‘We don’t need to change leaders, we need to change Labor’

A SENIOR Labor frontbencher says if Labor is ever to win another federal election a change of leaders, slogans or even the shade of red on their banner, won’t be enough.

LABOR’S confused messaging on coal led many people to believe the party was “anti-jobs”, Opposition employment spokesman Brendan O’Connor said ahead of the review into the party’s shocking election loss.

Mr O’Connor said Labor should have made it clear in the election that “if a mine ticks the boxes then it should proceed”, referring to the controversy around the Adani coal mine.

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Opposition employment spokesman Brendan O'Connor says secondary boycott laws “smacked of intolerance”. Picture: AAP Image/Mick Tsikas

“We didn’t do that sufficiently. That doubt fed a scepticism and people were worried we were anti-jobs,” he said.

He said while thermal coal faced economic and demand challenges around the world, it continued to have a future.

But he also took aim at Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s plan to expand “secondary boycott laws” around resources companies, saying his speech on Friday “smacked of intolerance”.

He raised concerns that the proposed laws would take away consumers right to choose who they spent their money with

“I have no tolerance for groups that destroy property or use any form of violence. That is unconscionable conduct. But consumers have the right to choose,” Mr O’Connor said.

“If they don’t like the behaviour of a particular company, it is not for the government to deny the right of a consumer the choice as to whether they want to buy their product.

Opposition employment spokesman Brendan O’Connor said he sees a future for thermal coal. Picture: AAP image/John Gass

“I think the idea that you restrain consumers from making choices by bringing in legislation would be wrong.”

He said the government had yet to bring forward any legislation in regards to this, but Labor would look at it when and if it did.

His comments come as a top union boss warned Anthony Albanese needs to face the “unpleasant fact” Labor must change its out-of-touch policies or risk falling into “political oblivion” with no chance of future election wins.

Australian Workers’ Union (AWU) national secretary Daniel Walton declared Labor may need to abandon policies “near and dear” to its heart in order to win back the voters who abandoned the party at the last federal election.

Speaking at the launch of Getting the Blues, a new book by former Bill Shorten staffer Nick Dyrenfurth, Mr Walton said he will argue the party must address decades-old “structural and cultural” problems that have alienated voters.

“We need to face up to the fact that, federally, we are not seen as within the political mainstream, or as a party of national government, by a majority of Australians a majority of the time,” he said.

“Labor has won a national majority just once in the last 26 years … and has lost seven of the last nine federal elections.

“We don’t need to simply change leaders or slogans or the shade of red on our banner … it is us who need to change.”