Anthony Albanese did a press conference earlier today which we missed – it was VERY short.

It looks like he stayed in his electorate and only took a couple of questions.

One of them was on the line the Coalition have been pushing all day – which was picked up by some of the breakfast TV presenters, following the release of Albanese’s preferences:

Q: Prime Minister, we’re in your seat today, just on preferences in your seat. Hannah Thomas, the Greens candidate has said, you’re complicit in genocide, you should expel Israel’s Ambassador, and you should sanction Israel, and also says you should arrest Benjamin Netanyahu if he ever chooses to come to Australia. Why are you telling your supporters in Grayndler to put her second? (none of these things are false?)
 
Albanese:

Why is The Australian determined to give the Greens such profile? It’s rather strange, I’ve got to say. I wouldn’t have been able to tell you if you’d have asked me who the candidate was. Last time around in this seat, I won on primaries. I won on primaries. That’s the way the system works. I got more than 50% of the vote. I look forward to people voting number one for me and then filling in all the numbers, just as they do, to make sure it’s a formal vote. And I don’t intend to promote the name or the candidate – of the Greens Party candidate, and I’m surprised that The Australian are determined to promote them.

Last night’s debate, sorry if I can. Just last night, Peter Dutton confirmed that there are secret cuts. He had an opportunity to say where those cuts will come. Will they come to health? Will they come to education? Housing – we know that the Housing Australia Future Fund will be abolished. We know that they will make cuts across the board, because they not only have to call waste the expenditure, such as the increase in people’s wages, in the increase in pensions, they’re going to abolish the Housing Australia Future Fund. They’re going to get rid of support for manufacturing through the National Reconstruction Fund, they are going to get rid of the activity test, which will hurt disadvantaged women, in particular with children. Peter Dutton needs to come clean about where the cuts will be. He has a $600 billion nuclear energy plan. He needs to tell Australians, before the election, not afterwards, where the cuts will be made, otherwise, all of his promises that he is making, all of which, of course, disappear in a short period of time. Those short-term hits that will disappear. We know he will increase income taxes, because he has said that, that will cover $17 billion. But he needs to find further information, further details about where the cuts will be. We’re now just 11 days from polling day on May 3. The Australian people deserve better. We handed down a Budget in March, and then we had the Pre-election Fiscal Outlook. We have outlined the costs of all of our policies.

He needs to come up and explain to Australians how he pays for his nuclear plan. We know that he won’t go anywhere near any of the sites for a nuclear reactor. It’s radioactive for him going near them. He just won’t go anywhere near them. Well, he does need to explain this, because the Australian people deserve the information before they cast their vote. Half a million Australians have already done so, I expect another half a million will today. But he needs to, as a matter of urgency, come out with where the cuts will be. He’s got another big spending announcement today. We’ll see if that actually results in anything. The last time they were in government on defence, of course, what they did was make more than $40 billion of announcements with no money attached. This time around, of course, as well, we know he’ll sack 41,000 public servants. The last time around, there was a queue when we came to office of 42,000 Veterans, men and women who have served our country in uniform, who are awaiting their entitlements. So, you can’t, on the one hand, say you care about defence, and at the same time, be treating our Veterans in such a callous way by denying them their entitlements.