The high-profile independent taking on Tony Abbott in Warringah at the coming federal election says Labor’s climate change policy needs to be more ambitious and include an explicit commitment to block the Adani coalmine.

In an interview with Guardian Australia’s political podcast, Zali Steggall said the current policy outlined by Bill Shorten was on the right track, but she challenged the opposition to go further. “I don’t think it’s ambitious enough.”

Steggall said Labor, given the potential for a change of government later in the year, needed to include a commitment to block the controversial Queensland coal project. “Our financial institutions aren’t prepared to lend or invest in coal projects, why should the Australia people’s money be invested?”

She said Labor, if it wins this year’s federal contest, needed to use whatever regulatory powers it had available to it to stop the project. “We need an orderly retirement of coal, I don’t think we should be entering new projects,” Steggall said.

“The attention should be with renewables, technology, clean transport, clean energy – not projects like Adani.”

Steggall, a barrister, and former Olympic ski champion, is one of a group of small l liberal independents taking on government frontbenchers in the federal election contest expected in May, and has put Abbott and the Coalition’s record on climate change front and centre of her campaign in the Sydney seat.

The environment movement, and activist groups like GetUp, also want Labor to strengthen its position on the Adani project, an idea Shorten countenanced seriously last year, before stepping back.

Private polling conducted for the environment movement and for the major parties suggests community concern about climate change is currently sitting at levels not seen since the federal election cycle in 2007.

In political terms, Labor strategists think strengthening the current position on Adani would be beneficial to the election effort in the southern states and in south-east Queensland, but could write off the party’s chances in central Queensland.

Steggall said voters were desperate for action on climate change. The issue she said, had become “a political football” and that had led to “up and down results”.

“I’ll be advised by experts, I’m not an expert on climate change, I’m a concerned resident … to me, this is something that needs to be bipartisan, [the policy] needs to be supported by facts and experts and across industries so we can come up with a strategy that has longevity – a long-term plan.

“The last four years has seen increased emissions because everyone goes on their agenda.”

Steggall entered the contest in Warringah in late January. Well known in Manly, she is regarded as a real chance against Abbott if her insurgency can depress his primary vote in the contest.

Her candidacy has already prompted Abbott into engaging more forcefully on local issues, and he is attempting to characterise her as “the carbon tax candidate”.

“It’s all very well saying we’ve got to do more but there is a cost to doing more, a very heavy cost as we’ve seen,” Abbott told 2GB last week.

Steggall said her fundraising goals and volunteer sign-ups were running ahead of expectations. Steggall is aiming to secure a primary vote of 50%. “Everyone would have said that being a ski champion from Manly was impossible, and that was possible, so nothing is ever impossible,” she said.

“It’s a huge mountain to hope to climb, but you’ve got to set the goal high, and if the current level of dissatisfaction is high enough, that’s how people can really make their voice heard.”

Steggall’s campaign is implicitly negative, centred on a time’s up push against Abbott, but she said she wanted to keep her messages positive. She wanted to win, she said, “with the positivity of the message”.

She said it was obvious that in Australia negative campaigning cut through with the public, but she said “that’s something we have to address”. The ceaseless negativity of intraday politics was fuelling disengagement with institutions, including representative democracy, and the conversation “infiltrates the mood of the nation”.

“You have to be offering up some hope, as corny as that sounds,” she said.

She was also the recipient of help locally from Liberals concerned that if Abbott held the seat but the Coalition ultimately lost the election, he would want to take back the party leadership.

“I’ve got a huge support base from moderate Liberals who feel incredibly disenfranchised. Something has to change,” Steggall said.