Maribyrnong: Bill Shorten seat the focus of factional fight

The inner Melbourne seat of Maribyrnong has been a Labor Right stronghold but the Left is circling to take over.

Victorian Minister Natalie Hutchins is a possible candidate for Bill Shorten’s seat of Maribyrnong. Picture: NewsWire / Luis Ascui

Labor factions have started debating who should be “handed” Bill Shorten’s seat of Maribyrnong, with the Left’s dominance in Victoria a likely factor.

Maribyrnong is an inner northwestern seat that starts in traditional soft left territory near the city’s CBD but then fans out to working-class areas around the city’s major airport.

But like all seats that embrace areas close to Melbourne, it is diverse, including parts of Essendon and Moonee Ponds, which are known in some circles as the Toorak of the north.

Labor’s Left, which believes it is under-represented in the federal parliament, is set to push for the seat, possibly putting up United Workers Union official Jo Briskey. The UWU is part of the union that includes the former right-wing National Union of Workers but is controlled by the Left.

Ms Briskey ran for the Queensland seat of Bonner in 2019, but now lives in Melbourne.

State minister Natalie Hutchins has been mooted as a possible candidate for the Right but the Australian Workers Union has limited influence in the Victorian ALP compared with at the height of Mr Shorten’s powers. Labor holds the seat with a margin of 12.5 per cent after the redistribution but the ALP’s primary support has been slowly eroding since 2007 when Mr Shorten was elected.

Sources within the federal party also pointed to Shannon Threlfall-Clarke, who has worked for several right faction MPs and was a lead organiser in the AWU, as a potential candidate.

Ms Threlfall-Clarke is currently an adviser to Speaker Milton Dick and is a member of the national executive.

The primary vote in 2007 was 57.6 per cent, which had fallen to 42.3 per cent at the last election.

But, similarly a big part of the Victorian state story, Labor has benefited from left-wing preferences, bolstering the two-party-preferred position.

Labor is concerned it may struggle in the future in key inner seats such as Wills, where the Greens are hoping to perform more strongly. There are groups of Greens voters in Maribyrnong but not to the same extent as Wills, on its eastern border.

Wills is now considered deep in the Greens-voting tofu curtain.

Mr Shorten will remain in the seat until February, according to Anthony Albanese.

“I want to make it clear that I’ve asked Bill to remain in cabinet until he departs in February because he and I agree there is important work still to be done to put the National Disability Insurance Scheme on a sustainable footing,” the Prime Minister said.

“There is some precedent for there being a gap for a short period of time (in a lower house seat vacancy) … a small gap where the electorate office continues to serve the interests of the people.”