Albanese to reveal frontbench while fighting to contain factional heavyweights

The Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, will unveil his new shadow ministry on Thursday, elevating fresh faces to his new frontbench while fighting a rearguard action from factional heavyweights in the party.

The new leader secured his first victory on Wednesday for his shadow ministerial team after successfully securing a position for New South Wales senator Kristina Keneally on his frontbench.

Albanese had demanded the party’s right faction put forward Keneally for his party’s frontbench team, leading MP Ed Husic to stand aside for the former NSW premier.

Husic said he had made way for a “stellar woman” to ensure the party could get on with the job of opposition.

“She has got a tremendous contribution to make,” Husic told ABC radio last night. “It was inconceivable that we could have a situation this week where someone of Kristina’s calibre as a former premier was sitting on the backbench.

“Albo was quite clear that he wanted to put Kristina’s talent to good use, and this decision makes that happen.”

After the party’s factions determine who sits in the party’s new ministry, Albanese will allocate portfolios, including to former leader Bill Shorten.

The freshly minted opposition leader is expected to make wholesale changes to his frontbench after the party’s shock election loss, with Queenslander Jim Chalmers expected to take on the high-profile Treasury portfolio.

The shadow assistant treasurer, Andrew Leigh, is expected to be dropped from the ministry.

Victorian MP Richard Marles will be elected unopposed as Albanese’s deputy, taking over from Tanya Plibersek. While he has the right to nominate his portfolio of choice, his desired foreign affairs portfolio is expected to stay with the widely respected Penny Wong.

Albanese said that Shorten, who has expressed an interest in taking the health portfolio from long-serving shadow health minister Catherine King, would be treated with “appropriate respect” in the reshuffle.

“I have no doubt that the team that we assemble will be balanced ... in terms of gender, in terms of state representation, and I expect that it will be a very good team who will hold the government to account,” Albanese said.

While Keneally’s position on the frontbench has now been assured, the party’s MPs remain split over the elevation of Keneally to a leadership position in the Senate.

Don Farrell, a factional stalwart from South Australia, has indicated he wants to stay on as deputy leader in the Senate, claiming he has the numbers within caucus to keep the role.

He has come under pressure from MPs to make way for Keneally, who hails from the NSW right.

Keneally has been canvassing support from across the party to nominate for the role, and could potentially overrule her own faction by using support garnered from the left in a ballot of the party’s full caucus.

In an attempt to avoid this outcome, which would defy the party’s long-standing caucus conventions, the party’s right faction has been attempting to negotiate a compromise.

Farrell is under significant pressure to stand aside so that the party maintains a gender balance in the leadership team after Plibersek was forced to stand down because she is from the same faction as Albanese.

Albanese said he would make his views known to fellow MPs about his desired frontbench but would respect that, within the party, the “caucus is supreme”.

“I’m talking to caucus members not with hats on, I’m talking to them about the Labor interest – not any factional interests, not state interests but the Labor interest,” he said. “What I want is after the next election, when I first visit Parliament House, to drive up through another entrance ... the ministerial wing.

“And we can only achieve that if we have the best team, if we’re united, if coherent in the views that we put forward and I’m very confident that we can do that.”