Anthony Albanese set to promise mining worker pay rises as Labor shift focus after QLD election disaster

Thousands of mining workers will soon receive a pay boost, as the prime minister pivots focus after Labor’s loss at the Queensland election.

Speaking in Brisbane on Monday night, Anthony Albanese will focus on wages and workplace laws.

Federal Labor’s industrial relations reforms have paved the way for labour-hire workers to receive the same pay as regular employees across a variety of sectors including aviation, meat processing and mining.

Mr Albanese will spruik the upcoming wage increases in an address at the Mining and Energy Union’s national convention.

About 4000 labour-hire workers across NSW and Queensland will receive $120 million in pay raises after the union stood up for Labor’s proposed reforms by highlighting how loopholes allowed companies to use labour-hire to undercut enterprise agreements.

“The Liberals said it was a made-up issue, then they said it would wreck the economy,” Mr Albanese will say.

“Australians were not fooled.

“Only the labour movement could have championed this change.”

Resources sector employers have urged businesses to campaign to pressure a future coalition government to deliver a radical industrial relations overhaul, including the abolition of awards.

Mr Albanese says the pay increases will have a significant impact on the economies of regional communities and show the government is both pro-business and pro-worker while claiming the Liberal and National parties are the “biggest threat to fair pay and safe work”.

Wages have emerged as one of Labor’s biggest talking points and remain one of the party’s key answers to the ongoing cost-of-living crisis ahead of the federal election.

Mr Albanese is keen to return to this platform as Labor comes off a narrow loss at the Queensland election.

In what was predicted to be a landslide loss for Labor, the party’s state politicians managed to claw back votes with a campaign focused on cost-of-living relief such as free lunches for primary students and 50 cent public transport fares.

As a result, the party won a seat of the Greens, minimised losses, and held onto votes in the electorates around Cairns - where the marginal, federal seat of Leichhardt is located.

Speaking to reporters on Sunday, Mr Albanese said the outcome showed people who voted for the Greens wanted them to “play a progressive role, not a blocking role”.

Labor is eying regional Queensland seats alongside the Brisbane seat of Griffith after Greens candidate Max Chandler-Mather won the electorate during the 2022 federal election.

Mining remains a significant driver of the Queensland economy, and though Mr Albanese’s speech acknowledges the need for a clean energy transition, he has insisted no one will be left behind.

“This is how you make change work for people ... by taking on your responsibility to look after people and build better,” he said.

A federal election must be held by May 2025.