rushed nature of the announcement became quickly apparent.
In the interview, Mr Albanese incorrectly said the ‘LNP’ government had ‘flogged off’ the port to Chinese company Landbridge.
The port has been controlled by the Landbridge Group since 2015, after being granted a 99-year lease by the federal and territory governments.
But, there has never been a LNP government there.
The Prime Minister also incorrectly said the deal had been done in 2016 instead of a year earlier.
During the campaign launch, Mr Dutton also tried to use the Prime Minister reaction to falling off a stage as an excuse to criticise his character.
He claimed Mr Albanese tried to lie about the incident and would deceive the public over other matters as well.
‘If Anthony Albanese lies about something as simple as falling off the stage, there’s nothing he might lie about,’ Mr Dutton said.
‘The footage was there. People saw it, Prime Minister. People saw you fall off the stage.’
