Steve Georganas also to move seats under deal that will give right faction another winnable Senate spot

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

The outgoing Labor president, Mark Butler, and MP Steve Georganas will move seats in a factional deal set to keep them in the lower house and grant the Labor right another winnable spot on the Senate ticket.

Butler, who is Labor’s climate change spokesman and whose seat of Port Adelaide was abolished by the Australian Electoral Commission, will move to Georganas’s seat of Hindmarsh, and Georganas will replace the retiring MP Kate Ellis in the seat of Adelaide.

The amicable arrangement in South Australia marks a contrast with the unfolding ructions in Victoria, where Bill Shorten faces a test over whether to accommodate the demands of the emerging rightwing powerbroker Adem Somyurek as the party decides preselection for several vacant seats.

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In South Australia, Guardian Australia understands that in return for Georganas, a member of the left faction, replacing Ellis, a member of the right, the right will be given the top two positions on the party’s Senate ticket.



That would mean senator Alex Gallacher and another right faction candidate take the top two spots, in a bid to join the Labor leader in the Senate, Penny Wong, and deputy leader Don Farrell, who both have six-year terms.

In a statement, Butler said the electoral redistribution meant he is now the only MP who lives and has their electorate office in the new boundaries of Hindmarsh, which includes 60,000 voters from both of his and Georganas’ seats.

Both Georganas and Butler said they were happy the other had put their hand up for preselection in the neighbouring seats.

Butler told ABC Radio he had not been part of negotiations about the trade-off but did not deny the right will get the top two Senate spots.

Butler said the South Australian branch “perhaps more than any other branch of the Labor party in the country” has a record of a “mature, sensible approach” to internal deliberations.

In Victoria, vacancies have been created by the retirement of Michael Danby from Melbourne Ports (now MacNamara), Jenny Macklin in Jagajaga and the creation of a new seat in Melbourne’s west, Fraser.

Somyurek and the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union want to shift a state MP into the federal parliament to allow the former Victorian emergency services minister Jane Garrett to stay in state parliament in a new seat.

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The move is opposed by the United Firefighters Union and adherents of the stability pact negotiated between the right’s Steven Conroy and the veteran leftwinger Kim Carr’s socialist left faction.

Shorten must first decide whether to contest his seat of Maribyrnong or shift to the new seat of Fraser then decide whether to accommodate Somyurek’s demands before Labor candidates to fill the vacancies are chosen.

Guardian Australia understands the left are keen to preselect Ryan Batchelor, the former adviser to Julia Gillard and Macklin’s former chief of staff, in Jagajaga but will only be able to do so if a woman is preselected elsewhere, due to affirmative action rules.

In MacNamara the former Danby staffer Josh Burns may benefit from a fight between the other candidates after Mary Delahunty accused Danby of calling an undemocratic meeting to anoint Nick Dyrenfurth his successor.

The Labor national executive will meet on Friday, in a meeting expected to confirm a federal takeover of the preselection process to conclude before the five Super Saturday byelections on 28 July.

Shorten has not commented on the Victorian preselections since 10 July, when he issued a public warning to factional powerbrokers against targeting sitting MPs, declaring that with state and federal contests looming the ALP needs stability.