The Labor frontbencher Anthony Albanese has confirmed his candidacy for the reconfigured seat of Grayndler in this year’s federal election, saying he would never take the electorate for granted.
Revised federal electorate boundaries have put parts of the Labor stronghold of Marrickville outside the seat.
Also on Thursday Labor announced its candidate for the Western Australian marginal seat of Cowan would be the counter-terrorism academic Dr Anne Aly.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Albanese said he had always treated the seat, which he has held since 1996, as marginal. “People might disagree with me but what you see is what you get,” he said. “I stand up for my beliefs and put my hand up when it counts.
“This is a politicised seat and people are active in their local community. That’s a great thing.”
At the 2013 federal election, Albanese received 47% of the primary vote, while the Greens candidate received 23% and the Liberals 23%. The shift of boundaries has pushed the seat further into the inner city, notionally benefiting the Greens.
The Greens hold the overlapping state seats of Newtown and Balmain, both previously Labor heartlands.
Albanese said Labor was the only progressive Australian party capable of forming government and ensuring the economy was about “not just growth, but inclusive growth”.
“What we’ve seen from Malcolm Turnbull is that he now leads a party that is divided within itself, at war with itself over a range of issues between the conservatives and the moderates,” Albanese said.
He said the Grayndler Greens candidate, ex-International Socialist member Jim Casey, had minimal connection to the area. “The current candidate has no local involvement, no local record and nothing to point to whereby he has engaged in the local community,” Albanese said.
“I’ve never seen him at any event but then again I haven’t been to International Socialist demonstrations against global capitalism in the last few years.”
He said some candidates were using the Greens banner as a smokescreen for a socialist political platform.
Casey said he made no apologies for his socialist ideals.
“It is a bit sad [Albanese] is running away from this; he’s happy to DJ songs by Billy Bragg for his mates but when it comes to a political context he’s channelling Joe McCarthy,” Casey told the Huffington Post.
Albanese included songs by Bragg when he guest-hosted the ABC’s music video show Rage.
“Albanese is happy to identify as a left-winger when it suits, him, but it’s sad he wants to play this Robert Menzies ‘reds under the bed’ routine,” Casey said.
Meanwhile in Western Australia, Labor have named the academic and counter-terrorism expert Anne Aly as the party’s candidate for the seat of Cowan.
Aly is a professor at Edith Cowan University, adjunct professor at Curtin University and the founding chair of People Against Violent Extremism.
Aly said her focus would be on the cost of living, giving children opportunity for education, job security and national security.
“I think it’s pretty clear I’m not one for the politics of division and fear,” Aly, who heads up the counter-radicalisation organisation People Against Violent Extremism (Pave), told Guardian Australia.
“We need to be talking about this issue in a bipartisan way, and I can’t do that from [the outside], it has to come from within. We need to be able to address these issues in ways that don’t politicise it, that draw upon international best practice and that are effective.
“This government unfortunately has taken a very adversarial approach to countering violent extremism and counter-terrorism, where a lot of their resources have been in producing reports to discredit what the previous government did, rather than doing things that are effective,.”
WA Labor leader Mark McGowan said Aly, who was born in Egypt, represented “the Australian dream”. The member for the seat of Perth, Alannah MacTiernan, said it was a “proud moment for Labor”.
The marginal seat of Cowan is currently held by Liberal MP Luke Simpkins.
The second-term MP has had his own experience countering terrorism, telling his Facebook followers in November 2014 he had intervened to have “black disks that appear to be Shahada symbols” removed from a local bridge.
It later emerged the symbols were posters for a nightclub in the electorate.
