Election 2025: Tanya Plibersek is suddenly in insecure work, courtesy of her ‘friend’ Anthony Albanese

Anthony Albanese has refused to promise Tanya Plibersek will maintain her portfolio should Labor be re-elected to government, despite having done so for three other Labor frontbenchers in the last week.

While confirming Jim Chalmers, Richard Marles and Penny Wong will all continue in their positions if Labor returns to power on May 3, Anthony Albanese has refused to promise Tanya Plibersek will remain as Environment Minister.

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Anthony Albanese has pointedly refused to promise his long-time Labor rival Tanya Plibersek will keep her job as Environment ­Minister if he wins the election on May 3, despite pledging to keep Jim Chalmers and two of his closest allies Penny Wong and Richard Marles in place.

The aftermath of the awkward “air kiss” between the Prime Minister and Ms Plibersek at Sunday’s Labor campaign launch has put a fresh election spotlight on the political tension between the pair.

Mr Albanese on Monday brushed aside questions over whether Ms Plibersek would continue as Environment Minister, declaring that all he was willing to commit to at this stage was “winning the election”.

“You know what I’ll commit to? Trying to win this election. I don’t assume. You might, I do not assume,” he said in Adelaide.

“Tanya Plibersek has been a friend of mine for a long period of time. We live in neighbouring seats. We’re good mates. And she’s doing a fantastic job. She’s doing a fantastic job.”

But despite declaring he could not commit to cabinet ministers staying in place until he was assured of election victory, Mr Albanese has been on the record promising the Treasurer, Mr Marles and Senator Wong will all stay in their jobs.

Both Dr Chalmers and Mr Marles, the Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister, are considered alongside Ms Plibersek as likely candidates for the ALP leadership should Mr Albanese stand down in the future.

“(Dr Chalmers) will continue to be the Treasurer after the election if I am the Prime Minister,” Mr Albanese said in Sydney last week. When asked directly if Mr Marles and Senator Wong would serve next term in full in their current roles days later, Mr Albanese gave a resounding “yes”.

Mr Albanese and Ms Plibersek’s relationship has been complicated ever since the now prime min­ister lost the Labor leadership contest to Bill Shorten in 2014, when Ms Plibersek publicly supported him but made it clear she would willingly be Mr Shorten’s deputy.

It has been further strained by Ms Plibersek’s claims she could have won the leadership in 2019 if she had run; Mr Albanese’s move to demote her from the education portfolio when Labor won in 2022; and his multiple interventions in her portfolio over Tasmanian salmon fishing and nature positive reforms.

Despite sharing hugs, kisses and handshakes with other frontbenchers and former prime minister Julia Gillard, Mr Albanese appeared to block Ms Plibersek’s attempted hug and instead held both of her hands in his, stopping her from coming closer.

In response, Ms Plibersek air-kissed the Labor leader. The awkward interaction was described as “unsurprising” by senior Labor sources, who said the rivalry between the two Sydneysiders was similar to that which existed between Kevin Rudd and Ms Gillard.

Ms Plibersek in 2023 rejected suggestions she decided not to run for leader after Bill Shorten’s election loss because she believed she didn’t have the numbers.

“It’s history. But I am pretty confident that if I had run, I would have won,” she said in an interview with Good Weekend magazine.

Despite refusing to say if she considered Mr Albanese’s 2022 decision to shift her from education to environment a demotion, Ms Plibersek did reveal in The Australian that the appointment had come as “a surprise”.

In an attempt to brush aside the frosty interaction with Mr Albanese at the Labor launch on the weekend, Ms Plibersek said “we should still all be elbow bumping”.

“During an election campaign, the last thing you want is to catch a cold from someone,” she told Sunrise. “So that’s on me. I should’ve done the elbow bump, I reckon.”

While her appearance on Sunrise included a sharp ribbing from Barnaby Joyce, who dialled into the program at the same time, the initial transcript sent out by Labor HQ wiped sarcastic comments from the former Nationals leader describing Mr Plibersek and Mr Albanese as “buddies”.

A reissued transcript sent three hours later reinserted Mr Joyce’s comments, which also included a derisive swipe at how unconvincing the Environment Minister was being and a declaration that he was glad she was “not my barrister on that one”.

When pressed on the doctoring of the first transcript, Ms Plibersek said she was “out campaigning, not reading transcripts”.

In a doorstop in Peter Dutton’s seat of Dickson, for which a wide media alert was not issued in the usual way, Ms Plibersek said the questions over her relationship with Mr Albanese were “a distraction”.

“It’s just such nonsense,” she said. “I honestly think Australians are a lot more interested in the fact Peter Dutton is going to an election with a plan to increase taxes.”

The absence of a media alert was put down to the concerns about climate protesters by Labor HQ, while the lack of a transcript was because of the heavy rain that occurred halfway through the press conference.