Labor MP stares down party rivals as he eyes sixth term in Parliament

Five-term federal Labor MP Graham Perrett has vowed to stare down would-be preselection rivals to contest the next federal election, despite reports party colleagues are eyeing his south Brisbane seat.

Mr Perrett, Labor’s assistant education spokesman, defeated incumbent Liberal MP Gary Hardgrave to claim Moreton in 2007, and he narrowly won his fifth term at the June 2019 election with a 1.4 per cent margin.

Five-term federal Labor MP Graham Perrett says he wants to run in the seat of Moreton again at the next election.Credit: Tony Moore

For months there has been chatter in Labor circles that the seat is earmarked for a female candidate under the party’s affirmative action policy.

Topping the list is state party secretary Julie-Ann Campbell, who guided Labor’s successful 2020 state election for Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and lives in the electorate.

Ms Campbell declined several opportunities to be interviewed on Friday.

Mr Perrett said he had unfinished business in the culturally diverse seat.

“I am standing again. I am nominating,” the former teacher, solicitor and occasional author said.

“There will come a time, but this election is not the time. I will definitely be running.

“Moreton has never been a safe seat; it has always been a marginal seat and it will be a tough seat to win.”

Mr Perrett said Labor was readying for a possible early election in late 2021, with Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese in Brisbane this week to deliver an industrial relations policy about leave for casual workers.

“Moreton is a seat where you continuously campaign. You don’t sit around and wait for election season, that is not how you win Moreton. You have to work it hard,” he said.

Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese and federal MP for Moreton Graham Perrett in 2019, announcing $73 million as a share of the $210 million to replace the Coopers Plains rail crossing with an overpass.Credit: Tony Moore

Mr Perrett, 55, said he still had plenty of “energy to burn” for his seat and his portfolio.

“In family law, I have a private member’s bill in Parliament, there is human rights legislation, and, most importantly, I’m keen on getting my education portfolio policies out there,” he said.

Locally, Mr Perrett opposed the Queensland leg of the federal government’s proposed $10 billion Melbourne-to-Brisbane Inland Rail freight project.

The link was to terminate at the Acacia Ridge rail freight hub in his electorate, rather than at the Port of Brisbane. But despite two years of state and federal research, a $20 million study identifying a route to get freight by rail from Acacia Ridge to the Port of Brisbane has still not been released.

Mr Perrett is worried that without a rail link to the Port of Brisbane, the project would triple the number of freight trucks on roads around Salisbury and Acacia Ridge.

“Currently there are 4 million truck movements on that road. They have to go through Sunnybank to get to the Gateway [Motorway]. I accept that, it has been an industrial area since World War II,” he said.

“But to go from 4 million truck movements a year to 11 million ... that’s radically changing the area, and to have 14 mile-long trains going through [daily], and half a dozen of them New South Wales coal trains running through my electorate, [locals] will be out in the streets like anything.

“The only way I can see it is to run the trains out from Acacia Ridge on to the Gateway Motorway corridor.”

Mr Perrett said it made more sense to run the Queensland arm of the Inland Rail project from Toowoomba to Gladstone’s port.