Coalition MPs battle to stay on message as Ley’s T-shirt attack dominates attention

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Coalition MPs are battling to deliver their messages about lawlessness in the construction union and the cost of living as Opposition Leader Sussan Ley’s demand that the prime minister apologise for wearing a Joy Division band shirt vacuums up attention.

Liberals and Nationals distanced themselves from the attack launched by their leader in a speech to parliament on Tuesday, in which Ley criticised Anthony Albanese’s decision to wear merchandise from an acclaimed 1970s band whose name she claimed had antisemitic connotations.

Opposition Leader Sussan Ley’s decision to attack the prime minister for wearing a band t-shirt has become a distraction for the Coalition.

Coalition industrial relations spokesman Tim Wilson held a press conference on Wednesday about allegations that building firms were paying to secure peace with the scandal-ridden CFMEU, but was repeatedly questioned about Ley’s judgment.

The member for Goldstein – an electorate with one of the highest Jewish populations in the country – said none of his constituents had raised the issue with him, though he “hadn’t read all of his emails”.

“The key issues that I’ve been focused on this week has been the egregious issues of corruption in the CFMEU,” Wilson said.

The MP had called a press conference to criticise Labor and the Greens for blocking an inquiry into the administration of the CFMEU, but Wilson ended it abruptly after the T-shirt questions.

Joy Division’s name comes from a term for sexual slavery in Nazi concentration camps. Albanese wore a shirt with the post-punk band’s name last week while disembarking a plane on his overseas trip, which generated minimal reaction before fermenting in right-wing online circles in the days before Ley’s broadside.

Asked about the derailed press conference, Wilson said the Coalition had a “laser-like focus” on net zero and corruption on construction sites.

Nationals MP Matt Canavan dismissed a question on the issue on Wednesday, redirecting to the subject of housing prices and the potential sacking of workers at an aluminium factory because the smelter can’t get affordable energy contracts from renewable energy.

“I don’t really care what shirt he wears. I really don’t,” Canavan told Today. “I do care how he’s doing it for the country, and I don’t think a lot of joy is being felt by Australians right now.”

Nationals MP Bridget McKenzie said she was more concerned about Labor’s inaction on antisemitism. The government is yet to implement many of the recommendations from a report delivered by the envoy against antisemitism, Jillian Segal, in July.

“Look, there’s a lot to legitimately criticise the prime minister about – trillion dollar debt, skyrocketing house prices and job losses in our heavy industrial sector. Wearing a T-shirt is not one of them ... So yeah, get on with acting on antisemitism,” McKenzie said on Sunrise.

Ley was criticised by some in her own party for her political judgment last week when she called for Kevin Rudd to be recalled as US ambassador after old social media posts where he criticised Donald Trump were raised in front of the president.

Liberal backbencher Jane Hume labelled the criticism of Rudd “churlish”, after which Ley shied away from her demand that he be sacked.

On Wednesday, Hume told Sky News it may have been in “bad taste” for the prime minister to wear the shirt, but no one had raised it as an issue with her.

“I think wearing a T-shirt with a band name on it is a bit naff anyway, but I don’t like to tell people what it is that they should and shouldn’t wear,” she said.

Scott Morrison’s former chief political strategist, Yaron Finkelstein, said the attack over the band name had not worked.

“Are Jewish Australians upset by [the shirt]? No,” Finkelstein said. “Cool Jewish Australians who like Joy Division’s music probably have a moment of internal conflict [over the name],” he said. But he noted that there were different explanations for why the band picked it.

“Let’s all settle down,” Finkelstein, who is Jewish, said. “The bigger issue is, what is the political opportunity for the Coalition?”

“I think it’s better to use it to say: ‘what is it about Albo that he’s always trying too hard? What’s with the T-shirts trying to tell us that he’s DJ Albo?’

“I think there’s an opportunity to frame it. Start putting an idea into voters’ heads about what they think of Anthony Albanese every time they see him in a T-shirt,” Finkelstein said.

He said that Ley should ensure that her political attacks were targeted more precisely.