By Charlotte Karp For Daily Mail Australia
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Follow Daily Mail Australia’s live coverage of Anthony Albanese‘s cabinet reshuffle.
Reshuffle revealed: Who will Albo promote?
Senator Malarndirri McCarthy will become the new Indigenous Australians Minister, according to Sky News.
It is strongly believed that Immigration Minister Andrew Giles and Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil could be moved from their ministerial roles into new portfolios.
But major portfolios could remain in the same hands.
Defence will likely stay with Richard Marles, Treasurer will stay with Jim Chalmers and the Energy portfolio will likely stay with Chris Bowen.
There is also growing speculation the Home Affairs department could be reorganised.
Mr Marles told Sky on Sunday that he would not rule out a potential refit of the department.
‘All will be revealed, I’m not going to preempt any of that,’ he said.
‘There is a opportunity to refresh the front bench, the Prime Minister is taking that opportunity.’
‘This comes after a remarkably stable ministry in the first term of the Albanese government.’
NSW senator Jenny McAllister is tipped to be promoted to the outer ministry while Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy or Veterans Affairs Minister Matt Keogh could be promoted to the Cabinet.
Mr Albanese will announce the reshuffle on Sunday afternoon.
Shadow minister slams Anthony Albanese for initially appointing Clare O’Neil and Andrew Giles: ‘Two crazy decisions’
Shadow home affairs minister James Paterson has slammed Anthony Albanese for initially appointing Clare O’Neil and Andrew Giles into the home affairs and immigration portfolios.
He told Sky News they were ‘two crazy decisions’.
‘After the election he appointed Clare O’Neil, who had demonstrated no interest or expertise in national security to her first portfolio in cabinet as the home affairs minister without any experience,’ he said.
‘Andrew Giles, someone who has spent his public life fighting against strong border protection policies to protect the community as the immigration minister.’
‘It will be an admission of failure and an admission of fault by the prime minister if they are moved today, but I think a lot of Australians will be hoping for that given the chaos we’ve seen over the past two years.’
How Anthony Albanese’s Cabinet reshuffle will unfold
The factional bosses sit down and determine who from within their faction gets to enter the Labor ministry.
There are 30 ministerial positions all up, most in Cabinet, some in the outer ministry. The Right faction is allocated roughly half the positions, the Left faction gets the rest.
The PM will be handed a piece of paper with exactly who will be part of his ministry by each faction.
After that, he is given some power: he chooses the portfolios for everyone other than the deputy PM, Richard Marles, who as deputy has the right to choose his portfolio.
Because the two retiring ministers, Linda Burney and Brendan O’Connor, are from the Left, that faction will pick two new entrants to the ministry to replace them
The word is that one will be the assistant minister for Indigenous Affairs, Senator Malarndirri McCarthy.
The other is a choice between three other assistant ministers: Patrick Gorman and Senators Tim Ayres and Jenny McAllister, and one junior minister Stephen Jones.
While there are four possibilities to take up the other vacant cabinet role, there are really only two choices being considered: Senators McAllister and Ayres, with Ayres the frontrunner to secure the promotion, largely because he and Albo are good mates.
McAllister is still a chance because she’s in the Left (like the rest of the options) and she’s a senator (like Ayres). Apparently team Labor is keen to boost the number of senators holding ministerial portfolios.
Currently, there are only four, but if the two retirements are replaced by a pair of senators that number jumps to six, which makes the business of the Senate easier.
‘Death taxes’ and goodbye to negative gearing: Read the list of enormous changes looming for Australia
Opinion polls are now consistently predicting the next election will be closer than that of 2022, so the chances of a hung parliament have risen sharply.
The likelihood is growing that the Greens and the ‘teal’ independents will decide which major party forms government for the next three years: Anthony Albanese’s Labor Party, or the Coalition led by Peter Dutton.
With Labor likely to win more seats than the Coalition, a hung parliament would see the Greens become either a formal partner in government – as they were under the Gillard government – or a strong third party with the power to dictate terms to a weakened Labor administration.
The implications for national policy are enormous given the Greens’ agenda to radically alter the way the economy operates, how climate change should be addressed, and even the way Australia should respond to the pro-Palestinian movement.
If a re-elected Albanese government lacks the numbers to govern on its own terms, it will be almost impossible to resist concessions to the Greens on some or all of these fronts.
If Albo doesn’t strike a deal and tries to push through, his very survival would depend on crossbenchers not supporting a vote of no confidence which would trigger another election, perhaps just weeks later.
Given the fragile state of the Australian economy and the challenges voters are facing dealing with cost of living pressures, such volatility in Canberra risks making a bad situation even worse.
The Labor politicians in the front running for a promotion
Anthony Albanese will announce his first reshuffle on Sunday since Labor won power in 2022.
The announcement will be made on Sunday, though hotly tipped to get Ms Burney’s position is Malarndirri McCarthy – an Indigenous senator from the Northern Territory.
This would allow the Government to move beyond the humiliating defeat and try to reframe its policies and goals for Indigenous Australians.
Tasmanian senator Carol Brown announced on Saturday she would step aside from her position as assistant minister for transport and infrastructure.
Ms Brown is stepping back for health reasons and will stay in parliament, but it does create an opening in the outer ministry.
NSW senator Jenny McAllister is tipped to be promoted to the outer ministry while Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy or Veterans Affairs Minister Matt Keogh could be promoted to the Cabinet.
Further openings could be made by sacking people, but it’s unlikely because it would give the Coalition a chance to crow that incompetent ministers are causing the Government to fall apart.
Instead, Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil and Immigration Minister Andrew Giles could likely to be moved to other positions, rather than being sacked.
The Opposition has been calling for both of them to be sacked since the High Court’s NZYQ ruling late last year led to convicted criminal asylum seekers being released from indefinite detention because no other country will take them.
Another 72 were convicted of assault and violent offending, including kidnapping and armed robbery, 16 had domestic violence and stalking convictions and 13 committed serious drug offending.
High Court rulings are separate from governmental decisions, but the Labor ministers took the brunt of the criticism.
Murray Watt, who is currently the Agriculture Minister, could be promoted to the Home Affairs portfolio to replace Ms O’Neil.
Another possibility is that Industrial Relations Minister Tony Burke could take over Home Affairs, with Mr Watt then replacing him in industrial relations.
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Reshuffle revealed: Who will Albo promote?
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Shadow minister slams Anthony Albanese for initially appointing Clare O’Neil and Andrew Giles: ‘Two crazy decisions’
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How Anthony Albanese’s Cabinet reshuffle will unfold
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The Labor politicians in the front running for a promotion
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Anthony Albanese cabinet reshuffle: Prime Minister to announce new cabinet and ministry