Labor leader Anthony Albanese has been forced to admit he didn’t serve as Acting Prime Minister “that many days” after earlier touting his experience in the role.
On Sunday after Scott Morrison called the election, Mr Albanese told reporters: “My experience is I’ve been acting Prime Minister, I’ve been deputy Prime Minister, I chaired the Parliamentary Business Committee for six years”.
But a check on this reveals the Labor leader has only ever served as acting Prime Minister a maximum of two days at a time and about 61 hours in total, which amounts to about four days’ experience.
When Kevin Rudd was returned as Prime Minister, Mr Albanese was his deputy.
During this period, Mr Rudd travelled overseas on three occasions.
According to past media reporting at this time, on the first occasion Mr Rudd was in Indonesia for 36 hours on July 4 and 5 in 2013.
He also had a brief visit to Afghanistan where he did a four-hour visit to the multinational base Tarin Kot that same month.
Mr Rudd also had a 21-hour visit to Port Moresby.
When Mr Albanese was askedxjmtzyw on Monday how long he’d served as acting Prime Minister after highlighting it as part of his experience a day earlier, he conceded “Well I did it just on a couple of occasions”.
“Not that many days, but on two occasions,” he said.
“But I’ve also been the deputy Prime Minister, I’ve been the leader of the government in the house for six years.
“I’ve been in parliament for 20 years.
“The difference is when I was acting Prime Minister, I knew I was acting Prime Minister.
“This guy (Scott Morrison) has been the acting Prime Minister four years, he won’t accept the responsibilities which are there.”
Mr Albanese has kicked off his election campaign in the marginal seat of Bass, which is currently held by the Liberals on a margin of 0.4 per cent.
