Change Labor policies, not Anthony Albanese, says CFMEU

Two senior mining and energy ­officials have urged Labor to focus on changing its policies rather than its leader to win back blue-collared workers.

Labor leader Anthony Albanese. Picture: Gaye Gerard

Two senior mining and energy ­officials have urged Labor to focus on changing its policies rather than its leader to win back blue-collared workers, amid calls from the CFMEU’s construction division for the party to replace Anthony Albanese with Tanya Plibersek.

CFMEU Queensland mining and energy president Stephen Smyth and NSW northern mining and energy president Peter Jordan have backed Mr ­Albanese to remain as Labor leader but said the party needed to improve its standing in mining regions.

Their intervention came after an official at the Construction Forestry Maritime Mining and Energy Union’s construction division, Elizabeth Doidge, used union-commissioned polling to call for Mr Albanese to be dumped.

The polling, commissioned by building unions and revealed by The Australian on Monday, showed Labor was on track to lose heartland seats in the Hunter Valley, Shortland and Paterson.

Mr Jordan, who represents coal and energy workers in the Hunter Valley, put the polling down to the “construction division being a bit mischievous”.

Ms Doidge’s Victorian construction division of the CFMEU remains furious that Mr Albanese forced John Setka out of the Labor Party after he pleaded guilty to harassing his wife.

“It is all to do with Setka’s revenge,” Mr Jordan said. “Replacing Albo with Tanya is not going to change anything.”

He said Labor would “struggle to maintain a presence” in the Hunter Valley without a shift in policy towards what is being advocated by Hunter MP Joel Fitzgibbon. “They have got to get behind what (Mr Fitzgibbon) is talking about to win their heartland back here in the seats of Hunter, and Paterson and Shortland,” he said.

The mining and energy division is considering leaving the CFMEU over disagreements with the construction division.

Mr Smyth said he was more focused on the “Labor Party as a whole” than changing the leader.

“They need to do something as a party generally … they have lost their way in terms of grassroot support,” he said. “The party has been torn from within by the inner-city latte sippers of Sydney and Melbourne.

“They are disconnected from the blue-collar workers who are our traditional base and created what we have.”

The poll, conducted in Nov­ember by Chorus Consulting with New Zealand research firm Community Engagement, showed Labor’s primary vote in Shortland had dropped 13 points since the election to 28 per cent compared with the Liberals’ primary vote of 45 per cent.

In nearby Paterson, held by Right faction MP Meryl Swanson, Labor’s primary vote has fallen by 11 per cent since the 2019 election to 30 per cent.

Mr Albanese said he had never heard of the official calling for him to resign and he did not “take it all that seriously”.

“I took a stance about John Setka and bringing the Labor into disrepute,” he said.

Mr Fitzgibbon said the polling was “concerning”.

“The polling in the Hunter region I believe reflects what I’m hearing on the ground. So I have no doubt it’s a poll to be taken ­notice of,” he said.