Anthony Albanese has doubled his sentence to Scott Morrison, calling the announcement of an interception of a former prime minister’s boat on election day a “shameful act”.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has accused Scott Morrison of announcing the interception of a ship seeking asylum to “facilitate” the sending of campaign text messages on election day.
In mid-Saturday, the then government announced that an asylum seeker carrying 15 people from Sri Lanka had been intercepted by the Australian border force.
The details were later used in a Liberal Party text to encourage Australians to vote for the Coalition to “keep our borders safe”.
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Albanese has called for a review of the timing of the announcement and the subsequent text message, arguing that the then prime minister was politicizing “water issues”.
The prime minister said on Saturday that he had contacted his team about the interception, but told Mr’s office. Morrison that it would be “completely inappropriate for this event to be politicized.”
“It’s a clear breach of interim conventions and this is a government and a former prime minister who used to stand up and say he wouldn’t comment on water issues,” Albanese told ABC Radio National’s Sabra Lane on Friday.
“Clearly, this statement was made so that it could be easier to send, we don’t know how many, but potentially many millions of text messages to voters in a last minute scare campaign.
“It was an abuse of proper processes and a shameful act by a government that was willing to politicize everything, but it didn’t sell anything.”
Border protection became a key issue during the Coalition’s election campaign, but Albanese and Labor consistently maintained that it would follow the protocols established by the current government.
Albanese said the “last-minute scare campaign” showed that the Morrison government had “really lost perspective.”
“They were willing to politicize anything and everything,” he continued.
“And that was a real dim light among many. There was some competition in the recent period by the old government. But that was a new low.”
Mr Albanese was also asked about the forthcoming annual pay review of the Labor Commission Just after the issue was raised as a critical feature of the last two weeks of the election.
During the campaign, Albanese said he would “absolutely” support a 5.1% increase in the minimum wage in line with inflation.
The Coalition and the employers’ groups quickly responded to the comment, arguing that Mr. Albanese was interfering in the process and that such an increase would create greater inflationary pressures.
Now in government, the prime minister said he would write to the Fair Labor Commission on Friday to warn her of the incoming Labor presentation.
But Albanese confirmed that his final presentation would not include a specific figure for a salary increase.
“It will be signed today in the Fair Work Commission, saying we will present a new presentation on behalf of the Australian government before June 7, especially aimed at people earning only the minimum wage,” he said.
“And the presentation will be consistent with what I said during the election campaign, that people who cover the minimum wage cannot afford to go back, they can’t afford a real pay cut.
“There will be no number in the presentation. What will be there, however, is the firm opinion we have that people who earn the minimum wage simply cannot afford a real pay cut.”