Anthony Albanese blasts Scott Morrison and doesn’t care if John Howard tells everyone vote Liberal

Labor leader Anthony Albanese has unleashed a phenomenal spray at Scott Morrison just hours before the pair face off in a vital head to head TV debate. 

Mr Albanese also said he doesn’t care if John Howard tells everyone to vote Liberal, because the former prime minister ‘would not recognise the rabble’ his party has become. 

Mr Howard, Australia’s second-longest-serving PM from 1996 to 2007, called Mr Albanese a ‘left wing inner-city bomb thrower’ in a withering assessment of his leadership.

He was ‘amazed’ the inner-west MP made it to Labor leader as he was a ‘blank piece of paper on policy’ who was not up to the job of running Australia.

Asked on Sunday morning for his view on Mr Howard’s comments, the Labor leader said he was ‘respectfully untroubled by John Howard saying vote Liberal’.

Mr Albanese then said it was more ‘amazing’ to him that former Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull ‘can’t say that people should vote Liberal, can’t say that he will vote Liberal at this election’. 

‘That’s what’s remarkable. Scott Morrison was Malcolm Turnbull’s treasurer,’ he said. 

Mr Albanese, who earlier in the election campaign could not recall Australia’s interest rare or unemployment figure, had no trouble listing Mr Morrison’s Coalition colleagues who supposedly don’t trust him. 

He named Mr Turnbull, Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, former NSW Premier Gladys Berejikilan and the retiring Human Services Minister Michael Keenan. 

‘They all say, the more you know (Mr Morrison), the less trustworthy he’s regarded. That is what they all say,’ he said.

Mr Albanese then said Mr Howard ‘would not recognise the rabble that is the Liberal Party under Scott Morrison’. 

‘A rabble whereby you have a Liberal Prime Minister who can’t visit Liberal heartland, like… North Sydney, or Warringah, or Mackellar, or Wentworth or other seats,’ he said. 

Mr Albanese then mentioned that Mr Howard had the late Nationals leader Tim Fischer as his deputy.

‘Tim Fischer was a great Australian. I admire him so much. Scott Morrison has Barnaby Joyce,’ he said.

‘Not once, but Barnaby Joyce the sequel is even worse than the horror show we saw in the beginning.

Scott Morrison and his wife Jenny, daughters Lily and Abbey and his mother Marion at a Liberal Party rally in Melbourne on Sunday 

Marion, Lily and Abbey at the rally 

 Former Prime Minister John Howard (pictured) addresses the media at a press conference in Brisbane on Thursday, April 28, 2022

‘The rabble that the Coalition has become is a hindrance. Even if the Liberal Party did want to do the right thing, and they don’t, that’s holding them back.’

Mr Albanese then addressed comments made by Queensland LNP Senator Matt Canavan earlier on Sunday morning, calling them ‘extraordinary’. 

He said Mr Canavan was ‘going out there and campaigning essentially against the Coalition government, again saying climate change action is nonsense, net zero is dead, saying all of those things.

‘That would never have happened under John Howard, because John Howard led his party in a way that Scott Morrison never has and never will.’ 

Mr Morrison and Mr Albanese will debate each other on Sunday night from 8.45 on Channel Nine.