A push within the Victorian Labor party to knock off Kim Carr is gaining traction with the veteran senator set to face a preselection challenge before the federal election.
After the national takeover of the Victorian branch withstood a legal challenge from unions last week, party figures are turning their minds to the Victorian Senate ticket, which is yet to be resolved just weeks from an expected election campaign.
Carr is almost certain to be challenged from within the party’s left faction and there is mounting speculation that Kimberley Kitching could also face a contest. Senior party figures have become increasingly hostile to the first-term senator who was Bill Shorten’s controversial pick to replace Stephen Conroy in a casual vacancy in 2016.
Guardian Australia understands at least two people from within Carr’s own left faction are likely to nominate for the Senate ticket: Linda White, the former Australian Services Union assistant national secretary, and Ryan Batchelor, a former staffer to Julia Gillard and the executive director of the McKell Institute.
The labour lawyer Josh Bornstein, who previously expressed interest in nominating but then withdrew after a series of negative stories about historic tweets was published in the Australian, is also still considering a tilt.
Despite Carr indicating he will again contest the Senate position he has held since 1993, senior factional sources say he has lost both union and rank and file support from within the left in Victoria
“I don’t think anything can save Kim now,” one senior figure said.
Another said: “There is a strong argument for renewal and I don’t think there is any support for Kim having a fourth decade in the Senate.”
Carr and the federal Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, are longstanding political rivals, with Carr responsible for shifting a small but significant number of parliamentary numbers to install Shorten as leader ahead of Albanese in 2013.
Carr also publicly split with his left caucus colleagues in 2016 after they voted to remove him from the frontbench but he then formed his own mini-faction in defiance to ensure he remained in Shorten’s ministry.
Nominations are expected to open for the Senate positions before parliament resumes later this month, with the federal executive hoping a consensus candidate emerges from the left faction to take on Carr.
However, senior members of the Victorian left said they wanted the federal executive to put in train the process so that candidates can come forward and a consensus can then be reached.
It is understood that sitting Labor MP Andrew Giles is supporting Batchelor, while veteran left powerbroker Alan Griffin is supporting White.
Bornstein is understood to have lost significant support with his on-again off-again interest in the position, with doubts raised about his suitability for politics after a long career as an industrial lawyer.
Kevin Rudd, who relied on Carr for support to retake the leadership from Gillard, excoriated Bornstein in a piece in the Sydney Morning Herald last month, suggesting he could not be trusted by Labor members not to leave “when the going gets tough”.
However, Bornstein is understood to continue to be encouraged to run by his good friend and party veteran Greg Combet.
A 40-member selection panel of the Victorian left is expected to vote on a candidate to put forward to national executive as a replacement for Carr once a preselection process is established.
As the left closes in on Carr, party figures on the right are also in talks about the fate of Kimberley Kitching, who most recently antagonised colleagues after she used parliamentary privilege to name the Chinese billionaire Chau Chak Wing as “the puppeteer mentioned” in Asio boss Mike Burgess’s case study of an alleged foreign interference plot.
Burgess replied he would not comment on “speculation” about identities “and it’s unfair you ask me that question in public”.
While Kitching has little support within the Labor caucus, sources said it would be left to the fragmented Victorian right to determine whether to offer up a different candidate.
While dumping a one-term senator is unusual, it is not unprecedented, with Labor dumping the South Australian senator Linda Kirk in 2008 after one term after a falling out with the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association over her support for the abortion pill RU486.
