1 day Ago By Mike Foley, Olivia Ireland
Greens MP Max Chandler-Mather has scoffed at Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for holding a big Labor rally in Chandler-Mather’s inner-city Brisbane electorate, saying it makes sense considering the government is copying Greens policies. Labor’s strategists decided to hold the first major rally of the campaign at the Queensland State Library on Sunday in Chandler-Mather’s battleground electorate of Griffith, where Albanese spruiked his party’s pledge to pay 30 per cent of the cost of home electric batteries. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese with fiancee Jodie Haydon at Labor’s rally at the State Library of Queensland in Brisbane on Sunday.
Credit: Alex Ellinghausen The targeted move by Albanese sets the stage for a political fight over the inner-southern suburbs of Brisbane after the Greens seized Griffith from Labor and the neighbouring seats of Brisbane and Ryan from the Liberals in a surprise local surge in support for the crossbench party at the 2022 election. Chandler-Mather told this masthead the battery policy idea had come from the Greens, which is why he called on voters to prefer his party over Labor. “This is why you elect Greens MPs.
The prime minister comes to your electorate and adopts another Greens policy,” he said. “A major party backbencher can’t deliver that. Greens pressure works, which is why Labor keeps adopting our policies, like making supermarket price gouging illegal, seeing the GP for free and now helping with household batteries.
” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese holds up his Medicare card at the rally. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen Once held by former prime minister Kevin Rudd, Griffith was considered a safe Labor seat until Labor’s Terri Butler suffered an 11.4-point swing even as her party claimed victory.
Chandler-Mather had led on the primary votes, followed by the Liberal candidate and Butler in third . Now the Greens MP must fend off a Labor fightback and the Liberals, who have selected local lawyer Olivia Roberts to take him on. Labor’s candidate for Griffith, public health advocate Renee Coffey, Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Albanese addressed 200 supporters on Sunday.
Chalmers spoke mostly of the economic challenge ahead, but to cheers from the party faithful, also spelled out why they were there: “There is no more important [electorate] than Griffith.“ The centrepiece pledges were two policies first aired by the Greens – batteries and free GPs. As he did in Tasmania when announcing the $8 billion Medicare subsidy policy in February and when calling the election on March 28, Albanese took out his own Medicare card.
“We honour the promise of this piece of green and gold,” he said to cheers from the 200-strong crowd at the In a subtle dig against Peter Dutton’s policies that Labor says are similar to Donald Trump’s, Albanese finished his speech by saying Labor stood up for Australian values and did not “beg and borrow” from other ideologies, adding his party would never copy America on healthcare, education or social policies. Treasurer Jim Chalmers (left), Labor candidate Renee Coffey and former Labor treasurer Wayne Swan at the rally. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen “These are uncertain times, but I am absolutely certain of this.
This is not a time of cutting and wrecking, of thinking small, punching down, aiming low, or looking back. This is a time for building, building the stronger Medicare that Australians deserve,” he said. As for Chandler-Mather, don’t expect to see him popping into Labor seats to campaign any time soon.
“I’m mostly sticking to Brissy”, he says. “As a first term MP you can’t take anything for granted, no matter how safe the media says you’ll be.” Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights.
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