The Victorian Labor Left faction is pushing to snatch the seat from the Right,with the party’s national executive to formally select the new candidate in the coming weeks after the Victorian branch was placed in administration following the Somyurek scandal.
The Right-aligned Shop,Distributive and Allied Employees’ Association,which has historically controlled the seat,is floating Stephen Parnis,an ER doctor and former vice president of the Australian Medical Association,as a potential candidate.
However,senior members of the state’s Left and Right factions concurred that union official Jo Briskey would likely be the Left’s first choice for the seat if the faction,which controls the numbers in the seat,was successful in taking it from the Right.
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Mr Byrne was contacted for comment. Two Labor sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity said he was not happy about leaving the seat and he had complained to colleagues about being forced out.
One senior member of the Right,who asked not to be named so he could discuss internal party matters,said that an alliance between the SDA and the Left faction meant that it was likely “the Left will have to suck it up and do what the SDA tells them to do” in the end.
A senior member in the Left said there was a strong desire to install a woman in the seat,so that Labor could continue to meet its gender targets,but conceded the Right was in the box seat to retain its hold on Holt. Ms Briskey,a United Workers Union official,ran for the Queensland federal seat of Bonner in 2019,but has since moved to Melbourne.