Grassroots candidates backed by Muslim Votes will appeal to young voters who don’t share their parents’ ‘brand loyalty’ to Labor

Senior Labor figures are confident the party can see off any challenges mounted by pro-Palestine independent candidates, despite a warning young Australian Muslim voters with no ‘brand loyalty’ to the party are poised to prove them wrong.

Senior Labor figures are confident the party can see off any challenges mounted by pro-Palestine independent candidates, despite a warning young Australian Muslim voters with no “brand loyalty” to the party are poised to prove them wrong.

As speculation increases about the electoral plans of recently established community groups like The Muslim Vote and Muslim Votes Matter, members of the Albanese Government are privately confident they will hold on in the diverse Western Sydney and Melbourne seats most likely to be contested.

Neither group is currently a political party, with both insisting their aim is to educate and mobilise Muslim Australian voters in support of independent candidates who are more supportive of Palestine.

But a Labor source said attempting to capture Muslim Australian voters as a “homogenous group” was “unrealistic,” while another said the grassroot groups seemed “disorganised”.

Despite this, former Labor strategist and Redbridge pollster Kos Samaras said the Albanese Government MPs in the Western Sydney seats of Watson and Blaxland, as well as Calwell in north west Melbourne, were far from secure.

Employment and Workplace Relations and Arts Minister Tony Burke and Education Minister Jason Clare are expected to be targeted by candidates backed by the Muslim Vote. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

He described the electoral risk to Labor as “confined geographically” to seats where the Muslim Australian population was concentrated enough to have a substantial impact on the primary vote.

In particular, he said the risk came from a growing cohort of young Australians from diverse backgrounds who had “awakened” politically in the last five years and were not blindly following their parents’ historic support for Labor.

“They’ve got no brand loyalty, they feel like they’ve been abandoned by established politics, it was already a problem (for Labor) before (the war in) Gaza came along,” he said.

Redbridge pollster Kos Samaras is a former Labor Party strategist. Picture NCA NewsWire / Aaron Francis

Mr Samaras said discontent was fuelled by the situation in Gaza, prompting the start of movements like the Muslim Votes group, and then Senator Fatima Payman’s exit from the Labor Party was like “throwing napalm” onto the flame.

“Now you’ve got a 29-year-old that looks like them, is experiencing the same levels of social anxiety, feeling like an outsider, being treated differently … they can see themselves (represented),” he said.

“Everything that happened that week was the worst thing that could have happened to Labor with regards to this generation of voters.”

The Western Sydney seats of Blaxland, held by Education Minister Jason Clare and also Watson, held by Employment and Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke have the largest percentage of Muslim constituents in the country.

Both MPs have a primary vote of more than 50 per cent, while on a two-party preferred basis Mr Clare holds Blaxland by 64.94 per cent and Mr Burke holds Watson with 65.1 per cent.

Former Labor Senator Fatima Payman has inspired young Australians, says pollster Kos Samaras. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

The other seat considered in play if there is a well-funded and supported pro-Palestine independent candidate is the Melbourne electorate of Calwell, which is currently held by Labor MP Maria Vamvakinou on 62.39 per cent two-party preferred.

Last week Anthony Albanese warned against bringing sectarianism into Australian politics.

“I … don’t want, Australia to go down the road of faith-based political parties, because what that will do is undermine social cohesion,” the Prime Minister said.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton said he believed if Labor was plunged into minority government next term it would create a Coalition with the Greens, “teal” independents and any so-called Western Sydney Muslim candidates.

“It will be a disaster,” he said.

Industry and Sciences Minister Ed Husic seized on this comment calling on Mr Dutton to “bring people together rather than tear them apart”.

“There’s not only been a Muslim candidate for Western Sydney for more than a decade now, there's also two of us who serve as ministers,” he said.

Do you have a story for The Daily Telegraph? Message 0481 056 618 or email [e-mail]