Peter Dutton is still doing the mea culpa on the public servant work from home reverse ferret, but now adding the sting (which was always coming); Albanese has never apologised, and it’s Labor’s fault for getting people upset at the policy.

(The policy only ever applied to the public sector, yes – but the public sector often sets the conditions for the private sector, which follows. So while the government can only order public servants back to work, it would have set the scene for private companies to reverse their own flexible work arrangements.)

Dutton:

Our policy applied to public servants in Canberra. But this whole series of lies where Labor had made people believe that somehow it was going to apply economy-wide – it was just deceptive and, frankly, dishonest. So, we’ve clarified our position. I’ve apologised for the mistake that we’ve made. And I think, frankly, it’s a very necessary part of leadership to demonstrate where you have got it wrong to apologise.

The Prime Minister’s never apologised in relation to the broken promise around the $275 cut to electricity prices. People have experienced big cost rises in their electricity prices.

Never apologised for it.

So I do think it’s important that, where you make a mistake, you apologise, you explain what you got wrong, and we’ve done that.

And we have been very clear about it.

So I think it allows us now to concentrate on what issues are important at this election and I think helping families, helping small businesses, helping our economy grow – I think all of that’s important.

The core inflation rate in our country is twice what it was under the coalition*, which is why people are paying more for groceries and paying more for their everyday items that they’re having to find money for out of an ever-shrinking budget. And I want to make sure that we can help families find some headspace, some breathing space, and I want to make sure that we can help families get through what’s been a really tough three years.

It began rising under the Coalition – Labor inherited it.