CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | Contact
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will be targeting Labor’s once-rusted on regional seats in the 2025 Election, it has been confirmed.
Widely considered a ‘lost cause’ in the years since Prime Minister Rudd reinvigorated the central Queensland coastline with his ‘Kevin 07’ campaign, it seems that Labor no longer views the rural electorates as losses that need to be cut.
While the focus has been on Western Sydney and outer-Melbourne, rural seats are could still be crucial to the outcome of the 2025 election.
But what seats are in play? With Labor clawing back rural outskirts of Perth and retaining the NSW Hunter Valley in 2022 – it seems the pivot to renewable energy technologies is creating a rumbling of excitiement amongst rural voters.
Namely, pub-owners and heavy machinery contractors, who can see money starting to flow to regional centres that are earmarked for major wind and solar projects.
With a clean energy boom bringing bigger utes and premium cuts of steak to the main streets of Australia’s neglected regional towns, the challenge is for Labor to articulate to rural voters that they are just as interested in improving the standard of living for rural voters as they are for those in the working class metropolitan suburbs.
And so far, the best way to do that has been to pre-select Labor candidates that you wouldn’t really be able to miss on the main street.
The case study into this succesful strategy is Hunter MP Dan Repacholi, who stands at 6 ft 8 and over a buck twenty.
But not only is he the type of candidate that makes voters say Chris have a go at the size of this bloke, Repacholi is also the loudest. New data has confirmed that the former miner is Labor’s rowdiest Question Time politician. Having been kicked out of parliament more than any other Labor MP.
With the nearby Roberson MP Gordon Reid also a rather large unit, Labor’s plan to win back rural seats with big fellas has worked in both the Central Coast and Hunter Valley.
Albanese has since sent ALP recruiters to towns like Mackay, Rockhampton, Townsville and Broken Hill – to keep look out for any foghorns who look like they would be able to bring down a horse with a firm grip.
“I welcome my fellow sizeable units” says Dan Repacholi.
“The bigger the berry, the sweeter the juice”
