Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has dialled up his call for Barnaby Joyce to be sacked for using violent language urging voters to “load that magazine” at the ballot box.

Albanese said it was time for Joyce to “move on” and he asked what it would take for Peter Dutton to sack the controversy-plagued shadow veterans affairs minister.

“Barnaby, I just say, mate, get your act together or move on,” Albanese said on Fox 101.9 radio on Tuesday morning (AEDT).

“People expect better of people in public life than what you have done across a range of issues,” he said on the Fifi, Fev and Nick show.

“I’ve got to say, I’m not quite sure what this bloke’s got to do to be moved on.

“I said yesterday that Peter Dutton had four reshuffles. He should have a fifth. And that’s my view.”

Albanese said the comments following the assassination attempt on Donald Trump came at a time of increasing threats against politicians.

He said the Australian Federal Police had recently reported more than 700 threats against Australian politicians — a “significant increase”.

“And we’ve seen events there, there in Melbourne. We’ve seen, you know, fires lit outside Josh Burns’ office, where people actually live above the office there in St Kilda. A dangerous, stupid thing to do,” he said.

“And we just need to be a little bit kinder and gentler in the way that we conduct our politics.

“We don’t want to go down the American road, which has seen real polarisation and just people being angry all the time. People can have disagreements, but can we do it respectfully.”

Joyce used gun analogies urging voters to use their votes like bullets at an anti-wind farm rally at Lake Illawarra at the weekend.

Joyce said: “And the bullet you have is that little piece of paper, and it goes in that magazine called the voting box, and it’s coming up.”

He added: “Get ready to load that magazine.

“Goodbye Chris, goodbye Steven, goodbye Albo. And when they see that, they’ll let you in their office for a meeting.”

Albanese told Fox 101.9 radio said politicians needed to “tone down the language”.

“And it’s one thing to be obsessed about a solar panel or a wind farm, but Barnaby, I think, has a record of going a bit over the top and being loose, to say the least,” he said.

“But this is a guy who was Deputy Prime Minister not once, but twice.”

Joyce apologised for his bullet remarks during his regular appearance on Sunrise on Monday, but only after initially claiming he said “ballot paper and ballot box”.

When Labor MP Bill Shorten noted that the “smartest call here would be just to apologise for using that metaphor because we’ve had the Donald Trump assassination” Joyce said, “Here we go. I apologise for using that metaphor.”