Bill Shorten has declared he’s never felt more certain in his leadership of the Labor party as powerbrokers are applying institutional pressure to unify the right faction, in an effort to stymie any potential challenge by the NSW leftwinger Anthony Albanese.
Shorten told reporters in Melbourne on Sunday he had “never been more certain of my leadership than I am this morning.”
“I have never been more confident of my support,” the Labor leader said in response to questions about whether Albanese was positioning to run in a leadership ballot.
It is too soon to say whether Albanese will put his hand up for the party leadership after Saturday’s election result, which still hangs in the balance. Whether he ultimately moves or not is contingent, in the view of party insiders, on Labor’s final position once the count is resolved.
In the final week of the campaign, figures in NSW were positioning for a leadership change in the event Labor lost the election.
Albanese would have a good prospect of victory in a leadership ballot if he were the left faction’s only candidate, and if he had the support of the NSW right faction.
Shorten managed to hold off Albanese in the 2013 leadership ballot, the first vote for the federal parliamentary leader which included the grassroots membership, because the right faction voted for the Victorian as a bloc, and Albanese lost critical caucus votes from inside his left faction.
What happens from here depends on Labor’s final results. Poll analysts such as Crikey’s William Bowe said on Sunday the count suggested Labor would be in a position to claim between 63 and 75 seats.
But on Sunday morning Labor insiders were increasingly bullish about the party’s final position, and the Coalition’s disposition suggested contingency planning was under way in the event they were forced into a minority government.
Independents, including Andrew Wilkie and Cathy McGowan, revealed they had conversations with the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, on Sunday morning. Wilkie told reporters Turnbull was “ensuring that the channels of communication are open and I took the opportunity to tell him of my election commitment to the community about no deals, and he was quite understanding about that”.
Right wing supporters of Shorten have been rallying over the past few days to head off any potential leadership tussle at the pass. In the final week of the election campaign, some of Shorten’s closest supporters, including Victorian left-wingers, Kim Carr and Jenny Macklin, made public declarations that he’d done enough to remain as Labor leader post election.
NSW rightwing powerbroker Sam Dastyari, who was reported last week to be backing Albanese in the event Labor lost the election, told Sky News on Sunday morning: “Of course the Labor party is going to end up sticking with Bill Shorten, we just had the best result.”
He then noted somewhat ambiguously: “I have not had anyone on the phone to me suggesting Bill Shorten won’t be the leader since last night’s election.”
Labor’s general secretary in NSW, Kaila Murnain, said on Sunday she “unequivocally” supported the “amazing work that Bill Shorten did during this campaign.
“He will continue to lead Labor and we are all extremely proud to be a part of his team.”
