Labor got it wrong on climate change plan, says Bill Shorten

Flawed election messaging meant some voters thought their choice was climate or jobs, former Labor leader says.

Shadow Government Services Minister Bill Shorten speaks to the media during a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra, Wednesday, December 18, 2019. (AAP Image/Lukas Coch) NO ARCHIVING

Former Labor leader Bill Shorten has conceded the ambitious climate change plan he took to the election scared coal miners and other blue-collar workers who felt the party’s policies would threaten their jobs.

Acknowledging “Labor did get the messaging wrong”, Mr Shorten said under his watch the party allowed the “binary conflict” of climate change and the Adani coal mine and manual jobs to control its agenda.

“In making the case for action on climate change, some Australians and people in Queensland in coal felt that was at the expense of jeopardising their jobs. Labor will always be a party who supports full employment and blue-collar jobs,” Mr Shorten said.

“What happened though is in the election for some people it became a ‘either you’re for climate change or you’re for those (blue-collar) jobs’ and Labor did get the messaging wrong in that we allowed that binary conflict to dominate over the need to take real action on climate change and to create good, ongoing jobs in the future.”

Mr Shorten promised voters a 45 per cent emissions reduction target by 2030 and equivocated over Adani’s Carmichael coal mine before and during the election campaign.

Labor’s post-election review found ambiguous language on the project combined with some anti-coal rhetoric — plus the Coalition’s campaign associating Labor with the Greens in voters’ minds — devastated the party’s support in the coal mining communities of regional Queensland and the Hunter Valley in NSW.

Mr Shorten said Labor under Anthony Albanese, who toured central Queensland last week in a bid to reconnect with blue-collar workers, was “finishing the year strongly”.

He declined to join a small number of colleagues in criticising Mr Morrison for going on leave while bushfires burn in several states.

“I have no issue with Mr Morrison taking an early Christmas holiday with his family, good luck to him, but I do have an issue that I can’t tell the difference when Scott Morrison’s in Australia or not in Australia,” Mr Shorten said.

Ahead of the election Labor committed to net zero pollution by 2050 and ensuring that 50 per cent of the nation’s electricity was sourced from renewable energy by 2030.

Mr Shorten was unable to cost Labor’s climate change policies, which are now up for review.