Albanese reveals Labor candidate to contest Kevin Rudd’s old seat

A youth mental health manager is federal Labor’s choice to wrest back from the Greens the inner-city seat of Griffith where Kevin Rudd once pushed to become Labor prime minister.

Renee Coffey, the chief executive of Australian Kookaburra Kids Foundation, is the third Labor candidate named to take on seats that were part of the Brisbane “Greenslide” at the May 2022 poll.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese with Renee Coffey, Labor’s candidate for the Greens-held seat of Griffith, now held by the Greens’ Max Chandler-Mather.Credit: Tony Moore

Labor had already announced radiographer Madonna Jarrett to contest the inner-city seat of Brisbane now held by the Greens’ Stephen Bates, and teacher Rebecca Hack to contest Ryan against former architect Elizabeth Watson-Brown.

Griffith was won by the Greens’ Max Chandler-Mather in 2022, defeating Labor’s Terri Butler.

Labor holds just five of the 30 federal seats in Queensland, with Shayne Neumann’s Blair, outside Ipswich, the only Labor-held seat outside Brisbane and three Queensland senators.

“Renee has the intellect, the skills and tasks to be an outstanding local member but, importantly as well, to make a policy contribution to my government going forward,” Albanese said.

“Not waiting for decisions to be made and then sitting back and just being a blockage and opposing things, or deciding whether to organise protests.”

Coffey lives at Norman Park and has two young boys and two older girls, she told reporters, adding that her family had lived in the electorate for four generations.

On Friday, Albanese positioned the Greens as partners in the LNP’s “no-alition”.

“We have an option here in Queensland, in the seat of Griffith, at the next election of voting for more negativity under Peter Dutton ... and their partners ‘in the no-alition’, the Greens political party, who combine with the Liberals so often to oppose measures which are going forward, such as the shared equity scheme for homes.”

The Greens are demanding changes to Labor’s two multibillion-dollar housing policies: a Help to Buy program where the government pays 40 per cent to build homes, and a Build to Rent apartment scheme.

Albanese deflected questions on a possible earlier election, despite his frequent recent visits to Queensland and opening remarks that the election would be held in “coming months”.

When asked about the progress to appoint an administrator to the CFMEU, or if a new “racketeering squad” was needed, he said Labor would introduce federal legislation to clean up the Queensland arm of the construction union.

“Our view of criminal behaviour is that the police should prosecute people when they commit a crime,” he said.

Albanese said the new workplace relations minister, Queensland senator Murray Watt, was preparing legislation to scrutinise the CFMEU after learning industrial action was delaying Brisbane’s underground rail project, Cross River Rail.

“We will have legislation ready, if that is required,” he said.

At a separate media event in Hamilton on Friday, Premier Steven Miles said Queensland was preparing complementary legislation.

“I don’t think we want to miss out on the opportunity for those actions to address the concerns that have been raised about the CFMEU,” he said.