Regional Queensland voters are being wooed with a pledge for an Australian-made future, as the opposition leader visits there for the first time in the election campaign.
But it was a fleeting trip as Anthony Albanese headed to the ultra-marginal Brisbane seat of Lilley to tour a pre-polling centre with Labor MP Anika Wells.
Mr Albanese paid tribute to the international day of nurses, visiting with gifts in tow and talking about his late mum who struggled in the health system.
“Universal health care is something that will be at the centre of everything we do as a Labor government,” he said in Brisbane on Thursday.
“Health care is what politicised me in terms of that experience with my mother.”
Labor also promised to kickstart battery manufacturing in regional Australia.
In partnership with the Queensland government, Labor would inject $100 million to create a battery manufacturing precinct in the state.
“(Today’s project) is also about getting more value out of the supply chain and making sure that we send a message that Australia, under a federal Labor government, is open for business,” Mr Albanese told reporters.
Having flagged travel to warmer climates earlier in the week, Mr Albanese was fired up as he toured an oil refinery in Gladstone.
It’s the first time the opposition leader has visited regional Queensland since the election campaign began.
He was joined by Mayor Matt Burnett who hopes to win the seat of Flynn, previously held by retiring LNP MP Ken O’Dowd.
Mr Albanese said Mr Burnett was the “Queensland equivalent of (Eden-Monaro MP) Kristy McBain”.
“He’ll win Flynn because he is connected and embedded in the community,” he said.
Mr Burnett said he couldn’t do his job as mayor of the region without being connected to the coal community.
“We have got the new (energy) industries and the coal industries working in harmony, we know how to do it in central Queensland,” he said.
