He’ll try to, but the question won’t go away, and voters deserve a proper answer. It was no coincidence that both Anthony Albanese and Adam Bandt started their election campaigns in Brisbane. Despite a term dominated by stoushes over housing and foreign policy, both the Greens and Labor have a common goal: keep Peter Dutton out of parliament. The Greens weren’t shy about that at a Keep Dutton Out rally on Saturday morning in South Brisbane. But at a press conference in Mr Dutton’s electorate of Dickson, Albanese tried to brush off questions on whether he would do a deal with the Greens if Labor returned as minority government. Mr Albanese pointed to the irrelevant fact that he had defeated the Greens to keep his inner city seat of Grayndler as evidence he would do no deals, but stopped short of repeating his earlier answer that he wouldn’t do a deal with the minor party. Instead he said Labor was looking to rule in a majority government. But with poll after poll showing the chances of minority government were high, Albanese won’t be able to avoid the question for the next five weeks. In a hung parliament, voters deserve to know who Labor would align with. After all, in the last term Australians saw Labor hand the Greens key concessions in exchange for support on Housing Australia Future Fund. In a hung parliament, deals and concessions would be far more common and Australians will be eager to know if a vote for Labor also means a vote for Greens, Teals or any other minor party. Particularly when the Greens have increasingly pursued policies that are drastically different from Labor on issues like housing, the war in Gaza, and defence spending. When I spoke to one Greens source about why Albanese did not explicitly rule out a deal today like he has in recent weeks, they put it best: “Don’t make promises you can’t keep”.