Member for Gilmore Fiona Phillips has used a speech in Federal Parliament to “award” her rival at the upcoming election a gold medal for backflipping.

The Labor Party MP has accused Liberal candidate Andrew Constance of flip-flopping on a number of issues and with the Federal Election set to be called imminently for a date in May, 

Phillips won the seat of Gilmore by the barest of margins at the previous election and with independent Kate Dezarnaulds and The Greens’ candidate, Debbie Killian, also in the race, it is expected to go down to the wire again this time around.

“If there were an Olympic gold medal for political backflips, the Liberal candidate for Gilmore would win hands down,” she told Parliament. 

“After the devastating bushfires, he said he'd quit politics, but then said he'd run for Eden-Monaro. The next day he abandoned that idea. 

“Then he wanted to represent a different electorate, Gilmore, and lost. He followed that with two failed Senate preselections to represent NSW and even sounded out the state seat of Kiama.”

Phillips singled out Constance’s views on the environment, health care and housing as examples of his tendency to backflip on decisions.

“As a minister in the Liberal state government, he supported renewables,” she added.

“Now he has backflipped: he doesn't want offshore wind and supports the nuclear fantasy. Then, on Sky News live, he said that the 2035 Paris Agreement target was 'off the table' for the Liberal Party. The only thing was: it wasn't. So he backflipped again and walked that back.

“It turns out backflips are in the Liberal candidate for Gilmore's DNA. When he was the state member for Bega and minister, he supported the closing of the Batemans Bay hospital to enable the creation of the new level 4 Eurobodalla Regional Hospital. 

“He said that the community should rally together and cast their parochialism aside. Now he's backflipped on that too, and is trying to fool the community.

“At a Kiama housing roundtable, he supported periurban development, like over those green rolling hills. Only months later, he has backflipped again. The only housing he wants is 10 to 15 years away. 

“How can anyone trust a word the gold-medal backflipper says?”

Constance told The Bugle last week that he believes Kiama Council should consider the Bombo Quarry as an option for extra housing in the area even though it would take at least a decade to repurpose the area for residential use.