Prime Minister Scott Morrison has pushed back against his predecessor's celebration of independent candidates ahead of the election, but will not say whether he would resign if he lost the election.
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At a press conference in Perth on Friday, Mr Morrison also took aim at Anthony Albanese after the Labor leader could not list from memory the six points of his party's NDIS plan, telling Mr Albanese that running a government was harder than campaigning.
Mr Morrison rejected former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Turnbull's comments in a speech in Washington, D.C. this morning appearing to support the rise of independent candidates this election.
"When it comes to what other former prime ministers, I've always treated former prime ministers of both political persuasions with the utmost of dignity and respect, and I'll continue to do that," he said.
"But I don't share his view. What my view is, I've just explained to you and that is the chaos of a parliament, driven by the daily musings of independents who haven't had the experience to deal with the serious security and economic challenges our country faces, that is going to hurt people's incomes, it's going to hurt people's jobs. It's going to damage Australian security.
"To those seats where people are thinking about independents, I would say this: if they won't tell you how they would vote, how could you vote for them, not just on who they'd support in government, but we can't have a government that's a weathervane."
The Prime Minister did not respond directly to questions over whether he would resign as leader if he lost the election.
He has previously said he won't make a deal with "teal" independents if he fails to win a majority in the lower house.
Mr Morrison also dialled up his attack on Mr Albanese after the Labor leader faced criticism yesterday for not recounting the six points of the party's plan to reform and improve the NDIS, announced earlier in the campaign.
The Prime Minister was interrupted by a journalist while explaining the various points of the Coalition's climate policy plan.
"There's five points to the plan, and I'm keen to go through all five," Mr Morrison responded pointedly.
Frustrated journalists interjected numerous times as the Prime Minister evaded questions, but he insisted he could answer how he wanted.
"You get to ask the questions. You don't get to say what the answer is," he said.
In attacking Mr Albanese, Mr Morrison said Australians were starting to question whether the Labor leader was up to the job of prime minister, and sought to portray himself as fit for the role by comparison, having made decisions such as scrapping the French submarine contract.
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"When you're prime minister, you don't get an easy day in the office. Every single day is hard. You got to make tough decisions every day. If Anthony Albanese thinks the campaign is hard, I have news for him. Government's a lot harder."
"Governments hard, you've got to make difficult choices all the time about capability. There are programs you choose not to go ahead with, because you want to go ahead with other programs.
"I've got to say one of the most difficult decisions I had to make over the course of this last term was to discontinue the Attack Class program for the French submarines. I understood that doing that would carry some pretty serious ramifications when it came to the relationship, both on cost and both on the diplomatic issues, with a good friend and partner in France."
Mr Turnbull today gave a speech saying that "even if the members of a political party cannot escape from the thrall of the dominant faction, their traditional supporters in the electorate can do so by voting for an independent who has a real chance of success".
"In many respects this may be the most interesting part of the whole election, because if more of these 'teal' independents win, it will mean the capture of the Liberal party will be thwarted by direct, democratic action from voters.
Mr Turnbull said moderate voices had become increasingly marginalised in the party since he was deposed as Liberal leader in 2019, "especially on the toxically controversial issue of climate change where the political right, supported by [Rupert] Murdoch's media, have opposed effective action for many years".