‘Does that mean I can leave?’: PM’s eager bureaucrats call election early in X blunder
Anthony Albanese’s own Department has been forced to apologise over an errant social media post which put the Federal Government into caretaker mode for four minutes.
The post, on the Prime Minister and Cabinet department’s X profile, said the Government was operating in accordance with caretaker conventions, pending the outcome of the Federal election — which has not yet been called.
It comes amid fevered speculation around Parliament House that Mr Albanese will call a May 3 election on Friday.
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When he does, only then will the Government move into caretaker mode — where no major decisions or appointments can be made.
Prime Minister and Cabinet officials appeared before Senate estimates shortly after the post was deleted and issued an apology for the confusing mistake.
“We are trying to work out why this occurred, we apologise for the error,” PMC officials told Senators
“Obviously this is an error. It was up for a period of four minutes.”
Representing Mr Albanese, Government Senate leader Penny Wong said it was going to be interesting “who fesses up to this”, before joking “Does that mean I can leave?”.
Reports based on internal Labor sources emerged on Thursday that the Prime Minister would visit the Governor-General on Friday to call the May 3 election.
