Let’s move back to politics and see what Peter Dutton said in Tasmania this afternoon.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has accused Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of losing control after backflipping on counting LGBTQ Australians in the census, however stopped short of saying what the Coalition’s position would be on the question.
Earlier this morning, Albanese said there would be one new question about sexuality in the census if testing by the Australian Bureau of Statistics was successful.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton Credit: The Sydney Morning Herald
Speaking this afternoon in Tasmania, Dutton said it was obvious “the wheels are falling off” the Albanese government.
“I think the prime minister’s all over the shop, one day he says to a group of people that he’s meeting with that he’s going to change the question put to the Australian people in the census, the next day, he says that he’s not going to do that, now he says that he is going to do that,” Dutton said.
“He hasn’t approached us in relation to what it is he’s proposing, we can have a sensible way forward but the prime minister at the moment, I think, is demonstrating to Australians that he’s lost control of the agenda.”
When asked his position on including the question to the census, Dutton said he was “fine” with members of the LGBTQ community being counted, however wanted to see full detail on the legislation.
“I’m fine with that, if the prime minister’s got a proposal, but we hear from the prime minister that he’s not in favour of putting a question and now he is in favour it requires legislation,” Dutton said.
“He’s had no discussion with us, we’ve been ins good with discussions with the government on aged care, on NDIS, on the CFMEU, we’ve had a couple of weeks in parliament, there was no mention of … [the] census.
“The legislation will be dealt with in this parliament and the prime minister has a job to lead and at the moment, as Australians can see, we’ve got a weak prime minister who doesn’t know what he believes in.
“He tells different audiences different things, and then of course, he tries to reconcile it, and it’s why the PM is all over the shop.”
Source Agencies
