Victorian Labor MPs recontesting their seats in federal parliament will all be re-endorsed and the national executive could extend the same protection to all MPs, Michael Danby has said.
Speaking to the Outsiders program on Sky on Sunday, the MP for Melbourne Ports signalled he intended to stay on despite public scrutiny of his decision to take out ads accusing ABC Middle East correspondent Sophie McNeill of biased coverage.
“Preselections are always difficult, a number of people are thinking about their careers before this federal election,” Danby said. “Under all of the arrangements in Victoria with the various factional line-ups, I understand that sitting members are going to be re-endorsed.
“And I also understand that is something that is going to be contemplated by Labor’s national executive when it next meets.”
In Victoria, efforts to replace Labor’s existing stability pact with a new factional alignment have so far failed with key elements of the right and socialist left faction refusing to sign up.
The existing stability pact guarantees left and right factions control of certain seats, meaning sitting MPs keep their seats unless they lose the confidence of their faction.
Danby noted the current factional “turmoil” in Victoria but suggested that sitting MPs would stay on even if a new deal succeeded.
“It’s not something specially for Danby,” he said. “We don’t want to be spending our time fighting each other in pre-selections.”
Asked if the arrangement was a benefit for incumbents at the expense of grassroots members, Danby conceded it “probably is” but said members should have rights to vote for senators and lower-house candidates when a seat is vacant.
With the factional stoush brewing in December, Bill Shorten sought to allay sitting MPs’ concerns by vowing to protect them.
Victorian preselections will not be formalised until after the Australian Electoral Commission’s proposed redraw of Victorian seat boundaries is released in April.
In a sign that the new deal may not have gained sufficient traction to influence preselections, two possible beneficiaries of the deal appear to be out of the running for federal seats, with Luba Grigorovitch suggesting she will not run and Jane Garrett now believed to be in the running for Melbourne lord mayor.
Labor preselections in Western Australia did not see any challengers seek to unseat sitting MPs. Queensland is expected to conclude its preselections in the next month.
Danby said that his stance against McNeill’s coverage – which he believes is too anti-Israel – has made him “very unpopular with some elements in the ABC”.
He accused some of his critics of “running hate Danby campaigns because he doesn’t agree with Bob Carr’s views on China or the Middle East”.
Danby was also in hot water in summer for charging taxpayers almost $15,000 for six trips to Queensland with his wife, before repaying the travel allowance and claiming it was the result of an “administrative error”.
