Riverina MP and Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack will on Saturday link the Coalition’s re-election campaign to jobs and power prices in regional Australia.
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Mr McCormack is expected to frame his Leader’s Address to the Nationals’ Federal Council in Canberra around delivering more jobs and higher wages in the regions and reducing the cost of living.
“This election will mean so much – not just for the Nationals as a party – but for the people we represent in regional Australia,” Mr McCormack will tell his party’s members.
“The people who trust the Nationals to do all that we can to ensure power prices are at a level of affordability where they can turn on the power to put the heater on in winter and turn the air conditioner on in summer.
“We stand up for these people each and every day; they are our people; you are our people.”
At the same time the Nationals’ Council was starting on Friday evening, Mr Turnbull dumped a proposal to legislate carbon emissions reduction levels of 26 per cent as part of the National Energy Guarantee policy.
The move was widely seen as an attempt to defuse threats by Liberal and National MPs to cross the floor and vote against the energy supply and price relief policy.
Under the modified NEG policy, emissions cuts will reportedly be set by regulators after ensuring they will not drive up power prices.
On Friday, Defence Industry Minister Christopher Pyne denied speculation that some MPs were pushing for Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton to challenge Mr Turnbull as leader.
Opposition infrastructure spokesman Anthony Albanese said the Liberal Party was in “chaos”.
Mr Turnbull was listed as a guest speaker in the Saturday program for the Nationals’ Federal Council.
Mr McCormack was also expected to attack Labor state governments in South Australia, Victoria and Queensland and use them in an argument that regional Australia would suffer under a Labor federal government.
Mr McCormack will claim the Queensland government’s farm herbicide laws as “just sheer madness” and describe how small businesses had lost significant money to power blackouts in South Australia.
“And in Victoria, we believe you deserve better than a Labor government which is committed to ideology and virtue-signalling, just to avoid losing seats to the Greens, and are not putting downward pressure on power prices,” Mr McCormack will tell Nationals members.
The Coalition was badly rattled last month after a QLD byelection produced a primary vote swing of 10 per cent against the LNP, suggesting a Labor landslide if the result was replicated across the state.