Stick to major parties, says Anthony Albanese

Anthony Albanese has urged voters to abandon the Greens and One Nation in favour of the major parties.

Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese at Darwin's Rapid Creek Markets on Sunday. Picture: Glenn Campbell

Anthony Albanese has urged voters to abandon the Greens and One Nation in favour of the major parties and will target disaffected ALP supporters in Queensland and Western Australia — the states that have kept Labor out of office for three elections — through a pitch on jobs-creation and improving living standards.

Buoyed by Annastacia Palaszczuk’s election victory, where the ALP increased its support across the regions and claimed 40 per cent of the primary vote, Mr Albanese said the “big lesson that’s there for Labor is that ­people are prepared to vote for the Labor Party”.

“If you replicate that (Queensland election) outcome, then you’ll see a very, very significant change in seats at the next federal election,” he said.

“We’ll be working each and every day, particularly in Australia’s north, here in the Territory, in Western Australia and in Queensland, to make sure that the next election we can celebrate just as Annastacia Palaszczuk was celebrating.”

The Labor leader lauded strong state Labor results in Cairns, Townsville, Rockhampton, Gladstone and Mackay, which overlap the traditionally marginal federal seats of Leichhardt, Herbert, Capricornia, Flynn and Dawson.

Mr Albanese said the Greens, which went backwards across the state but claimed the high-profile scalp of former deputy premier Jackie Trad, were not a party of government. “Whether it’s the Greens party or One ­Nation, the truth is that you need to be a member of a party of government and sitting around that cabinet table to really make a big difference,” he said.

Queensland LNP senator Matt Canavan, who led the ­Coalition’s marginal seat campaign in central Queensland last year, said the election result showed “that all elections are won in outer suburban and ­regional areas”.

“There are messages from every election and the Queensland election is a good reminder that we can’t take the hi-vis vote for granted. The federal government was re-elected last year on the back of a hi-vis revolution in central Queensland,” Senator Canavan said.

“The Queensland Labor Party shifted to the right over the last year to better align themselves with outer suburban and regional voters. Annastacia Palaszczuk did everything she could to capture the One Nation vote bar dyeing her hair red.

“It is a good lesson for us. We need to drop the picking-winners, gas-led manufacturing talk and get back to supporting the coal industry. Building a coal-fired power station in north Queensland to bring back real manufacturing jobs would be a good start.”

Greens leader Adam Bandt said the Queensland and ACT elections had shown an “increasing momentum for progressive change”, despite a slide in voter support outside Brisbane.

Mr Bandt predicted the Greens would push for more Senate and lower house seats at the next election, suggesting voters were rewarding the party’s policies to transition away from “dirty coal, oil and gas towards a 100 per cent renewable future”.

“The Greens have surged in the ACT and now in Queensland,” Mr Bandt said. “Looking at these numbers, you’d imagine that Brisbane-based establishment party federal MPs are growing increasingly concerned about the rising Greens vote. They should be.”