ABC star Laura Tingle fires up at Anthony Albanese with brutal question: ‘I don’t think that’s right’

Anthony Albanese hit back at the ABC’s chief political correspondent after she questioned whether his administration was ambitious enough.

Laura Tingle grilled the Prime Minister on Thursday night’s 7.30pm programme, hours after he addressed the Labor Party at its national conference in Brisbane.

“The overwhelming message from your own party is that you’re not doing enough, whether it’s housing, climate, energy,” Ms Tingle said.

“Should voters question whether you are ambitious enough in what you are trying to achieve in government?”

Mr Albanese hit back the first volley with his usual composure, claiming that his government had implemented ‘almost all the policies we had in place leading up to the election’.

But Ms Tingle pushed further, asking whether any of the measures his government had taken “really reset the policy debate, whether it be ‘climate, national security or defence’.

“The momentous ALP conferences that everyone gets sentimental about really saw the government pushing the party to change its positions and you’re actually fending off the party trying to change your positions,” Ms Tingle said.

The Prime Minister snapped back: ‘I don’t think that’s right, Laura’ before rolling up a list of policy outcomes related to climate targets, funding for manufacturing, childcare and the upcoming Voice referendum.

Although Labor holds a national conference every three years, this is the first in over a decade that Labor has been in power

“If you look at the economic, social and environmental agenda, we have a government with a determination to deliver what we brought to the Australian people in 2022,” Mr Albanese said.

His remarks followed his keynote address at Labour’s national conference at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre, where he scathingly brought down the Liberal party.

He accused the former Liberal party, which he called the “Noalition,” of having a “pathological problem with ever saying the word yes.”

“Never again can the Liberals call themselves the Party of Fiscal Responsibility when all they left behind was $1 trillion in debt.

“Never again can the liberals pretend to support the drive for jobs when all they did was erode production and keep wages low as a deliberate policy.

“Never again can Robodebt’s party pretend to care about fighters.

“Because they will forever be condemned for illegally pursuing hundreds of thousands of Australia’s most vulnerable.”

Mr Albanese expressed his hope to lead a ‘long-term government’ that will ‘shape the future’ of Australia.

“We are here to work for Australia, and on behalf of our Labor government I say to every Australian; we are here to work for you.

Labor wants to make sure no one is left behind. It’s what we do, it’s in our character.’

Over the next three days, Labor politicians, business leaders, trade unionists, activists and ordinary members will mingle and debate the framework of the government’s agenda.

The first day was rocked by protests from a construction union calling for action against the housing crisis and environmental activists.