Australia election 2022: Anthony Albanese appears alongside Annastacia Palaszczuk as she slams PM

Annastacia Palaszczuk has attacked Scott Morrison for “dividing” Australia when she first appeared alongside Anthony Albanese in the election campaign.

The Queensland Labor PM appeared with Mr Albanese on Monday morning to take part in a union march through Brisbane, a day after speaking to another Labor leader, Mark McGowan, in Perth.

In a press conference ahead of the march, Ms Palaszczuk accused Scott Morrison of “attacking” Labor PM during the pandemic.

“The prime minister of this country had a unique opportunity to unite this country and during a pandemic he chose to divide,” she said.

“He chose to attack Queensland, attack Victoria and attack WA.”

Her comments came during Ms Palaszczuk’s first campaign with Mr Albanese in that election, after taking a three-week hiatus over Easter.

At the height of the pandemic, Morrison government ministers criticized Queensland’s hard border stance, which was causing families to break up.

A 26-year-old Canberra nurse has been denied a farewell to her dying father in Brisbane under Ms Palaszczuk’s rules.

Contrary to Ms Palaszczuk’s claims that Mr Morrison had attacked the Prime Ministers, the PM’s government funded their lockdowns and even backed Mr McGowan’s extension of WA’s hard border earlier this year.

Indeed, Conservatives accused him of soft-spoken and allowing prime ministers to govern the country effectively by not challenging their border closures or vaccination mandates.

Ms Palaszczuk threw her support behind the opposition leader on Monday, saying: “This country needs someone who is going to unite this country and I believe Anthony Albanese is definitely the person to do the job.”

“We have someone here who is standing alongside Queenslanders, we have someone standing by our side to make sure we get the infrastructure we need.”

She slammed Mr Morrison for not funding quarantine camps in Queensland as soon as she asked and said Mr Albanese would be more amenable to her demands.

“He wouldn’t have delayed things like quarantine. He would have stepped on the plate,’ she said.

“In terms of Scott Morrison, enough is enough. Now is the time, now is the time for us to unite the country and the man to do it is Anthony Albanese.’

The Labor leader has boosted his relationship with Ms Palaszczuk after they worked together as infrastructure ministers 10 years ago, and also raised his plan to raise wages.

“The simple principle we celebrate today is a fair wage for a fair day’s work,” he said.

The Labor leader is six points ahead of Scott Morrison in the polls and is on track to form a government should the polls reflect actual election results.

Mr Albanese also used his speech in Perth to officially unveil the party’s new housing capital scheme.

The Help to Buy program will provide 10,000 Australians with an equity contribution of up to 40 per cent of the purchase price of a new home and up to 30 per cent on an existing home.

Coalition Housing Minister Michael Sukkar said hardly anyone would take up the offer because they don’t want “Anthony Albanese sitting at their kitchen table owning part of their house”.

Mr. Albanese also pledged to build more electric vehicle charging stations with $40 million in funding, which will be matched by the NRMA — as well as a hydrogen fueling station network on 16 busy freight routes.

Meanwhile, Mr Morrison has pledged that a further 50,000 older Australians will have access to the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card if he is re-elected.

The Prime Minister announced an increase in the income test threshold for singles – from $57,761 to around $90,000 – from July 1 this year to expand access to the concession card.

The pairs threshold is also raised from $92,416 to $144,000.