Joel Fitzgibbon to quit parliament, reopening divisions over Labor policy focus

Joel Fitzgibbon will retire at the next election, saying he has largely succeeded in his campaign to bring Labor back to the political centre.

Joel Fitzgibbon at his home in Cessnock, in the NSW Hunter Valley, on Sunday. Picture: Peter Lorimer

Joel Fitzgibbon will retire from federal parliament at the next election, with the veteran Labor MP telling colleagues he believes he has largely succeeded with his campaign to bring the party to the political centre.

Confirming The Australian’s Monday report of his decision, Mr Fitzgibbon said Labor was well-placed to win the next election, but winning his marginal Hunter seat back will be dependent on Anthony Albanese reiterating his “strong support” for the coal mining industry.

His decision to quit politics puts his dynastic Hunter seat - which he held with his father Eric for 38 years - at risk for Labor. But Mr Fitzgibbon denied he was abandoning a sinking ship.

“These decisions are never easy, but I do it quite comfortably. I’m very confident now that Labor is well placed to win the next federal election under Anthony Albanese,” he told ABC’s Radio National on Monday morning.

Despite repeated criticism of Labor’s direction under the Opposition Leader since his move to the backbench, Mr Fitzgibbon said he had worked “very closely” with Mr Albanese to bring the party back to the centre. He cautioned there was still “more to to do” to ensure his party held his seat.

“I’m confident that Albo has taken us sufficiently to the centre and put sufficient emphasis on hope and aspiration amongst working families that I can go comfortably knowing that Hunter is safe,” he said.

“Albo has pledged strong support. But we will need to repeat that multiple times over the course of the period between now and the next election,” he later added.

With the NSW branch in civil war over the decision to parachute Kristina Keneally into the safe western Sydney seat of Fowler, there is now concern the party will be vulnerable in the coalmining seat of Hunter, which Mr Fitzgibbon has held since 1996. He inherited the seat from his father Eric, who was elected in 1984. The MP’s exit will bring an end to a Fitzgibbon dynasty of 38 years.

Mr Fitzgibbon has told concerned figures within the labour movement he believes Hunter should remain in Labor’s hands under a different candidate, given the repositioning of the party since the last election. This includes a lower emphasis on progressive social issues, a change of language on climate change and a willingness from senior MPs to voice support for coal and gas. 

Anthony Albanese has also shifted the party to the centre on tax policy by junking reforms to negative gearing and dividend imputation, while announcing Labor will not unwind the government’s stage three tax cuts which give relief to high-income earners.

Discussions are underway over a replacement for Mr Fitzgibbon, with NSW Right figures concerned Hunter could be lost to the faction and go to someone from the left-aligned CFMEU or the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union. Mr Fitzgibbon has been at war with the AMWU since the election and is rumoured to have declared someone from the union would represent the seat “over my dead body”. He declined to comment on Sunday.

Mr Fitzgibbon, a defence and agriculture minister in the Rudd-Gillard years, has been a controversial figure within Labor since the 2019 election, when he suffered a 14 per cent primary vote swing and nearly lost the seat. 

In the days after the election, Mr Fitzgibbon declared he would attempt to put “labour back into the Labor Party” and began an outspoken campaign for the party to talk more supportively of the resources industry and less zealously about climate change. 

“How can it be that a guy (Scott Morrison) can go through an election campaign without any policies and still beat us? We need to reflect and reflect deeply,” Mr Fitzgibbon said days after the election. 

“We need to get back to our working-class base. We need to send the clear message that we are on their side. I want to put labour back into the Labor Party.” 

With the NSW branch attempting to lock in preselections ahead of state conference next month, party figures are divided over the decision to parachute Senator Keneally into Fowler over the local candidate Tu Le. 

On the weekend, Labor MP Anne Aly criticised the decision of the NSW branch and said it was a “huge failure for Labor when it comes to diversity and inclusion”.

“Diversity and equality and multiculturalism can’t just be a trope that Labor pulls out and parades while wearing a sari and eating some kung pao chicken to make ourselves look good,” Ms Aly told the ABC.

On Sunday, NSW Labor state executive board member Rebecca Huntley said the preselection process for Fowler had been embarrassing for the party.

“I’ve been a Labor member since I was in my early 20s,” Ms Huntley tweeted. “I sit as one of five members of the NSW branch’s state executive board. The party values should be reflected in its preselection processes and outcomes. The decision in Fowler is beyond disappointing.”

The Weekend Australian revealed Senator Keneally’s local sponsor, Kate Hoang, handed out how-to-vote cards for the Liberal Party’s David Coleman at the last election, leading to criticism by outgoing Fowler MP Chris Hayes.

Ms Hoang said she was a Labor member and only campaigned for Mr Coleman because of the bipartisan nature of the Vietnamese Community Australia, of which she is vice-president.

While Eric Fitzgibbon spent his whole parliamentary career in government, his son has spent most of his career in opposition.

The Hunter MP was appointed defence minister by Kevin Rudd in 2007 and oversaw the portfolio’s 2009 white paper. He resigned as minister that year after it was revealed he facilitated meetings in his office regarding defence health privatisation between department officials and his brother, NIB chief executive Mark Fitzgibbon. 

In the 18 months after the 2019 election, Mr Fitzgibbon used the resources portfolio to urge Labor to back the Coalition’s 2030 climate targets, talk more supportively of coal and gas, and to criticise the impact that the Labor Environment Action Network was having on the party’s standing in the regions. 

He formed a pro-resources ginger group with influential South Australian senator Don Farrell. It included about 20 MPs from the Right faction. His campaign won praise from sections of the party and the labour movement and was backed by the Australian Workers Union and the mining division of the CFMEU. However, his public freelancing drew intense criticism from senior MPs including Pat Conroy, Mark Dreyfus and Tanya Plibersek, while he was constantly at odds with then climate change spokesman Mark Butler.

Perhaps most controversially, Mr Fitzgibbon warned Labor was at risk of splitting into two separate parties – one for the regions and one for the inner-city progressives – if it failed to curtail the influence of left-wing activists.

Tensions came to a head last November when Mr Fitzgibbon quit the frontbench after a blistering argument in shadow cabinet with Mr Albanese over the party’s response to Joe Biden’s victory in the US presidential election. 

Mr Fitzgibbon attacked the “delusional” claims of Mr Butler and others in the party that an ambitious climate agenda was key to Mr Biden’s victory over Donald Trump. In a press conference announcing that resignation, Mr Fitzgibbon said he had no regrets about his controversial campaign.

Additional reporting: Max Maddison