Australian Election 2025: Anthony Albanese on attack after Peter Dutton’s about face on work-from-home

The Liberals are reeling from a devastating own-goal a week into the election campaign after Peter Dutton was forced to walk back plans to slash the public service and end work from home for bureaucrats, leaving the Opposition Leader wide open to attack. Wasting no time, the Prime Minister laid into Mr Dutton during multiple media events across Melbourne on Monday after he made the abrupt about face. “Today, we have the extraordinary position of Peter Dutton, having defended his attack on working from home, is now pretending that program won’t proceed,” Anthony Albanese said. “He said very clearly that women should just go and job share, that they shouldn’t worry about working full time … This is a ‘new’ Peter Dutton who has discovered work rights.” The PM went on to claim Mr Dutton did not “understand modern families (and) doesn’t understand the important role that women and men play in organising their families and organising appropriate work conditions wherever it is possible.” Labor modelling, coincidentally released on Monday, claimed families stood to lose $740 per week under the Coalition’s plan. That was determined on the basis that women would be forced into job-sharing two days per week – the average most spend at home – though it remained clear how the new plan would alter that. Appearing on the Today show, Mr Dutton apologised for his plan to march public servants back into the office, while also accusing the PM off “twisting” the issue in public. “We’ve been listening to what people have to say,” Mr Dutton said. “We’ve made a mistake in relation to the policy, and we apologise for that. “And, we have dealt with that.” The Coalition is still committed to slashing 41,000 jobs in the commonwealth public service over five years. Instead, it now plans to do that by way of natural attrition, retirements and other means other than forced redundancies. In any case, the Coalition’s WFH policy has presented a major blow to the hopeful next Prime Minister, with polls revealing it was deeply unpopular among women. Critics said the policy unfairly affected women, especially parents more likely to rely on flexible working arrangements. Asked if the Coalition had a problem appealing to female voters, Mr Dutton eventually admitted after repeated questioning on Monday that the party had “work to do”. His answer, however, did not include the word “women”. “There’ll be scores of polling between now and the election and we’ve got work to do – there’s no question about that,” he said. “We are the underdog in this race, but we’re the only party that can provide support to Australians in a very uncertain age, we’re the only party that can manage the economy through difficulties, if we see the global recession or recession in the United States.” Mr Dutton also accused the Prime Minister of fearmongering when he claimed the proposed changes to WFH would flow on to the private sector. “We never had any intention for work-from-home changes that we were proposing in Canberra to apply across the private sector,” Mr Dutton said. For his part, the PM said experts were advising that it would. “The truth is he should defend his own position,” Mr Albanese said. “The truth is that everyone knows – everyone knows – and they say it … The reason why this shouldn’t happen in the public sector is because it flows through to the private sector. “That is what they say.”