Anthony Albanese begins new year campaign by touring mining states

Anthony Albanese is set to pull the starter’s gun on his on-the-ground campaigning ahead of an election due by May, spending the week in regional Queensland and WA.

Then Queensland premier Steven Miles, right, with Anthony Albanese in Rockhampton. Picture: Annette Dew

Anthony Albanese is set to pull the starting gun on his on-the-ground campaigning ahead of an election due by May, spending the week in regional Queensland and Western Australia to tell voters that Peter Dutton’s nuclear policy will put up electricity prices.

The Prime Minister will on Monday fly to Queensland, beginning with a visit to the Sunshine Coast before jetting off to the regional centre of Rockhampton in the coal-rich seat of Capricornia.

While Labor is unlikely to win Capricornia or a seat on the Sunshine Coast, a visit to those ­regions would give Mr Albanese a chance to warn against the two nuclear sites proposed in central Queensland.

Mr Albanese on Tuesday will visit Cairns, part of the seat of Leichhardt, before likely spruiking his support for the cattle sector in Mount Isa.

Labor fancies winning Leichhardt at the next election, given the retirement of Liberal National Party representative Warren Entsch.

Labor is also targeting the Greens-held seats of Brisbane and Griffith, along with the outer suburban Longman.

After visiting Queensland, Mr Albanese will visit WA’s Kimberley Region, ending his campaigning tour in Perth.

Labor insiders claim to be confident of holding the nine seats the party won in WA at the last election, as well as the new seat of Bullwinkel.

The Liberal Party is also hopeful of winning the seat of Bullwinkel while targeting the teal-held seat of Curtin and Labor-held seat of Tangney.

The Australian has been told Mr Albanese is likely to make infrastructure announcements on this week’s visits to Queensland and WA, which will focus on Labor’s “Building Australia’s Future” campaign slogan while spruiking the government’s policies on health, childcare and housing.

Labor sources say the party is also planning on running hard on the Coalition’s opposition to its Future Made in Australia agenda, which is aimed at opening up new blue-collar jobs in low emission industries.

“This election is a choice between building Australia’s future or taking Australia backwards,” Mr Albanese said. “My government cares about Australians. That’s why we are delivering cost-of-living relief while strength­ening Medicare and investing in infrastructure, childcare and dignified aged care.

“Over the next three years, we can work together to build on the foundations we have laid.”

Labor holds nine out of 15 seats in WA but only five out of 30 in Queensland.

The latest quarterly demographic Newspoll analysis – published in The Australian on December 26 – showed Labor had made minor gains in Queensland but slipped backwards in WA, compared with the May 2022 election result.

In WA, which delivered four crucial seat gains for Mr Albanese three years ago, Labor’s two-party-preferred vote lead in the October-December analysis was 54-46, down from the last election result of 55-45. However, Labor improved its position compared with the July-September analysis, when its lead was only 52-48.

If the Coalition can narrow the gap, Labor’s hold on Tangney will come under threat, with Sam Lim estimated to have a margin of 2.8 per cent after a redistribution. Labor notionally holds Bullwinkel on a margin of 3.3 per cent.

In Queensland, Labor has made small inroads into the ­Coalition’s superiority, with the latest Newspoll showing the opposition ahead 53-47, a narrowing of the 2022 election result of 54-46, but the same as in the July-September analysis.

The Coalition’s most marginal seat in Queensland is Dickson, which Peter Dutton won by 1.7 per cent before he became Opposition Leader.