Three people have nominated to become the Labor candidate for a newly created federal seat in Victoria that is now at the centre of a Supreme Court battle.
Preselection opened on Tuesday for the seat of Hawke, in Melbourne's west, and 21 other electorates considered by the ALP as safe. The process closed at 10am Friday.
But a group of unions won a temporary injunction preventing the party's national executive from finalising candidate preselection on Friday afternoon, disputing the validity of their control over the Victorian branch of the party.
The national executive took over after allegations of branch stacking were raised against former state government minister Adem Somyurek. He denies the claims.
A group of ALP affiliated unions and their members, led by Health Services Union secretary Diana Asmar, has taken issue with the national executive's part in preselection and the speed of its process.
Their barrister Ron Merkel QC said a two to three day nomination period was "unprecedented".
He was back in court on Friday morning asking for the injunction to be extended until a trial on the larger issues in May.
But Peter Willis SC, who is representing members of the national executive including federal Labor leader Anthony Albanese, said the process was entirely conventional and unremarkable.
He said when nominations closed on Friday morning the only people who nominated in each of the 21 existing seats were the current sitting federal MPs.
Three people had been nominated to represent the new Hawke electorate. A ballot was due to be held at 2pm on Friday, but had to be cancelled after Justice Tim Ginnane agreed to the temporary bar on the process.
Mr Willis says that should be lifted to allow the current MPs to campaign as candidates in the next federal election, which could be called as early as September.
If the trial goes against them, the process can be redone without issue, he said.
But Mr Merkel said the integrity of the process had been undermined.
"It's no surprise whatsoever that there are no other nominations in the 21 seats because the process people have to go through has been short-circuited," he said.
Potential nominees require the support of 10 party members and a nomination period of less than three days did not allow people the time to gather support, he said.
He said party members are required to support the preselected candidates and not doing so would put them in breach of ALP rules and make them liable to suspension.
Justice Ginnane will hand down his decision on Friday afternoon.
