Northern Territory Senator Malarndiri McCarthy and NSW Senator Jenny McAllister are expected to become ministers when Premier Anthony Albanese announces his first cabinet reshuffle later on Sunday.
The big change came after two of Labour’s most prominent members, Brendan O’Connor and Linda Burney, announced they would retire at the next election.
Sky News reported that Senator McCarthy is likely to become the new Minister for Indigenous Peoples in Australia.
The reshuffle is expected to be minor, with key portfolios remaining in the same hands; Richard Marles is likely to remain defence secretary, Jim Chalmers will remain treasurer and Chris Bowen will likely hold the energy portfolio, Sky News reported.
But it is believed that Immigration Minister Andrew Giles and Home Affairs Minister Claire O’Neill could be moved from their ministerial roles in the reshuffle to new portfolios.
Speaking to Sky News on Sunday morning, Marles refused to rule out the possibility of a management redesign.
“Everything will be revealed, and I will not anticipate any of this,” he said.
Ms O’Neill and Mr Giles have faced months of criticism after a series of failures in their posts, including a High Court ruling in NZYQ that forced the release of immigration detainees, some of whom had committed crimes against Australians.
The cabinet reshuffle comes as the government prepares for expected early elections.
“There is an opportunity to renew the front row, and the prime minister is seizing that opportunity,” Mr Marles said.
“This comes after a remarkable stability for the ministry in the first term of the Albanian government.”
On ABC’s Insiders, news.com.au political editor Samantha Maiden suggested that current Industrial Relations Minister Tony Burke could become the new Home Affairs Minister, with current Agriculture Minister Murray Watt moving from agriculture to take over industrial relations.
“The big part of this reshuffle is who will take over the Home Affairs portfolio, and I’ve been told the answer to that question is Tony Burke,” she said on Sunday morning.
“The proposal is what the Prime Minister is considering and has not yet announced, which is to do some job swaps if you like, where you put Murray Watt in industrial relations and give industrial relations – you take Tony Burke and you put Tony Burke in home affairs.
“If that’s the case, Tony Burke has dealt with immigration issues before. He’s a right-wing Labour person, and we want to make sure that all the national security portfolios are held by a right-wing Labour person.”
Sky News expected that the current Watt may be a candidate for promotion to the Ministry of the Interior.
Liberal Senator James Paterson, responding to the motion in an agenda, said he feared Mr Watt would be “worse” than Ms O’Neill in the role.
Senator Paterson said Mr Watt was opposed to offshore processing, referring to a motion the Queensland senator tabled at the 2015 Labor Party conference opposing the policy.
Ms McAllister has been a Senator since 2015. She served as National Chair of the Labor Party between 2011 and 2015.
Ms McCarthy is a Yanyuwa woman from the Gulf State in the Northern Territory.
She was elected to the Senate in 2016 and again in 2019. Before politics, she worked as a journalist with the ABC, then SBS and NITV.
Mr O’Connor, who served as Immigration and Home Affairs Minister in previous Labor governments, said border control was a key element in securing government and maintaining voter confidence.
“Over time, and certainly being in two very sensitive portfolios, the Home Affairs Department and the Immigration Department, I realised that we had to really think about our policies and I am very proud of the fact that I helped change the platform and policies of the Australian Labor Party,” he said.
“Well, it took a number of national conferences, but I really believe that if we don’t change dramatically, we’re not going to be an electable political party, and thanks to the great Australian Labor Party, those changes have been made, but it hasn’t been easy.”
He also said the party had suffered from the effects of the post-2001 elections, and that its top leaders were focused on maintaining unity and stability in the government.
“The only thing the current government understands is that we do not want and will not return to this behaviour,” he said.
“And in fact, the Cabinet is full of ministers who have been through some of those tough times, and that really affects our current behaviour – a unified, cohesive and organised Cabinet.”
The cabinet reshuffle on Sunday comes as a new Redbridge poll showed the Coalition ahead of the government on a two-party preference basis.
Peter Dutton’s Liberal National Party now leads Labor by 51.5 per cent to 48.5 per cent.
In April, the same polling firm showed the government leading by 52% to 48%.
The company said the shift came as low- and middle-income voters moved to the coalition camp.
