Rivals sense seats to be had as Labor flounders on power

The Coalition and Greens are preparing raids on ALP regional and inner-city seats, targeting disaffected Labor voters.

Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese. Picture: Gary Ramage

The Coalition and Greens are preparing raids on ALP regional and inner-city seats, targeting disaffected Labor voters and seizing on the climate and energy wars ­engulfing Anthony Albanese’s partyroom.

Liberal and National party operatives are ramping-up campaigns to seize traditional Labor seats in the Hunter Valley and NSW central coast, where the party suffered major swings at last year’s election. As Mr Albanese ­attempts to contain splits inside Labor over gas, emissions targets and environment policy, senior ALP figures have expressed frustration that the party’s fear of losing inner-city seats to the Greens would continue to see it bleed votes in the regions.

Greens leader Adam Bandt.

Greens leader Adam Bandt has also flagged a major campaign targeting Mr Albanese over Labor’s mixed messages on taxpayer support for gas. Greens strategists told The Australian the party was preparing to run an anti-gas campaign across digital media targeting “Labor’s flip-flopping on gas” and would target vulnerable ALP seats in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. The Greens ad says: “For Bill, it was Adani. For Albo it’s gas. Labor, it’s time to get off the climate fence.”

Resources Minister Keith Pitt slammed Labor’s “internal warfare” over mining and left-wing obsession with Greens voters, as new data revealed the coal-dominated NSW mining industry was paying up to half of rates revenue collected by regional councils.

“Regional Australians have watched with dismay as Labor ­descends into internal warfare over its policies for such a crucial industry,” Mr Pitt said. “Once ­respected Labor elder Joel Fitzgibbon, who dared speak out in favour of mining, has been ridiculed and dismissed by his party’s dominant Left faction, which is obsessed with the inner-city green vote and policies that would take jobs from ­regional Australia.”

Joel Fitzgibbon.

NSW Minerals Council figures show local governments remain heavily reliant on contributions from mining companies, with Muswellbrook and Singleton councils in Mr Fitzgibbon’s Hunter electorate claiming 58 and 35 per cent from the resources sector. Mr Fitzgibbon — who has led the pushback against the ALP’s environmental wing — said mining was the “backbone” of the Hunter economy and the “engine which drives wealth in NSW”.

“It provides not only thousands of direct jobs but creates employment in the manufacturing, transport, retail and services sectors. Without it we’d be a significantly poorer region and government revenues would be significantly less,” he told The Australian.

NSW Minerals Council chief executive Stephen Galilee said the high level of rates and contributions paid by mining companies to local governments were propping-up regional communities hit by the COVID-19 economic shock.

“In NSW, mining companies have paid over $250m in rates and other contributions to … councils over the last five years, and in some places mining rates comprise up to half of total rates received,” he said.

A senior Nationals strategist said the party would run hard against Mr Fitzgibbon after the Labor frontbencher suffered a 14.22 per cent swing in Hunter. The Coalition will also target the Labor seats of Paterson, Shortland and Dobell. “We will be running a very strong pro-resources and jobs campaign,” the strategist said.

Labor MP Julian Hill, a Left-faction Melbourne MP, pushed back against the Morrison government’s COVID Commission proposal to underwrite gas pipelines.

“It’s crony capitalism, rent-seeking nonsense at its best, worthy of Putin’s Russia, not Australia,” he said on Monday.

“Of course there will be a role for gas and coal for years to come. As long as there’s a global market Australia will sell to it and Labor supports those jobs. But let’s ‘let the market rip’ now for cheaper, cleaner ­energy. Renewables are the cheapest form of new power which will drive more jobs growth.”

Mr Albanese on Monday said any claims of a partyroom revolt over energy policy was “fiction”. He said he wanted to see COVID Commission chair Nev Power’s gas-led ­recovery report before “we give a blank cheque to the government to build … a pipeline from the west coast to the east coast”.