Jim Chalmers ‘considering’ Labor Party leadership

Jim Chalmers says he has consulted colleagues in his party on whether they would support him.

Jim Chalmers appears on the ABC's Q&A.

Labor finance spokesman Jim Chalmers has revealed he is considering running against Anthony Albanese for leadership of the federal Labor Party, saying he has been consulting with colleagues in his party about whether they would support him.

Mr Chalmers made the announcement when appearing on ABC’s Q&A, where he repeated the slogan that Labor needed to “rebuild, renew and refresh” throughout the night.

Asked whether he would run for Labor leader, Mr Chalmers said “I’m considering it”.

“I’m talking to my colleagues about it. I don’t think it’s unreasonable that a few of us take some time to work out what we want to do.

“We had a heartbreaking defeat on Saturday. And we’ve got to deal with that. So I think it’s reasonable that I take some time to have a think about it. Talk to my colleagues about it. And see where it goes from there.

“I want to play a substantial role in the rebuilding of our electoral fortunes, a rebuilding of our policies up to the next election.

“I’ve got a mountain of respect for other colleagues who are capable of leading our party. And so I want to take the time to consult properly with people,” Mr Chalmers said.

The Queensland MP from Labor’s right faction was joined on the Q&A panel by former Liberal MP Christopher Pyne, radio broadcaster Alan Jones, political reporter for The Australian Alice Workman, and business leader Ming Long, for an episode that dissected Saturday’s federal election result.

LABOR LEADERSHIP

In relation to Labor deputy leader Tanya Plibersek ruling herself out of the party leadership on Monday, Ms Long said she would “have loved for her to put up her hand”.

“When I have a look at what happened on Saturday, do I feel like our country is ready for another female PM? I am not sure. And I’m just so sad to say that, that I can sit here and say we’re not ready as a country because we should be ready as a country.

“It should not matter what your gender is or what your background is. But you have to face the reality of where we are,” Ms Long said.

Workman said: “There’s one historical fact which I love to tell people which is that someone that has served as a full-time as an opposition leader has never won an election.”

“So the cynic in me probably says that maybe that’s a factor in people deciding not to put their hands up.

“They might wait and see how the Morrison government plays out over the next two years and whoever the Labor Party picks they might change their mind in two or three years time.

“That’s the reality of politics at the moment. It’s a wait and see.”

LABOR’S LOSS

In assessing Labor’s future after the party lost what had been described as an unlosable election, Alan Jones said he didn’t think Labor “have any hope of winning the next election because the marginal Coalition seats have now become very safe seats”.

“Seats which had a margin of 0.06 per cent have now got margins of 7 per cent and 8 per cent.

Has “the silent majority” spoken? Are progressive parties like Labor out of touch with the majority of voters? #QandA pic.twitter.com/0eHkOda1XP

— ABC Q&A (@QandA) May 20, 2019

Mr Chalmers responded by saying Jones had spoken a “whole lot of rubbish” and appeared to blame misinformation as one of many reasons for Labor’s defeat.

“Let’s not get carried away and declare the outcome of the next election three years away, 48 hours after the last election. Alan, as usual, in his contribution then, spoke a whole lot of rubbish about Labor’s policies.

“And unfortunately that kind of rubbish which has been repeated by Alan, repeatedly over the last, not just the last five weeks, but longer than that, if we’re honest about it that found fertile ground in the community.

“Our job now is not to engage in some year-long pity party, or drag our arses around, our job now is to rebuild and renew and refresh.”

Mr Chalmers acknowledged Labor’s vote was “disappointingly and heartbreakingly weak” in his home state of Queensland.

“I’m not going to pretend that away, I won’t try and sugar coat that. We fell short of what we were hoping to do. And obviously in that context you do need to listen and learn.

“We’ll take the time to listen and learn, rebuild, refresh and renew. And that’s what people expect of us.

“We need to resist the temptation to pretend that the election outcome was because of one thing,” he said.

Mr Pyne said: “Elections are decided on the economy and what Labor said at the election was ‘we’re going to tax a lot more than the Liberal and the National Party”.

“In elections the Australian public want to know what the policies are going to do to their hip pocket. Every election in Australia is decided on the economy. And Labor by election day couldn’t convince people they knew what the impact of their policies were going to be,” he said.

Workman said that “one of the biggest problems with Labor’s campaign is that climate change means different things to people who live in inner cities than it does to people in Queensland.”

.@workmanalice and @MingYLong on how the Liberal Party won the election, and where the Labor campaign went awry #QandA pic.twitter.com/VzjrFu31kx

— ABC Q&A (@QandA) May 20, 2019

“Labor saw the biggest swings in Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne all in the inner city where to people there climate change might mean something more about renewables and saving the Great Barrier Reef. In Queensland it means jobs.

“Labor could have picked up this seat in Capricornia. But the LNP ran a campaign hard, George Christensen was standing up in pubs saying ‘we’ll green light Adani and give you jobs’.”

“The CFMEU was running with the LNP in Queensland because 300,000 people across this country work in resources. They believed if the Labor Party was elected, whether it be true or not, they’d lose their jobs,” she said.

FRANKING CREDIT CHANGES

Jim Chalmers said Labor’s proposed changes to franking credits were “up for review” after the election, but that he didn’t think the issue alone explained Saturday’s result.

“The motivation for the policies that we took to the election on Saturday was a recognition that we’ve got a heap of challenges in the budget and in the economy.

Will Labor admit that its franking credit policy was a mistake? #QandA pic.twitter.com/n8AGx7YiUS

— ABC Q&A (@QandA) May 20, 2019

“I’m not going to pretend that we don’t need to give consideration to all of these policies. But they are based in budgetary reality and economic reality. We’re not going to announce our policies 48 hours after an election for an election three years down the track.

“There’s an economic basis to what we were proposing to do. We do have a big problem in this country with the budget and the economy.

“People on low and middle incomes don’t have the disposable income or the wages growth they need to deal with the cost of living and we had a proposal to deal with that.

Mr Pyne said: “when Labor announced this policy about the retirees tax, that was when I first started to think that the Coalition could win the election”.

CLIVE PALMER’S IMPACT

Workman said that Clive Palmer’s estimated $60 million ad spree meant that people were mislead, and that he helped the Coalition more than he helped Labor.

“He perpetuated lies about Labor’s policies … about the death tax and the inheritance tax where this myth was perpetuated ad nauseam that people like Jim (Chalmers) were coming out and saying that we’re not doing it’.

Did Clive Palmer’s ad spend “buy” the election for the Coalition and Scott Morrison? #QandA pic.twitter.com/clCgL8ArMI

— ABC Q&A (@QandA) May 20, 2019

“People fundamentally believed if the Labor Party was elected their inheritance would be taxed. That’s what they were saying when they were going in and out of polling booths on Saturday.

Mr Chalmers described Clive Palmer’s ads as “effectively a $60 million donation to the Liberal Party”.

“It did nothing to help his own cause but did a lot of damage to Labor’s cause and Scott Morrison has a debt to Clive Palmer now.

“It is problematic that you’ve got a PM who is prepared to do a deal with someone like Clive Palmer who is prepared to throw $60 million at the kind of lies talked about.

“When you throw $60 million at a lie, it’s going to work.”

Mr Pyne said “there is so much sore losering going on” and “I don’t hear anybody saying it’s outrageous GetUp spent $10 million trying to unseat particular Coalition MPs.”

Workman responded that Clive Palmer “wants to influence the amounts of tax and royalties he pays”.

“That’s the truth of it. It’s his right to form his own party to campaign on these issues. He can run as many memes as he wants on Facebook but he’s not doing things for the Australian people.”

Jones said: “His aim was to prevent Bill Shorten becoming PM. He’s entitled to do that. Palmer spoke in an educative way in those short things telling people what the risks were and made it quite clear.

CLIMATE CHANGE

Mr Chalmers said that “nationally, overwhelmingly, people want us to deal with climate change”, but acknowledged “coal is essential to the economy” and “essential in North Queensland”.

“I don’t think that the Adani mine will be an issue in the 2022 election. I do think that it played a role in the swings that we got. Capricornia and Flynn and Dawson and Herbert in the election just gone,” he said.

Asked what climate change action Scott Morrison could achieve given the differing views on the issue within the Coalition, Mr Pyne said the prime minister’s victory gave him individual power.

The Government has previously been “paralysed by climate change deniers” - can Scott Morrison exercise his party authority to effect change? #QandA pic.twitter.com/8A7NNgynqo

— ABC Q&A (@QandA) May 20, 2019

“Scott Morrison has won an election which was supposed to be the unwinnable election. So the authority that he carries means that he will be able to determine a lot of the policy direction in a way that the past few leaders have not had that unity.

“In terms of climate, what we have tried to do in the last six years is do practical things that meet our targets.

“We’re not part of the Green left agenda that says we have to close down coal … but we’re not against renewables or against solar.

Jones questioned whether Australians were “being told all the facts in relation to” climate change, which drew ire from the panel and audience.