Labor factions dealt Ed Husic in. He can’t complain when they deal him out

Hubris, thy name is Husic. There’s a fraction too much factional friction. Honestly, sometimes Australian politics writes its own headlines. But look, as ever, we’re getting way ahead of ourselves. Let’s back up a bit, shall we? Anyone would think ousted teal Zoe Daniel was giving another press conference.

Ed Husic (left) was elbowed aside, apparently at the behest of Richard Marles (right), whom Husic promptly labelled a “factional assassin”.Credit: James Brickwood

We need to return briefly to the federal poll on May 3, which, as we all know, resulted in a shellacking. A trouncing. A drubbing. A thrashing. A crushing so comprehensive, so thorough in all its particulars, that the handful of Liberals who somehow emerged intact are now traversing the soulless terrain of the political wilderness, led by a one-time shearer’s cook with a fondness for numerology. (Seriously, Sussan Ley. Your misspelt name might’ve been designed to bring you luck, but it really, reeeeaaaallly hurts my eyes. I will vote for you if you change it back to Susan, I promise.)

That brings us to Labor, and more specifically, recently exiled industry and science minister Ed Husic. Like the newly installed Liberal leader Ley, he knows politics is a numbers game, and for most of his career – and indeed, this year – the gods of maths and circumstance have been smiling beneficently on himself and his colleagues.

A quick recap. In March, Cyclone Alfred blew into Queensland, dumping several hundred millimetres of rain and causing enough chaos to entirely justify Anthony Albanese’s decision to delay the federal election. Then in April, US President Donald Trump got up one morning and decided to impose a 125 per cent tariff on virtually anything that moved, triggering an international trade war and making it approximately 125 per cent less likely that Australian voters would opt for a conservative appointment, in the form of Peter Dutton, here.

Inflation went down. Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ tail went up. Interest rates went down. Labor’s odds went up. And then came election night. Ninety-three seats later, the Albanese government was back in business.

But in politics, the numbers help you until they don’t, especially in the ALP, where the factional overloads tend to giveth and taketh away as they see fit. In the aftermath of his landslide win, Albanese’s bloated caucus meant he was faced with one unsolvable sum: no amount of numerical hocus-pocus would make 93 Labor members divisible by 23 cabinet positions.

Somebody, or in this case, two somebodies, had to make way for Victorian MPs Daniel Mulino and Sam Rae, to balance the Left and Right factions in NSW.

Ed Husic, a member of the NSW Right, and former attorney-general Mark Dreyfus were elbowed aside, apparently at the behest of Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, whom Husic promptly labelled a “factional assassin”.

In the process of blasting his political colleague last weekend, Husic, cabinet’s first Muslim, blamed his unpopularity on his outspokenness about the Israeli response to the October 7 attacks by Hamas.

“You can’t celebrate diversity and expect it to sit in a corner silent,” he fumed.

All of this would have been fine had he not been alleging a sudden muzzling at the hands of the factional system, which itself exists partially to ensure a range of views is recognised and represented. Husic himself has been one of its key beneficiaries over the course of his career. In short, you can’t be anointed by the thought police, then come over all thought police after being ousted in accordance with rules being enforced by the thought police.

Here’s the rub, though.

This election, there were nine electorates where the ALP didn’t win the primary vote, but have won (or look like winning) the seat anyway: Aston, Deakin, Melbourne and Menzies in Victoria, the south-western Sydney seat of Banks, Brisbane, Dickson and Petrie in Queensland and Solomon in the Northern Territory. Of those nine, six of the winning candidates are members of the ALP’s Left faction. In other words, Labor played a blinder on preferences, forced out the leaders of both the Liberals and the Greens, and then returned to the party room where the Right faction inevitably got squeezed by the ascendant Left, and Husic discovered his number was up.

Politics is sometimes a zero-sum game. But given the monumental tumbleweeds blowing through the Liberals’ party room, the odds of the other side gaining any traction from the current Marles-Husic mathematical snafu are basically also nil.

For his part, Husic has vowed to sit on the backbench and “play a constructive role”, which, depending on your personal proclivities, could mean anything from “be an excellent local member” to “keep a number of sympathetic journalists on speed-dial in case things suddenly get febrile during caucus”. There is, obviously, also a third option. Could someone please track down Sussan Ley’s numerologist? Apparently, he or she is well versed in changing fortunes. We could be on the cusp of a sudden resurgence from the newly rebranded Ed Husssssssssic.

Michelle Cazzulino is a writer.

Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter.