Murray Watt, Michelle Rowland in running for Attorney General after brutal axings
First-time MPs have including four new faces have flocked to parliament following factional fracas as Albanese calls for unity within the party.
NSW
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Senior Ministers Michelle Rowland and Murray Watt are in the running to be the next Attorney-General, amid simmering anger from Labor MPs over Thursday’s brutal factional plays.
While Prime Minister Anthony Albanese stood up in Canberra and called on his colleagues not to focus on internal squabbles, multiple Labor sources said the dumping of Minister Ed Husic and Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus had left a sour taste in the mouths of returning MPs.
Mr Albanese on Monday is expected to announce his overhauled frontbench, after Labor’s factions met on Thursday to work out their nominees for ministerial roles.
Mr Watt and Ms Rowland are two names mentioned to be in line to take the vacant role of Attorney-General, which must go to someone with a working background as a lawyer.
Mr Husic, a Minister since 2022 who was first appointed Shadow Minister in 2016, was absent from Friday’s meeting of Labor caucus, with it understood the Chifley MP hadn’t received a conciliatory phone call from the PM by Friday afternoon.
Labor sources suggested there was anger over how deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, the leader of the Victorian Right, had allowed Mr Dreyfus to be dumped.
“He shot two cabinet ministers … and carried out their bodies,’’ a Labor MP said.
“Who was the last person to do that?”
Labor MP Dr Mike Freelander also slammed the decision as “pathetic”, highlighting how Mr Dreyfus was the most senior Jewish member of cabinet, and Mr Husic the only Muslim member.
“I just said there was an ill wind blowing through this parliament, and the effect of which we won’t know for some time, but I thought that we should be ashamed of ourselves for what we’ve done,’’ Dr Freelander said.
Colleagues said it was unlikely Mr Dreyfus would have run for re-election in Saturday’s election if it was known he’d be dumped from the ministry in the aftermath.
The move to dump Mr Dreyfus helped Victorian Right factional players Sam Rae and Dan Mulino get promoted to the list of MPs in line to be in Labor’s new ministry.
Jess Walsh, from the Victorian Left, and NSW Senator Tim Ayres, from his state’s left, round out the new faces on Labor’s frontbench.
Mr Albanese on Friday warned his swelling contingent of Labor MPs in Canberra of the dangers of the party focusing too much on internal matters.
“I repeated the message a number of times in this room of the importance of unity, of not getting ahead of ourselves, of being focused not on ourselves, because I’ve seen that happen too. We know where that ends,” he said at the party’s caucus meeting.
“(We need to) focus out on the Australian people, on the people who voted for us. That’s got to be our focus each and every day.”
Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek is also expected to be moved from the portfolio, potentially to handling the NDIS.
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