Anthony Albanese has made his first notable gaffe of the election campaign after he mistakenly said he would not rule out doing a deal with the Greens. The Prime Minister was asked at a press conference in WA on day four of the campaign whether he would countenance cutting a deal with the Greens.
Mr Albanese, who said it would be a matter for the party’s organisational wing, insisted that he would ‘not govern in Coalition with anyone, including the Greens’. But then he appeared to catch himself in a double negative.
‘If you ask me, “Do you rule out governing in coalition with the Greens?” The answer is no,’ Mr Albanese told reporters. The Prime Minister quickly added: ‘I don’t negotiate with the Greens.’
Mr Albanese has repeatedly insisted he would not govern in coalition with the Greens in the likely event of a hung parliament. But Dai Le, independent MP for the Western Sydney seat of Fowler, described Mr Albanese’s comments as ‘BS’.
‘I think it’s very disingenuous of the PM to say categorically that he is not doing deals with the Greens. That’s BS,’ she told Daily Mail Australia. ‘We know that they go knocking on Green’s doors to do deals all the time in federal and state parliaments, to get legislations through. Let’s start being honest in politics. No more political lies.’
Ms Le is being courted by both Labor and the Coalition as she could would be a crossbench powerbroker in the event of a minority government. On Sunday, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton described Ms Le as ‘amazing’ at an Assyrian New Year festival in Fairfield. Ms Le, a former Liberal candidate before she stood as an Independent, defeated Labor’s Kristina Keneally in the 2022 federal election in an astonishing 18-point swing.
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