The PM criticised the opposition leader after Dutton announced plans to base himself in Sydney rather than the Lodge in Canberra if he became prime minister earlier today.
“We love Sydney, we love the harbour, it’s a great city, and so yes,” Dutton told Kyle and Jackie O during a radio interview.
“You’ve got the choice between Kirribilli or living in Canberra. I think I’ll take Sydney any day over living in Canberra.”
Albanese responded while on the campaign trail in Perth and questioned whether Dutton was prematurely drawing up plans for his living arrangements.
“A fair bit of hubris behind that comment, I think… measuring up the curtains,” Albanese said on Nova FM today in Perth.
“The prime minister’s residence, of course, is the Lodge. Not Kirribilli.”
Treasurer Jim Chalmers also said the opposition leader’s claims he would prefer to live in Kirribilli over the Lodge in Canberra was “arrogant” and borrowed from Albanese’s curtain analogy.
“Peter Dutton is already measuring the curtains at Kirribilli, and I think that reflects a certain arrogance on his part,” Chalmers told media in Brisbane.
“We think this election will be very close, we don’t take any outcome for granted and we are working very hard for every vote.”
The treasurer claimed Dutton would be “right at home in a harbourside mansion” in Sydney’s leafy Kirribilli, which is where the prime minister’s secondary official residence is located.
Dutton’s comments also prompted a response from several ACT politicians, including independent senator David Pocock.
“Canberrans love the bush capital and we should have leaders who celebrate it, not play cheap politics taking pot shots at it,” Pocock said.
“If Mr Dutton doesn’t want the Lodge then I’m sure Canberrans can vote in a way that doesn’t give him that option.”
Labor MP Andrew Leigh also described Canberra as the “heart of Australia’s democracy” and said the PM should live in the nation’s capital.
“Albanese lives here, because leading the country means respecting its capital,” Leigh said.
“Only Dutton wants to govern it from somewhere else.”
Only a few prime ministers over the years have elected to live in Kirribilli over a permanent residence in Canberra, including Scott Morrison and John Howard.
