2/2 " With the national Left more united than at any other stage in its modern history, it has become clear in recent weeks that the faction’s pick to succeed Albanese – whenever that moment arrives – will be Health Minister Mark Butler. Butler, a South Australian who ran Albanese’s campaign in the 2013 leadership ballot, has lately drawn a flurry of media attention, including a long profile in The Australian Financial Review that disclosed Butler’s hitherto unknown role in persuading then assistant treasurer Stephen Jones, a Left faction MP from NSW, to announce his retirement from politics before the last election. “That’s the call that people fear and resist the most,” says another Labor insider. “And the fact that it came from Butler is significant.” The only other contender the Albanese camp take seriously is Treasurer Jim Chalmers. Although he can count on only a handful of Queensland MPs as certain votes in any future ballot, Chalmers is widely regarded as the government’s best communicator, with the broadest electoral appeal. Crucially, he also enjoys considerable support among the party’s rank-and-file members, whose votes now carry equal weight with those of the federal caucus since a 2013 rule change. Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles enjoys the strong support of the Victorian Right but little support in caucus outside his home state. Marles’s position as the government’s chief proponent of the AUKUS submarine pact, which is deeply unpopular among the party’s rank-and-file membership, is another major hurdle he is unlikely to be able to overcome. “Richard, and I think even he would admit this deep down, is definitely a future foreign minister but is not a future prime minister, and he probably has AUKUS to blame for that,” says one Labor adviser. Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke, who as leader of the House is one of the government’s most powerful ministers and who has never hidden his ambition to be leader, nevertheless enjoys little support outside his home state of NSW, and is thought to have even less support among grassroots members. Finally, there is Tanya Plibersek, who would struggle to unite the national Left behind her. This is despite being a fellow member of Albanese’s NSW Left sub-faction, and probably the MP who resonates most with the party’s rank and file. Although Plibersek voted for Albanese in the 2013 leadership ballot, he cannot forgive the gusto with which she served Shorten as deputy for six years. Another blot on her copybook is that, on being appointed environment minister in 2022, she was seen to have complained too loudly about missing out on education, the portfolio she had expected. “Looking four or five years ahead, that’s the way it looks now,” says one Albanese confidant. “Of course, a lot can change between now and then.” Thirteen years, almost to the day, since he first ran for the Labor leadership and lost, Albanese presides over a party in which his faction holds unprecedented sway, with a successor-in-waiting drawn from its ranks and the once-feared NSW Right reduced, in some quarters, to a punchline. A long, long time ago, Albanese said he picked a side. He has never stopped counting those who didn’t pick his. "