Senior Labor MP Anthony Albanese has described aspiring federal Liberal MP Warren Mundine as a "failure" and the "only rat who has ever run onto a sinking ship".
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Mr Mundine, a former ALP national president, will run for the NSW seat of Gilmore for the Liberal Party at the next federal election after Prime Minister Scott Morrison intervened to dump locally-chosen candidate Grant Schultz.
"Someone in Queensland said to me earlier this week that this bloke is the only rat who has ever run onto a sinking ship, and that's what we have here with Warren Mundine," Anthony Albanese told Nine on Friday.
"He was a failure and that's why he never got preselected by the Labor Party. This is a disastrous decision by Scott Morrison."
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But Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton says Mr Mundine is a "natural pick" who will advocate for indigenous affairs.
"Warren Mundine is somebody who I think will be an accomplished member of parliament," Mr Dutton told Nine's Today Show.
"He was good enough to be leader of the Labor Party."
Meanwhile, Mr Mundine has rejected an allegation by his first wife Jennifer that he hit her once during their break-up in the 1980s as "totally false" and muckraking.
"I'm not surprised that people have gone out and had these discussions and arguments in looking for dirt on me, that's just part of this tough election process," he told The Sydney Morning Herald on Friday.
"I've never heard this allegation before, it's a totally false allegation."
Mrs Mundine told the Herald she and her ex-husband are on good terms.
AAP
