Former prime minister Kevin Rudd says there should be room for both Ed Husic and Kristina Keneally in the new shadow cabinet.
Mr Rudd, the last Labor leader to win government from opposition, told 7.30 he had always been one of the "biggest opponents" of the "factional dimension of Labor politics".
On Wednesday, Labor frontbencher Mr Husic announced he would step down from the shadow ministry to make room for his colleague Senator Keneally.
Senator Keneally is a member of the NSW right faction, a sub-group within the Labor Party.
"Ed Husic … is a fine, highly intelligent and effective parliamentary performer," Mr Rudd told 7.30.
"There should be room for the likes of him and people like Kristina Keneally as well.
"So I think the future lies in, frankly, that dimension of internal Labor politics [playing] less and less and less of a role."
The former prime minister said factionalism was doing immense damage to the Liberal Party too, pointing to the leadership turmoil of recent years.
Religious vote not a 'rite of passage' for conservatives
Mr Rudd said Labor needed to reconnect with religious voters, saying faith was very much part of the "fabric" in his home state of Queensland.
He said Labor could not afford to "deliver" the religious vote to the conservative side of politics as a "rite of passage", naming Catholics, Protestants and Pentecostals.
"We the Labor Party have to speak to those folks as well, because they're good people," Mr Rudd said.
The issue of faith bubbled to the surface during the election campaign.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison was filmed praying inside his Pentecostal church.
Both leaders were peppered with questions about religious freedoms as a national debate raged over the social media posts of star rugby player Israel Folau, who told his followers that gay people, atheists, drunks and thieves were all going to hell.
Careful diplomacy needed to avoid becoming 'economic meat' in US-China sandwich
Mr Rudd spent the last few weeks of the Australian election campaign in China, where he said Mr Morrison's comments about China being a "customer" of Australia were mentioned to him "quite a number of times".
"I think even Mr Morrison would now conclude that was an ill-advised choice of words," he said.
"To juxtapose the relationship as America being friend, China being customer is frankly quite wrong."
"We in Australia, at all levels of our society — our people-to-people engagement, as well as the companies that work with each other on a daily basis, and those of us who know Chinese political leaders, there are friendships of great depth there as well.
"Sure, China will never be our ally. The United States will be our ally."
Mr Rudd, who speaks fluent Mandarin Chinese, said he had never seen the US-China relationship in "such disarray".
Mr Morrison would need to be more careful with his language and Australia would need to walk a delicate diplomatic line over the next 12 months to avoid becoming "the economic meat in the sandwich", he said.
