Ed Husic absent from Labor caucus as reshuffle is imminent

Dumped cabinet minister Ed Husic has snubbed the Labor Party’s first caucus of the parliamentary term after a fierce factional brawl led to him being demoted from the ministry.

Sarah Ison

Anthony Albanese addresses the Labor caucus at Parliament House in Canberra on Friday. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

3 min read

5:29PMMay 09, 2025.

Updated 8:35PMMay 09, 2025

Dumped cabinet minister Ed Husic has snubbed the Labor Party’s first caucus of the parliamentary term after a fierce factional brawl led to him being demoted from the ministry.

Anthony Albanese is looking to fill his spot and finalise a broader reshuffle over the weekend.

While senior Victorian MP Mark Dreyfus was also booted from the ministry as a result of negotiations in Labor’s right faction on Thursday, the outgoing Attorney-General still appeared at the ALP caucus meeting and walked in beside Left faction MP Julian Hill.

The dumping of Mr Husic marked the second time the Muslim MP has been demoted from cabinet – he took the hit to make room for Kristina Keneally in 2019 – and sparked anger from Muslim community leaders like Jamal Rifi. “The Prime Minister needs to reflect on what sort of message he’s sent to all these people who worked very hard in southwestern Sydney,” Dr Rifi told the ABC. “If (Mr Albanese) wants to reform Australia, he should start by reforming the archaic rules of the Labor Party that dropped a very effective minister from his position.”

Dr Rifi said Mr Husic, who failed to provide the formal apology for his absence from caucus on Thursday to the party in line with long-held processes, needed to be returned to the ministry. Labor MPs said they were bracing for further fallout in coming days, with the former industry minister scheduled for a raft of TV appearances on Sunday and Monday.

Mr Husic has already made veiled swipes at his demotion in comments provided to The Australian Financial Review, where he defended his record as science and industry minister and declared “I have stuck by the sector even when it was politically unfashionable to do so”.

Questions over who will replace Mr Husic swirled on Friday, with West Australians arguing their state deserved the cabinet spot, given the sheer number of seats won for the Labor Party.

To satisfy MPs from the West, Mr Albanese could promote Anne Aly from the outer ministry to cabinet, an option made more attractive given Dr Aly is another Muslim MP whose appointment could soften the blow of Mr Husic’s departure.

Other MPs now due a ministry position include Victorian right faction MPs Sam Rae and Daniel Mulino, along with Tim Ayres and Jess Walsh from the Left.

While Mr Dreyfus is the only KC in parliament, a number of other MPs have served as lawyers, including Murray Watt – making them potential candidates.

A surprise name raised by some Labor MPs for the job was Katy Gallagher, who doesn’t have a law background but served as ACT chief minister before holding the finance portfolio in the Albanese government’s first term.

Mr Dreyfus took his place behind newly elected candidates, who he applauded along with his colleagues as they were formally inducted into parliamentary Labor Party. But while the Prime Minister singled out the “selflessness” of some MPs, chiefly Tasmanian Anne Urquhart who left the Senate to run in the lower house seat of Braddon, he did not mention Mr Dreyfus in his public remarks. “Going forward, we need the same the same unity, the same sense of purpose, the same making sure there’s no overreach,” he said.

“I was never looking behind, always looking forward. And I repeat … the importance of unity, of not getting ahead of ourselves, of being focused not on ourselves, because I’ve seen that happen too.

“Focus out on the Australian people. On the people who voted for us.”

On top of the ministerial reshuffle, Mr Albanese must also replace one of his hand-picked public service bosses, Glyn Davis, who announced on Thursday he would retire as the secretary of the Department of Prime Minister of Cabinet on June 16.

Responding to Professor Davis’s announcement, Mr Albanese said the public service boss “leaves a great national institution in far better shape than he found it, to the benefit of all Australians”.