The veteran Victorian powerbroker Kim Carr will remain on Labor’s frontbench after a bruising factional stoush that split the left faction and required intervention from the opposition leader, Bill Shorten.
While the majority of the left faction wanted to dump Carr from the shadow ministry, the right faction marshalled on Friday to support the Victorian left winger, whose stability pact with the right in his home state helps underpin Shorten’s leadership.
While Carr was ultimately spared the wrath of his left-wing colleagues at Friday’s special Labor caucus meeting to elect shadow ministerial candidates, another key Shorten ally, the right faction’s David Feeney, had to vacate the frontbench ticket in favour of Clare O’Neil, who is one of the next generation talents for the ALP.
The Labor leader has been forced to expand the size of the shadow ministry from 30 to 32 to accommodate Carr, who was not backed by his faction, and the factionally non-aligned MP Andrew Leigh.
The maximum number permitted in the shadow ministry is 30. This means two Labor frontbenchers – Leigh and the NSW right’s Sam Dastyari – will be paid as backbenchers while holding shadow ministerial positions.
In Leigh’s case, this will mean a $40,000 pay cut. Leigh, like Carr, survived the current reshuffle because Shorten insisted he remain in the frontbench line-up.
There are a number of reasons for the factional brawling that has run for the best part of a fortnight . Some left figures resent Carr for backing Shorten in the 2013 leadership ballot over the left candidate, Anthony Albanese.
Others resent what they regard as poor behaviour on Carr’s part. Some disagree with his policy inclinations. And there has been a push for generational change after the election.
In Friday’s caucus meeting, during a procedural debate about whether the two expanded shadow ministry spots would be appointed by the leader like parliamentary secretaries, or elected by the caucus, Albanese – the key powerbroker in the national left – rounded on Carr for not accepting the verdict of the majority of his faction.
Albanese is understood to have noted that people demonstrate their character not when they are successful, but when they are unsuccessful, a caustic observation that colleagues took as a public rebuke to Carr.
One element of the backroom jockeying remains unresolved.
When Carr learned his faction intended to dump him from the frontbench, he formed a sub-factional grouping within the left with a handful of colleagues, including fellow left-winger Gavin Marshall.
Marshall is now a deputy president in the Senate. The national left will no longer support him for that position. The ballot to elect a new Senate deputy leader has consequently been deferred.
Labor has managed through this process to bring on new talent, including O’Neil, Linda Burney – the first Indigenous woman to be elected in the House of Representatives – and Dastyari, a key figure in the NSW right.
Ed Husic, another NSW right figure, will also step into the shadow ministry after the vocational education spokeswoman, Sharon Bird, chose not to contest the right faction’s frontbench ballot.
Now that the caucus has nominated its picks for the frontbench, Shorten will move on to the business of allocating new portfolios. Those are expected to be announced shortly.
