Secret leaderboard reveals ALP focus

Data leaked to The Australian from Labor’s internal leaderboard – which tracks the total number of ‘doorknocks’ and phone calls made to voters – reveals federal Queensland candidates are outpacing their counterparts in every other state.

Labor's Griffith candidate Renee Coffey. Picture: Glenn Hunt

Labor candidates in Peter Dutton’s Queensland stronghold state have dominated the ALP national internal campaign leaderboard over the summer break, racking up thousands of phone calls and visits to voters’ homes.

With the federal election due by late May, candidates and volunteers in Queensland have braved 37C days this week to get Labor on the front foot in the state where the party holds just five of 30 seats and Anthony Albanese must gain ground to earn a second term.

Data leaked to The Australian from Labor’s internal leaderboard – which tracks the total number of “doorknocks” and phone calls made to voters in each electorate across the country during the past week – reveals federal Queensland candidates are outpacing their counterparts in every other state.

Renee Coffey, who is fighting to win the South Brisbane-based seat of Griffith from high-profile Greens MP Max Chandler-Mather, was the hardest-working federal Labor candidate in the country last week visiting 718 homes to sell the government’s agenda.

Several Labor sources said Ms Coffey had consistently topped the national leaderboard over summer.

Greens MP Max Chandler-Mather, who holds the seat of Griffith. Picture: Martin Ollman/NewsWire

Mr Chandler-Mather unseated former ALP frontbencher Terri Butler at the 2022 election after running one of the biggest on-ground campaigns the country has ever seen.

He personally knocked on 15,000 homes across Griffith in the lead-up to the last election and told The Australian that in the past week his campaign had visited 1123 homes.

Ms Coffey was beaten out on Labor’s leaderboard by only John Lister – the party’s candidate to replace outgoing Victorian ­former treasurer Tim Pallas at the state’s Werribee by-election on February 8. Mr Lister made 242 calls and visited 648 homes in the past week.

Labor candidates contesting Western Australia’s March 8 state election made up six of the top 10 spots on this week’s leaderboard including Robyn Clarke, Mark Folkard and Stuart Aubrey.

Aside from Ms Coffey in Griffith, only two other federal ­candidates made the Labor leaderboard and both are contesting Queensland seats; Rebecca Hack, who is running in the Greens-held Brisbane seat of Ryan and Rhiannyn Douglas who is the candidate for the Liberal-held seat of Longman.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese with the candidate for the seat of Ryan Rebecca Hack and her dog Pickles, at Mount Coot-Tha lookout in July. Picture: Dan Peled/NewsWire

Tallies of direct voter contact for seat campaigns – which gives insight into the seats party office and unions are funnelling resources to – also revealed Queensland was eclipsing other battleground states.

The Labor campaign for the South Brisbane seat of Moreton, where retiring MP Graham Perrett has been replaced by former ALP state secretary Julie-Ann Campbell, visited 2666 homes in the past week, followed by Griffith with 1896 “doorknocks” and Aged Care Minister Anika Wells’ north Brisbane seat of Lilley with 1344 knocks.

A well-placed Labor source said it was staggering that the Cairns-based seat of Leichhardt was lagging far behind on the leaderboard, given the electorate is considered as Labor’s best chance of making ground in Queensland.

“We are seeing a high output in our target seats but surprisingly there are some that should be higher up, like Leichhardt and Brisbane,” the source said.

“I think it’s also hard in January because campaigns are still getting up and running from where they left off last year, but I think in the next month you should see Griffith, Brisbane, Dickson and Leichhardt really step up their field output.”

The source said the mood in Queensland was “surprisingly good … because you would think with the national polls and after the state election, people would not be motivated”.

The only union that has begun mobilising its resources for the federal election campaign in Queensland is Gary Bullock’s United Workers Union, which has staffed its call centre to phone voters in Longman, Brisbane, Griffith, Dickson and Ryan.

The AMWU is expected to direct its resources into Moreton and Forde, while the Together Union will support Matt Smith in Leichhardt.