Albo’s jobs plan for regional Qld

Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese begins a six-day blitz of Queensland this weekend. Here’s where he’s heading.

Job security and wages will be Anthony Albanese’s focus on his six-day Queensland blitz in a bid to win back regional voters who snubbed the party in the 2019 election.

The Opposition Leader will launch a Queensland-led “regional jobs taskforce” focused developing policy to create jobs post-pandemic, particularly in manufacturing and tourism.

The Courier-Mail can reveal he will also announce a new industrial relations policy dubbed “same job, same pay”.

Opposition leader Anthony Albanese is kicking off a six-day Queensland blitz on Saturday. Picture: Gary Ramage/NCA NewsWire

It will require labour hire workers to receive the same rate of payment as full-time workers in the same job, which would benefit mining workers in regional areas amid others.

Unions have been pushing for the change.

Mr Albanese’s Queensland tour will begin in Brisbane from today, but also take in Cairns, Hervey Bay, Maryborough, Bundaberg and return to Brisbane where he will be giving a significant speech regarding industrial relations.

In the 2019 election, the party received its lowest vote in the Senate since World War II, and now holds no seats further north than Somerset.

Labor’s review into it’s 2019 election lost found the party alienated coal towns, regional Queensland, Christians and low-paid workers – many of its traditional supporters.

In an interview with The Courier-Mail, Mr Albanese said Labor’s regional jobs taskforce would be headed by Queensland senator Nita Green, Member for Oxley Milton Dick, as well as Victorian Lisa Chesters.

He said it would look into how to create regional jobs, particularly in the aftermath of the pandemic.

“During the pandemic people have seen the advantage of not living in CBDs and many people are choosing to live in regional Australia. The key to that is job creation,” he said.

Mr Albanese said the pandemic had exposed the need for more manufacturing capabilities domestically.

Member for Oxley Milton Dick is one of three Labor MPs heading up the party’s regional jobs taskforce. Picture: Renae Droop/AAP

“That’s why we need to look at how we can make more things, expand manufacturing and job creation here in Australia,” he said.

JobKeeper should be extended beyond for tourism in areas like Cairns, Mr Albanese will also say.

The seat of Leichhardt is one of the party’s eight target seats in Queensland, with sitting LNP member Warren Entsch set to retire at the next election.

The eight seats Labor will target are Leichhardt, Herbert, Flynn, Capricornia, Longman, Forde, Petrie and Brisbane.

He said as a principle, workers in labour hire should be earning the same rate as pay as full-time employees doing the same job.

“During the pandemic is people who were in insecure work, whether they be casual employees, people who weren’t permanent, were the most vulnerable to the impact of the pandemic,” Mr Albanese said.