One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce refuses to say if Pauline Hanson should apologise for comments about PM’s mum

One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce has refused to say if Pauline Hanson should apologise for comments about Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s mother and her decades-long stay in public housing.

The former deputy Prime Minister was pressed during a Sunrise interview on whether the One Nation leader should withdraw her remarks after Mr Albanese mounted an emotional defence of his late mother, Maryanne Albanese, on Sunday.

Asked by host Nat Barr whether Senator Hanson should apologise, Mr Joyce defended the broader principle that public housing should operate as a safety net rather than permanent accommodation.

“The issue about whether people should have a long term position in public housing is a concern. We need public housing as a safety net. It shouldn’t be there sort of in continuum so that people just basically stay there forever because it makes it tougher for other people,” Mr Joyce said on Monday morning.

“There’s got to be a process where people utilise this safety net, but then give other people a chance to utilise that safety net.”

Mr Joyce also accused Mr Albanese of using his upbringing to gain empathy from voters.

“The whole, you know, log cabin story of living in a housing commission home that the Prime Minister rolls out over and over again for a person who owns multiple houses,” he said.

“And good luck to him, and God bless him. And he’s about to go live in a $4.5 million house on the Central Coast.”

But the discussion became more heated when Ms Barr said he was dodging the question and reminded Mr Joyce that Senator Hanson’s comments had referred to the Prime Minister’s mother, who had suffered with severe rheumatoid arthritis.

“Well, those details weren’t brought up in the interview, were they? No,” Mr Joyce added.

When asked again if Ms Hanson should apologise after learning of Ms Albanese’s circumstances, Mr Joyce declined to directly answer.

“Well, that’s really a question for Pauline, for Pauline to answer. I’m not going to start answering questions on anybody else in the Parliament,” Mr Joyce replied.

Minister for Social Services Tanya Plibersek chimed in to spruik Labor’s housing build numbers and add a person account about the Prime Minister’s mother.

“During the whole ten years that Barnaby was part of the government, they built about 300 public housing dwellings. We are building 55,000,” Ms Plibersek said.

“We’ve got an announcement of another $300 million today... 55,000 public housing dwellings we’re building.

“And on Maryanne Albanese, I did know her. She was a gorgeous woman.

“She could she couldn’t take the lid off a jar of food to feed herself. She needed help doing up her buttons. She spent half a life in and out of hospital.”

The controversy stems from comments Senator Hanson made about Mr Albanese’s upbringing in public housing in an interview with Karl Stefanovic in February.

During that interview, Mr Hanson criticised the Prime Minister for repeatedly discussing his public housing upbringing and questioned why his mother, who died in 2002 from a brain aneurysm, had remained in the same home for 65 years.

Mr Albanese fired back at Ms Hanson on Sunday by delivering an emotional defence of his mother.

“She was compassionate, not uncaring,” the Prime Minister said of his mother.

“She was generous. And she was kind, not nasty. She was a person of great character.

“She had a tough life, but you know what? She used to also have great sayings. One of them was: ‘There’s always someone worse off than yourself’.”