The new head of the Australian Workers’' Union is moving away from the plans laid by his predecessor, and pushing for better protection of some domestic resources.

New AWU boss Scott McDine says he is “somewhat more of a pragmatist” than the former leader, Paul Howes, who has now moved to a director’s position at KPMG.

Speaking to Fairfax Media reporters late last week, Mr McDine said the AWU had spent “far too much time navel-gazing on our own ­internal decisions and our own ­internal politics”.

“There are far too many … within the party (for whom) that seems to be their priority. I just wish focusing their priority was focusing on good policy …. focusing on polices that boost the economy, focusing on polices that boost employment, rather than wanting to have an internal debate every two years,” he said.

Mr McDine says there is real work to do.

“With regards to the political and industrial environment at the moment, we have just re-emerged from the Work Choices era, and we appear to have a Liberal-Nation­al government intent on tearing down industrial relations in this country,” he said.

One of the key priorities for the AWU's future will be to push for a domestic gas-reservation policy; a campaign Mr McDine says should also be championed by the Labor Party.

“We are the only country in the world that allows open access to its gas markets,’’ he said.

“We are exporting our gas overseas and not saving any for our own purposes. If a gas domestic reservation is good enough for the US, it’s good enough for Australia.

“We can predict the exact moment when this energy time bomb is going to go off and that’s going to be from the middle of next year.

“There are estimations which say that price rises could go up 300 per cent, which would also put 200,000 jobs on the line.

“We see this as one of the biggest threats facing our members — forget about the carbon tax.”

The AWU is expected to move for policy change at Labor's next nationa­l conference.