Labor losing its blue-collar base, says Joel Fitzgibbon

Labor frontbencher Joel Fitzgibbon says it’s essential the party reframes its policies and messaging to recapture its traditional base.

Labor frontbencher Joel Fitzgibbon. Picture: AAP

Labor frontbencher Joel Fitz­gibbon says the party is losing the support of the blue-collar workers it was “born to represent”, as the ALP’s standing among men languishes at its lowest level since the final months of Julia Gillard’s prime ministership.

The Hunter MP said it was essential Labor reframed its policies and messaging to recapture its traditional industrial base after a Newspoll analysis showed just 32 per cent of men supported Labor compared with 45 per cent who backed the Coalition. Support for Labor among men has sunk by eight percentage points since the beginning of the year.

The opposition’s resources spokesman, critical of former leader Bill Shorten’s ambivalence on the coalmining industry, said the poll vindicated Anthony Albanese’s “policy reset” in reaching mining communities and voicing Labor’s support for coal exports.

“Labor is losing the demographic it was born to represent: aspirational blue-collar workers,” Mr Fitzgibbon said. “Policy development and messaging must now focus on winning it back.”

Labor senator Kim Carr said the party needed to junk identity politics if it wanted to win back blue-collar workers.

“There remains a problem for Labor with blue-collar families,” Senator Carr said. “The assumption that tertiary-educated people are going to vote Labor will compensate for the loss of support in other demographics needs to be viewed with considerable caution.’’

The Newspoll analysis, published in The Australian on Thursday, used an aggregate of three surveys since November.

It showed the support of the major parties was largely unchanged since the election, with a two-party-preferred split of 51 per cent to 49 per cent in favour of the Coalition, while the government has an overall lead in primary support of 41 per cent to 34 per cent.

The results showed a majority of voters in every household income bracket above $50,000 a year now support the Coalition.

 

From January to March, Labor’s male primary vote was 40 per cent compared with 37 per cent for the Coalition, according to Newspoll, which changed its methodology from telephone calls to online surveys last month.

Scott Morrison was able to win over blue-collar workers during the election by weaponising Labor’s 50 per cent electric car target and taking advantage of Mr Shorten’s ambivalence on the Adani mine. Mr Shorten, who wore a campaign T-shirt describing himself as “Chloe Shorten’s husband”, unveiled a gender equality agenda during the campaign that included extra childcare subsidies, a wage top-up for childcare workers, easier ­access to abortion and more money to combat domestic violence — yet women favoured the ­Coalition by 38 per cent to 35 per cent in the Newspoll analysis.

Labor’s primary male vote is the lowest since the April-June Newspoll analysis, late in Ms Gillard’s prime ministership, when it hit 28 per cent. In the first two years of Kevin Rudd’s prime ministership, Labor’s male primary vote was 44 per cent or higher.

Former Labor leader Mark Latham, who is now a NSW One Nation MP, blamed the party’s drop in standing among men on the “sneering patronising views on gender equity”. “They speak a language and focus on issues foreign to many Australian men,” he said.