Teal MP Monique Ryan and her husband have apologised after he was filmed removing a Liberal candidate’s sign.

Video circulating on social media on Monday shows Peter Jordan removing the sign belonging to Kooyong candidate Amelia Hamer in the inner-eastern Melbourne suburb of Camberwell, before tucking it under his arm to walk away.

Jordan says he is removing the sign because it’s on public property.

“I’m not saying who I am,” he says in the video before a man tries to take the sign back.

“If it goes back up, it’ll be taken back down again,” he says.

Later on Monday, Jordan issued a statement apologising “unreservedly” for the incident.

“It was a mistake,” he said. “I believed the sign was illegally placed but I should have reported my concerns to council.”

Ryan also apologised for the incident.

“It should not have happened,” she said.

“All concerns around signage should be reported to council.”

The incident reflects ongoing tensions between Ryan and the Liberal Party in the once blue ribbon seat in Melbourne’s leafy inner-east.

Ryan, a former paediatric surgeon, won the seat from former federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg in 2022 – the first time it had been lost to the Liberal Party.

Frydenberg, who was elected in Kooyong in 2010, had been considered a strong contender to become Liberal leader. He has since left federal politics.

A Liberal Party spokesperson said Jordan’s behaviour was “disappointing”.

“The teals preach integrity in public, but then behave like this when they think no one is looking,” the spokesperson told the ABC.

No policies: PM rips Coalition

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese hopes Tuesday’s federal budget will force the opposition to finally show its cards as he confirmed a federal election in May.

The government has spruiked its cost-of-living relief efforts, announcing a $150 energy bill rebate in an extension of the $300 subsidy offered in the previous budget.

Though Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has called the plan a “Ponzi scheme”, the Coalition said it would support it, drawing criticism from the government.

“The rhetoric that they use in attacking this means that they can’t be secure,” Albanese said in Canberra on Monday.

“Having opposed all of these things for almost three years – just to have said ‘yes’. They’ve got to have something to say about policy and they don’t have any of their own.

“I look forward to some policy … coming out sometime between now and May.”

Dutton is promising a major announcement in Thursday’s budget reply speech, with immigration and housing likely to be areas of focus.

Recent migration intakes had forced Australians out of the housing market while not enough homes were being built, he said.

“It’s meant that people are lining up for longer and paying more for rental properties,” he said.

“It means that Australians have just given up on the dream of home ownership.”

Shadow treasurer Angus Taylor has declined to say whether the Coalition will stick with its previously-outlined target of reducing net overseas migration by 25 per cent.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the government was “managing” migration down and recent figures showed about 10,000 fewer people had arrived than anticipated.

“The budget will update all of those forecasts but what they will show overall is the trajectory is down. That’s deliberate,” he told Sky News.

The opposition is already expected to take public service cuts, nuclear power and tax deductions to the election, with Albanese widely tipped to visit the governor-general by Sunday to fire the starting gun for an early May poll.

The election must be held by May 17.

Recent YouGov polling showed Albanese consolidating his lead as preferred prime minister. However, a tight election is still likely with voters evenly split between Labor and the Coalition once preferences are factored in.

Also on Monday, crossbench senators Jacqui Lambie and David Pocock called for gas exports to be diverted to the domestic market to help stem rising costs.

Lambie said the nation needed a gas reserve policy of 15 per cent.

“This is not about digging up more gas. This is not about ‘drill, baby drill’. This is about prioritising where our gas goes,” she said.

“The first thing [the government] could be … doing this week, is putting through a gas reserve policy for this country to make energy prices reduced.

“Stop this rubbish of not doing means testing and giving people like me $150 off my electricity bill.”

Pocock said Australia had a gas export problem, rather than a shortage – with 80 per cent of gas being sent abroad.

“This is a problem that can be solved,” he said.

“What we haven’t seen is the political will from the major parties who actually say Australians should benefit from Australian gas first before we export.”

The Australian Energy Market Operator has tempered warnings about shortfalls as early as this year.

But long-term risks to gas supply remained serious, it said in its latest outlook for the east coast gas market.

-with AAP