Labor fears Green-Liberal deal

Labor says a preference swap between the Liberals and Greens will keep the coalition in power.

Anthony Albanese.

Labor says a preference swap between the Liberals and Greens will keep the coalition in power. (AAP)

Greens preferences could help the Turnbull government stay in power, Labor has warned.

Opposition frontbencher Anthony Albanese faces a tough battle with the Greens to hold his inner-Sydney seat of Grayndler at the next election.

Mr Albanese says a preference deal has been struck between the Greens and the Liberals following an agreement between the two parties in parliament to back changes to the way senators are elected.

"That deal will see Liberals give preferences to the Greens ahead of Labor in Grayndler, Sydney, Melbourne, Batman, and Wills," he told reporters in Sydney on Tuesday.

The Greens would run "open tickets" - in which no direction was given on preferences - in the NSW seat of Richmond, and in the Victorian seats of Corangamite, Bruce, Chisholm, McEwen, Deakin and La Trobe, he said.

"A progressive party exchanging preferences with a conservative party, with Malcolm Turnbull as the spokesperson but all of Tony Abbott's policies, is quite extraordinary."

With polls showing Labor and the coalition running at 50-50 in two-party terms, minor party preferences will be crucial to winning marginal seats.

If the Greens can slip ahead of the Liberals to run second to Labor on primary votes in some tight seats, Liberal preferences could get Greens candidates over the line.

Greens candidate in Grayndler, Jim Casey, a fire fighters union official, told The Australian his how-to-vote cards would recommend putting Labor ahead of the Liberals.

Mr Albanese said the proof of the deal would be clear once the election campaign was under way.

Greens leader Richard Di Natale last week insisted no deal had been struck with the coalition.

Greens national co-convenor Giz Watson told AAP she had spoken to the party's preference negotiators and been assured no deals had been struck in any of the seats mentioned by Mr Albanese.

"No arrangements have been entered into, and to suggest that is jumping at shadows," she said.

However the party's negotiators would be speaking to the "full range of people" when it came to preferences.

"We are in politics to get people into parliament," Ms Watson said.

Running open tickets in some seats showed "respect" to people who wanted to make up their own mind on how to vote, she said.

A Liberal party spokesman rejected Mr Albanese's suggestion of a deal with the Greens.

"As the federal director of the Liberal party indicated last week, there is no such deal," the spokesman told AAP on Tuesday.

Liberal director Tony Nutt told a parliamentary committee last week talks between parties on preferences were part of the democratic process.

"At the end of the day decisions are made on preferencing. I have made no such decision," Mr Nutt said.


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Source: AAP



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