Opinion: What Albo failed to mention as he was wooing Queenslanders

OPINION: The fact Labor’s unofficial election campaign kicked off in Brisbane speaks volumes about what Anthony Albanese needs and wants from us locals, writes Paul Williams.

Labor’s unofficial 2025 federal election campaign has kicked off.

And the fact it kicked off in Brisbane, at last week’s Queensland Media Club, speaks volumes about what Prime Minister Anthony Albanese needs and wants from us locals.

Albo’s theme was “A Future Made in Australia”.

It’s a clever title for a complex economic strategy he hopes will resonate with regional Queensland where the idea of manufacturing stuff at home will win back at least some of the blue-collar blokes Labor began losing in the 1990s.

That’s why the Prime Minister lavished praise on Queenslanders for their resourcefulness, and on the state Labor government for investing in clean energy across the state’s regions. We would play a pivotal role in Australia’s next economic turn, Albo said.

So, what is that turn?

In short, Australia is at economic crossroads. Just like the turmoil the world felt in the 1980s as nations – Australia included – liberalised their economies in the name of market forces, Albanese argues the globe is facing another upheaval as those same big nations turn inward toward more nativist economics designed to protect national sovereignty and security.

We already know Donald Trump’s plans for higher tariffs, including against Australia, should he be re-elected. But we’re also seeing some self-preservation in the European Union, Chinese, Japanese, South Korean and Canadian economies.

Albo insists his new manufacturing push is not about a return to 1970s-style trade protection. His government is still pro-market, he says. I guess we can believe him given his refusal to back measures to forcibly break up the supermarket duopoly, for example.

Instead, Albanese says Australia needs to get smart and join the new global economic race – even if that’s a race toward nativism – or Australia will be left behind.

It was the same mantra the Hawke and Keating governments used in the 1980s and ’90s and, for the most part, those two prime ministers were proved right.

The difference today, however, is that any global competition will be one of attracting (increasingly scarce) foreign investment in a marketplace full of nativist economies. So, if the major trading partner is being increasingly steered by national interest and government intervention, then so should Australia.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese addresses the Queensland Media Club in Brisbane. Picture: Dan Peled/NCA NewsWire

That means more public-private joint ventures from everything from mining to education.

It’s a hard argument to disagree with, let alone ignore.

But what about labour costs? Don’t (relatively) high Australian wages mean we will always lose manufacturing jobs to developing countries?

Not so, says Albo. Because we live in hi-tech world, labour as a factor in cost and efficiency is becoming less important.

Moreover, Australia has comparative advantage and natural endowments denied other nations, including minerals galore, wide open spaces, an educated workforce, and a stable democracy where political violence is relatively unknown.

The manufacturing and export of solar panels and massive storage batteries are obvious examples of where Australian technology should already be leading the world.

Albo’s speech was peppered with lots of feel-good words such as “fairness”, “prosperity” and “progress”. But the speech also ignored the sorest of political spots for Labor in Queensland. There was no mention, for example, of federal funding to combat youth crime, hospital overloads, urban congestion or the cost of living (except for coming tax cuts).

There was also no counter-argument to Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s signature policy of nuclear power for a post-coal Australia. With a recent Newspoll indicating 55 per cent of Australians supporting nuclear power (if facilities are built on existing coal mine sites, and if they achieve net zero carbon emissions), you would think Albo would be worried by Dutton’s initiative.

And yet Labor has its own good narrative to tell. With an $78bn deficit transformed into a $22bn surplus, and with 1200 new jobs being created in Australia each day – twice the rate under the Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments – you’d expect Albo’s speech to be pitched more pointedly to a jaded Queensland electorate.

As it was, Albanese’s address, while speaking many truths, was better suited to an economists’ annual convention.

So, will the speech switch any Queensland votes between now and a federal election scheduled for May 2025? Almost certainly not. But real plans for federally funded manufacturing plants in the cities and towns from Nambour to Normanton, and from Quilpie from Cloncurry, might just tip the balance.

In short, Queenslanders reward action, not words.

But the bottom line remains that Labor holds just five of Queensland’s 30 federal seats. If Albanese sees Queensland as a path to re-election, it will be a very steep one.

Paul Williams is an associate professor at Griffith University

Originally published as Opinion: What Albo failed to mention as he was wooing Queenslanders