Federal election 2022: Labor’s pitch: ‘Renewal, not revolutionand a leader who will turn up’

Anthony Albanese holds press conference after election announcement. Picture: Sky News

Anthony Albanese will tell Australians during the election campaign that a change of government will be about “renewal not revolution” as he positions himself as a safe pair of hands to lead a centrist Labor government.

While Bill Shorten went to the 2019 election offering an ambitious agenda to change Australia, Mr Albanese has a more targeted pitch to bring Labor into power focused on improving aged care, child care, Medicare and education without raising taxes.

He will hone in on cost of living issues by vowing to increase wage growth through reversing the growth of casualisation and the use of labour hire in the mining industry, while also asking the Fair Work Commission to approve a wage increase for workers on the minimum wage and in low-paid sectors including aged care.

In an effort to appeal to aspirational voters and avoid a Coalition fear campaign on tax, Mr Albanese has junked key revenue measures under the Shorten-era including a crackdown on concessions from negative gearing, dividend imputation, family trusts and superannuation.

He is proposing to fund increased spending on childcare, TAFE and aged care through yet-to-be announced measures to force multinational companies to pay more tax in Australia.

Labor is also claiming it will raise revenue through more careful spending on government programs including defence procurement and infrastructure grants.

Mr Albanese has given no sign he will move to outgun the Coalition in paying off debt and getting the budget to surplus, with Labor saying it will redirect spending to ensure Australia has “something to show” for accruing more than $800bn of net debt by 2025.

Despite his history as a leading figure of the Left faction, Mr Albanese is promising to be similar to centrist Labor prime minister Bob Hawke rather than the more radical Labor hero Gough Whitlam.

He is running a deeply personal campaign against the unpopular incumbent Mr Morrison in an attempt to capitalise on public dismay at the Prime Minister’s handling of natural disasters and pandemic management during the Delta and Omicron variants.

Mr Albanese will describe himself as a leader who will “turn up” in times of need, compared to Mr Morrison who went on a family holiday to Hawaii during the Black Summer bushfires.

He will also use his personal story of growing up in a single-parent family in housing commission to paint himself as an authentic leader, in a contrast to Mr Morrison’s “spin” and focus on the polls.

Labor frontbenchers have repeatedly called Mr Morrison a “liar” over the past year as part of a strategy to put doubt in voters’ minds about the integrity of the Prime Minister.

In an aim to cauterise voter concerns about big spending Labor governments, Mr Albanese is also using the story of his modest childhood to declare he understands the value of a dollar and why money should be spent carefully.

On climate change, a policy that has been an electoral negative for Labor over the past decade, Mr Albanese has sought to occupy the middle ground.

Labor is promising to increase Australia’s 2030 emission reduction target from 26-28 per cent under the Coalition to 43 per cent.

But Mr Albanese is also saying the policy will come at no risk to coalmines, with Labor to support the export of the commodity while there is demand for it.

Labor is also claiming no coal-fired power station will close early as a result of its policy, while talking up the prospects of jobs in a low emissions economy.

The more reassuring pitch on climate change is unlikely to help Labor win back electorates in north and central Queensland but should be enough to ward of Coalition advances in the NSW Hunter Valley.