Tuesday 17 May 2022 11:58 PM Anthony Albanese sparks outrage as he reveals the first thing he will do if he ... trends now
Anthony Albanese will have himself sworn in within hours if he wins the election, so he can attend an important meeting in Tokyo.
The opposition intends to be quickly sworn in on Sunday to depart on Monday to meet with respective leaders from India, Japan and the US.
Penny Wong, leader of the Opposition in the Senate, is expected to be sworn in as Foreign Minister to attend the Quad with Mr Albanese.
However, the confident Labor leader was ridiculed for repeating the mistakes of Bill Shorten in 2019 of being too confident before polling day.
'[This is] hubris writ large. Rather than taking people's votes for granted, they should be getting their costings right,' Defence Minister Peter Dutton said on 2GB radio.
'He's taking a lot for granted he think's he's got this in the bag already. He's already packing his bags.'
Mr Dutton also criticised Mr Albanese for planning to take Senator Wong with him, claiming that showed he wasn't up to the job of leading Australia.
Host Ben Fordham likened the opposition leader's plan to those of Labor PM Kevin Rudd in 2007.
He described Mr Albanese's travel plans as a 'very strange own-goal' and said it sounded like he's 'got a bit of the Kevin 07's'.
'Anthony Albanese will put himself in front of Australians on Saturday and Australians will decide who the next prime minister is going to be,' he said.
'But in his mind he's already thinking about going off to Tokyo and hanging out with those world leaders from Japan, India and the US.
'And that's what Kevin 07 suffered from. Always wanting to be on the international stage and forgetting about his home base.'
Fordham asked Mr Dutton who he thought would step-up as acting prime minister in Mr Albanese's absence.
'Nobody can answer that,' Mr Dutton replied.
'It can't be Richard Marles because he wouldn't be sworn in, he wants to be defence minister but he won't say that. He's been running his speeches past the Chinese embassy and that's never a good
