The first shots have been fired and a bitter battle over Anthony Albanese's inner-Sydney seat of Grayndler has begun.
On the first day of the election campaign, Greens leader Richard Di Natale has struck at the traditional Labor seat where the minor party is fighting to get candidate Jim Casey elected.
Mr Albanese has been the local MP for 20 years and holds the seat with a near 19 per cent margin.
But a shift in demographics over the years has resulted in an increased vote for the Greens, which hold two state seats within the Grayndler boundaries.
The Labor frontbencher is angry the Greens have focused on taking a Labor seat rather than campaigning against a coalition government.
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"If they say they're committed to opposing the Coalition government's conservative agenda, then they might like to try campaigning against Coalition members," Mr Albanese told reporters in Grayndler on Monday.
Instead, the Greens were focused on giving Adam Bandt someone to talk to, he said.
Senator Di Natale said he wouldn't be backing down.
"We will be taking the fight right up to Anthony Albanese. I am very confident that we will give this seat an almighty shake," he told reporters in Petersham.
"Jim is not somebody who just talks about progressive values."
Mr Albanese said the Greens had an arrangement to garner coalition preferences in seats the minor party thought it could win, in exchange for not telling people to vote against marginal Liberals.
"That is very deliberately the conscious strategy that they have and I think progressives will have a backlash," he said.
But Senator Di Natale rejected claims the move was preferencing Liberals, encouraging voters to choose their own preferences on the voting ballot.
"It's really how you back (rhetoric) up with substance ... the Greens, unlike Labor and Anthony Albanese, we haven't voted to lock up young kids."
