The battle to replace Bill Shorten is likely to pit the United Workers Union’s Jo Briskey against a right-faction candidate, with the Australian Workers Union insisting Maribyrnong is an AWU seat.
Guardian Australia understands that Briskey, the UWU’s national political coordinator, is likely to be the left faction candidate for the north-west Melbourne seat to be vacated when Shorten retires in February.
Shorten’s replacement as Labor candidate will be chosen by the national executive next week, along with a candidate for Gorton, to be vacated by former skills minister Brendan O’Connor.
The left faction believes it is owed the next safe seat in Melbourne but the right has the numbers in Maribyrnong. The two seats, both safe, are expected to be split one each to the left and right factions, but which goes to which is still to be determined.
Ronnie Hayden, the Victorian AWU secretary, told Guardian Australia: “We believe Bill’s replacement should be from the right, and from the AWU.” No candidate has been selected yet, and one Labor source said it was “mystery” who Shorten wanted to replace him.
From the left faction, Briskey is a former chief executive of not-for-profit The Parenthood and organiser in the Queensland United Voice branch, understood to have support from Queensland power broker Gary Bullock.
In a further complication, on Thursday the Australian Electoral Commission eliminated the Labor-held seat of Higgins, which leaves the right faction MP Michelle Ananda-Rajah without a seat.
In a statement Ananda-Rajah said the AEC’s decision left federal parliament “more male and less culturally diverse at a time when underrepresented people need to be seen and heard”.
“In the evolving story of our multicultural nation, this backward step will reverberate in our schools, suburbs and workplaces,” she said.
“The 47th parliament has been our most representative, predominantly because of the gender and cultural diversity of the 103 members of this Labor government.
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“My hope is that this diversity is not reduced in the 48th parliament. I commit to doing everything in my power to make that happen.”
With Ananda-Rajah signalling a possible run for Maribyrnong or Gorton, a left faction source said that the right “might try” to run her but she would enjoy “no support” to move west.
Sources from both factions scotched rumours that the right’s Peter Khalil could attempt a move from the inner-Melbourne seat of Wills to a safer seat to allow a left winger to contest the seat under threat from the Greens.
In Maria Vamvakinou’s seat of Calwell, Labor is expected to preselect her former adviser Basem Abdo, a Palestinian Australian who received her blessing when she retired in June.
