The NSW Right faction has, for decades, been the kingmaker of the Labor Party, making and breaking prime ministers and party leaders from Gough Whitlam to Kevin Rudd. But it has a new nickname in the corridors of Parliament House: the “Albo Right”.
Albanese’s total dominance of his 123-member caucus has led to a decline in the power of the Right, and it’s submission to a left-wing leader. It is a state of affairs that was once unthinkable.
The prime minister has used the levers he knows best, playing the ALP’s factions to rise to power and implement his plan for Labor to be what he calls the “natural party of government”.
There is nothing secretive about who belongs to which faction, but it is rare that an MP will talk on the record about how the machinery of each grouping works to gain power or get results. To build a picture of how power is wielded this term, we spoke to nine MPs on background, from senior cabinet ministers to backbenchers, to show you what goes on behind the scenes.
Asked if the designation “Albo Right” is accurate, a senior member of the faction concedes “that is a fair description of it”.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has a strong hold over the current Labor caucus.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
“There are differences when it comes to pre-selection and things like that, where people want to put forward their own candidates, but it would be unthinkable for there to be a moment where anyone from the NSW Right was positioning to do anything other than back Albo. He will be there for a very long time.”
The only other party leader from the Left since the factions were formalised in the 1970s was Julia Gillard. But Gillard was only notionally of the Left: her group, the relatively smaller “soft” or Ferguson Left regularly sided with the Right faction over the years.
Anthony Albanese is different. He has been one of the leading figures in Labor’s “hard” Left for more than three decades and has played a role, indirectly and directly, in weakening the Soft Left and the Right’s numbers in federal parliament.
Factions matter because they determine the make-up of the cabinet, the ministry, the chairmanships of committees and more. More numbers in a faction equals more influence on these decisions. When the factions are working properly, the debates between them help frame the parameters of policy debate and spur a genuine contest of ideas, though old hands question how much of a contest there is in Albanese’s compliant caucus.
Loading
When I first wrote a piece identifying which Labor MPs belong to which faction in 2021, Albanese was opposition leader and led a caucus that had 94 members across the House and the Senate, with 43 MPs in the Left, 49 in the Right and two non-aligned.
The May 2022 election increased the caucus to 103 people, and the Right remained dominant with 53 MPs, while the Left had 48 MPs.
Those numbers improved for the Left dramatically after this year’s election when the number of people in caucus rose to 123 MPs, including 63 in the Left – a rare majority for the prime minister’s own faction – 58 in the Right and two non-aligned.
The full ministry is split 15-15 between the two factions, a shift from 16-14 favouring the Right.
And in the inner circle of decision-making, the cabinet, 12 are on the Left while 11 are from the Right (a change from the 10-13 arrangement that prevailed for years).
Does it matter that the Left has a majority in cabinet? Historically, the party’s Right faction has been centrist, economically dry and more socially conservative while the Left has been more socially progressive and supportive of government intervention in the economy. Those descriptions aren’t as true as they once were, but they’re a good starting point.
The Left’s razor-edge cabinet majority means the government could lean in on more socially progressive policies at times. In practical terms, that could increase the chances of a pension rise, a tax on trusts or a more ambitious 2035 emissions reduction target.
But one senior figure from the Left, who asked not to be named, insists the cabinet is faction-free: “Once you’re on the front bench you lose that, there’s no factions around the cabinet table.”
Another says the Left’s caucus and cabinet majorities means the (historically) more rebellious faction is less likely to challenge the prime minister or cause internal trouble because “our guy is the PM”.
“It remains to be seen what it means for policy.”
States, unions and sub-factions
NSW, Australia’s oldest and most populous state, still dominates the cabinet and the NSW Right is still the largest single faction, with 19 caucus members. The faction has four cabinet ministers.
But the perception that it has become the “Albo Right”, ready and willing to roll over for the PM, stings.
Some in the union movement and Labor’s NSW head office are upset about their waning influence and independence and plan to change that this term.
Power players: Chris Bowen and Tony Burke.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
The most senior public figures in the NSW Right are Tony Burke and Chris Bowen, the home affairs and climate change ministers respectively. They have been allies and leadership rivals for years. But the Bowen v Burke dynamic has receded as there is simply no prospect of a leadership contest anytime soon.
Andrew Charlton, an economist and second-term MP, is the Right’s rising star and next in line for promotion, but he may have to be patient – senior ministers Burke, Bowen, Jason Clare, Michelle Rowland and Kristy McBain are ahead of him in the queue. Former cabinet minister Ed Husic has not ruled out pushing for a comeback, even though he is also carving out a new role as the government’s chief critic on the inside.
The NSW Left, Albanese’s faction, is ascendant. It has slowly increased its numbers in parliament to a total of 13 MPs, and it also has four members of cabinet – Albanese, Tanya Plibersek, Tim Ayres and Pat Conroy.
Victoria
A Labor stronghold for decades at state and federal levels, Victoria has been dudded badly in the second Albanese ministry.
Like NSW, the state elected 32 Labor MPs at the 2025 election (16 from the Left and 16 from the Right compared with 13-19 in NSW). But Victoria has just three spots in the cabinet (the Left’s Catherine King and the Right’s Richard Marles and Clare O’Neil) compared with NSW’s eight. Victoria has three spots in the outer ministry, compared with NSW’s two.
Senior figures from NSW offer a one-word explanation: experience.
NSW MPs have a lot more of it in terms of years served, including Burke, Bowen, Plibersek, Rowland, Clare and, of course, Albanese, while many of the Victorians are serving their first or second term.
It’s a fair observation, but it will not wash for long. Daniel Mulino, Jess Walsh and Sam Rae were Victorians promoted to the outer ministry as part of the renewal process at the start of this term. Those three have their eyes on cabinet posts, while ambitious MPs including Andrew Giles, Peter Khalil, and Julian Hill are all looking to move up, too.
Former attorney-general Mark Dreyfus is tipped to retire in a matter of months after his brutal factional execution by Marles and Rae.
The reason Dreyfus was axed was simple: Marles is aligned with the Transport Workers Union and for years has been locked in a fierce contest for factional influence in the state with former leader Bill Shorten, whose power base within Labor grew out of the Australian Workers Union.
Richard Marles and Mark Dreyfus – pictured here in 2016 – entered parliament in 2007, are in the same faction, and come from the same state. Yet Marles still played a part in Dreyfus’ removal as attorney-general.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Over time, as Albanese has entrenched his hold on the party leadership, his deputy, Marles, has done the same in the Victorian Right. The number of transport workers-aligned MPs has grown, to the point where they have the edge on a diminished AWU.
When Clare O’Neil switched to the AWU group (from another now-extinct union-aligned group) last term, the writing was on the wall for Dreyfus. Marles was never going to allow the smaller Australian workers group two cabinet spots and his own TWU group only one.
So Marles’ close ally Rae moved up to the outer ministry.
Queensland
The Sunshine State is in a state of flux after electing nine new members (including seven from the Left) in Coalition-held seats and replacing a couple of retiring members, too.
Aside from 2025 and the 2007 “Rudd-slide” election, Queensland has been an electoral graveyard for federal Labor for decades. Now the party has a chance to change that.
The Left is now the largest grouping in the state, which overall has 16 seats (the same as Western Australia), up from six at the last election, and it has three posts in cabinet, like Victoria.
The big swing to Labor in the Sunshine state has seen the so-called “Old Guard” Right sub-faction – which has counted Kevin Rudd and Arch Bevis as members – return to federal parliament after more than a decade, but with a twist.
The Old Guard is now aligned with the Left, rather than the Right, after a realignment of unions in Queensland and in state politics.
Chalmers is the most senior MP from Queensland, and he is in the Right, while the treasurer’s key consiglieri is senator Anthony Chisholm. But the pair do not command a large group and fellow cabinet minister Anika Wells, also on the Right, is widely considered a rising star in the party and a possible future rival to Chalmers.
The small states
Veteran senator and trade minister Don Farrell, widely known as the Godfather (he even has a wine label that riffs on the nickname) leads the so-called “small states” faction of the Right, which includes WA, SA, Tasmania and the NT.
Farrell is a product of the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees’ Association, also known as the Shoppies, which is the most socially conservative union-Labor grouping and has MPs in just about every state and territory.
The “small-state” grouping has helped deliver outsized power to the smaller states, particularly South Australia. Though it has only 12 MPs in parliament across the Left and Right, SA has four cabinet ministers (Penny Wong, Farrell, Mark Butler and Amanda Rishworth) which is more than Queensland, Victoria or WA and way more than Tasmania, which also has 12 Labor MPs and senators but has only one cabinet post, Agriculture Minister Julie Collins.
Farrell’s group (and the fact that the Left’s Wong is also from South Australia) ensures that the smaller Australian states have a voice that is heard around the cabinet table and in the caucus.
The Praetorian Guard
No analysis of the Albanese government would be complete without a look at the concentric circles of trust Albanese has created over years in the leadership and decades in the parliament.
The core group of MPs who are Albanese’s eyes and ears in caucus, known as his Praetorian Guard, hasn’t much changed since he became leader in 2019.
They include cabinet ministers Tim Ayres and Pat Conroy from NSW, minister Andrew Giles from Victoria and Murray “Mr Fixit” Watt from Queensland. There’s a second tier of more junior MPs including Patrick Gorman, Karen Grogan and Julian Hill who play a similar role.
And then there are Albanese’s closest political confidantes, who include senior ministers Wong, Katy Gallagher and Butler, who are all in the cabinet and the Left, as well as Burke, Farrell, Marles and Chalmers.
As prime minister, Albanese does not attend faction meetings any more. But there is little that happens in caucus without him knowing and, as the factional map of the 2025 caucus shows, his power has reached a new peak. How long he maintains this hold remains to be seen.
Read More
