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Posted: 2024-11-21 23:07:11

Labor MP Michelle Ananda-Rajah will make a tilt at a Senate seat after her inner-Melbourne electorate of Higgins was abolished this year. 

Dr Ananda-Rajah was among a small band of Labor candidates who flipped seats from incumbent Liberals at the 2022 election, helping Prime Minister Anthony Albanese form government.

But her status was short-lived as the Australian Electoral Commission wiped her electorate off the map in a state-wide redistribution.

She'll now take the third spot on the Labor's Victorian Senate ticket, behind senators Raff Ciccone and Jess Walsh who were elected for the first time in 2019 and are both seeking fresh six-year terms.

Labor hasn't won three senate spots in the state since Kevin Rudd's landslide victory in 2007 and Dr Ananda-Rajah concedes it'll be a tough battle in 2025.

"I love a challenge … I won the unwinnable seat, so I've already done crazy and impossible," she told the ABC.

"It's been an enormous honour to serve as the first Labor member for Higgins, and the last ever member."

The infectious diseases specialist secured a 4 per cent swing in Higgins, ousting fellow doctor and Liberal MP Katie Allen in a seat once held by federal treasurer Peter Costello and regarded as blue ribbon conservative heartland.

Dr Allen, who had planned to recontest that seat, has now shifted as the Liberal candidate into the neighbouring Chisholm electorate, aiming to beat incumbent Labor MP Carina Garland.

For Dr Ananda-Rajah to switch chambers, the Labor Party would have to secure enough support to grab the sixth and final Victorian Senate seat.

The 51-year-old medic is undaunted.

"I have more to give," she said

"Despite the dysfunctionality of this place it still gets things done, and there really is, as Gillard said, nothing like politics for speed and for scale."

But ABC election analyst Antony Green said Labor would have to drastically increase its vote.

"It's highly unlikely," he said.

"Labor would need close to 40 per cent of the vote to compete. [They] got near there in 2007 and that was the last time they elected three senators from Victoria."

He said at the last election Labor picked up about 31 per cent of the vote to claim two spots.

"The Labor Party to get a third seat will be competing with a third Liberal and the lead Green candidate, the Labor party vote just hasn't been high enough."

If Labor doesn't win the third spot, Dr Ananda-Rajah could still be considered for future Senate vacancies by others in the party retiring.

The journey from the House of Representatives to the Senate has been travelled by a few in recent years.

Defeated Liberal MP Dave Sharma re-emerged as a Liberal senator for New South Wales and former Corangamite MP Sarah Henderson also made the switch to become a Victorian Liberal senator.

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