Federal election 2016: Anthony Albanese’s battle for Grayndler ‘could cost Shorten’s shot at PM’

FORMER Deputy PM Anthony Albanese is in a political life-or-death struggle to retain his Labor seat of Grayndler from the Greens.

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FORMER Deputy PM Anthony Albanese is in a political life-or-death struggle to retain his Labor seat of Grayndler from the Greens, in one of the electorate battles ­Opposition insiders believe could cost Bill Shorten his shot at the Prime Ministership.

Senior ALP insiders say that the fight to retain the inner-city seats of Grayndler and, to a lesser extent, Sydney, for frontbenchers Mr Albanese and Deputy Leader Tanya Plibersek is taking resources away from marginal seats Labor needs to win from the Coalition, potentially ending its chances of election victory.

Mr Albanese has heard from Liberal sources that the Libs are set to recommend preferencing the Greens in his seat, in exchange for “open tickets” where the Greens do not recommend preferencing Labor in other key marginals.

Labor's Anthony Albanese, the member for Grayndler / AAP

Labor are now facing tough fights against the Greens in Grayndler and Sydney and the Victorian inner-city seats of Wills and frontbencher David Feeney’s seat of Batman. Officials concede they are forced to take resources away from contests against the Liberals to protect those seats.

Sam Byrne, Greens candidate in Grayndler in 2010, got within 4.2 per cent of Mr Albanese. However, in 2013, the Liberal candidate Cedric Spencer was slightly ahead of the Greens candidate Hall Greenland in the inner-west seat, knocking the latter out of the race.

But Mr Albanese believes a ­recent redistribution has the seat more Green than it was in 2010 and if the state election results in Balmain and Newtown were ­extrapolated across the seat “the Greens would win”.

Labor saw the appearance of Greens leader Senator Richard Di Natale in Grayndler on the first full day of the campaign as significant.

For Mr Albanese, the Greens attack also means he has to take a softer approach than his leader might like on issues like asylum seekers.

The Opposition’s transport spokesman told The Daily Telegraph that Australia needs to show “humanity” with its policy approach and work harder to relocate asylum seekers on Manus and Nauru to countries like Canada.

Australian Greens Leader Dr Richard Di Natale and Greens candidate for Grayndler Jim Casey / Picture: Renee Nowytarger

“I say you have to be tough on people smugglers — that doesn’t mean you have to be weak on ­humanity and you have to do something about people who have been on Manus and Nauru for a long time ... the government’s looking at places like Canada,” he said.

Mr Albanese also expressed opposition to Sydney’s West Connex Motorway describing the current proposal as a “road to a traffic jam”.

His Greens opponent Jim Casey, a firefighters’ union boss, has previously endorsed the “overthrow of capitalism”.

His tweets over the years feature such pronouncements as this in 2013: “Kicking back at Jilliby ... Couple of days of this, then time to kick heads again.”

Earlier, in 2011: “And she follows up with the ‘overthrow of capitalism’ you don’t hear this language enough.” At one stage, Mr Casey tweeted about “Tory f---s” and also in 2010: “What the hell is Julia Gillard doing? OK, we know she has become a monster but FFS.”

Jim Casey.

Tanya Plibersek.

And he has had a few choice words for the leader of the party who may end up preferencing him, pronouncing: “Am over #libspill hoopla . . Malcolm just the smoother face of class war” and ... “Daily Terror calling 4 Turnbull as Treasurer. Could we be so lucky? Let the #qanda groupies see Turnbull just as vicious as rest”.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull / Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

How The Daily Telegraph reported the election fight for Grayndler today.

Mr Casey said yesterday that “I stand by everything I wrote” but “if I had known I was going to be a federal politics candidate, I would have used different language”.

Asked if he still supported the “overthrow of capitalism”, Mr Casey said he wanted to return “Australian values” such as “compassion” and “if that requires the overthrow of capitalism so be it”.

In NSW, Labor insiders believe they are up against it to achieve the gains to get Bill Shorten to power.

The party believes it can  ­realistically win Dobell, Barton and Paterson off the Liberal Party and also holds out hopes of taking the seat of Eden Monaro, Page and Macarthur. Tougher, but possible, are Lindsay and Robertson. Other marginals in NSW, Banks and Reid have almost been written off as possibilities.

THE WEB REACTS TO “SAVE OUR ALBO”:

Save Our @AlboMP! Internet Sensation @dylswill got a bit excited this morning! #auspol #ausvotes #Albo pic.twitter.com/tOshyBIHiF

— Geeth Geeganage (@GGeeganage) May 11, 2016

@wrongdorey "Please Save our Albo".. "The greens want to overthrow capitalism" pic.twitter.com/uXFQjvdEo3

— PollieSpeak (@PollieSpeak) May 10, 2016

"I'm Ed Husic and I endorse that front page of the Daily Telegraph" #auspol

— Gareth Hutchens (@grhutchens) May 10, 2016

Murdoch’s Telegraph backing Albanese in Grayndler is a badge of honour for our candidate @JimCaseyGreens #auspol pic.twitter.com/u0DSelOCOG

— Senator Lee Rhiannon (@leerhiannon) May 10, 2016

Originally published as Federal election 2016: Anthony Albanese’s battle for Grayndler ‘could cost Shorten’s shot at PM’