Why Health Minister Mark Butler is being discussed as Labor’s next leader

This week is shaping as one of the biggest in Mark Butler’s career, as the Health Minister unveils sweeping changes to the National Disability Insurance Scheme, designed by his former leader Bill Shorten.

For months however, Government MPs have been closely tracking the steady political rise of the charismatic South Australian frontbencher, as they quietly contemplate Labor’s leadership options post Anthony Albanese.

“The big unknown for us is just when the PM will decide to eventually leave public life — most have assumed he would stay to fight for a third election win, but there is an outside chance he could quit before then,” one veteran Labor figure tells The Nightly.

In August this year Albanese is on track to overtake Labor hero Paul Keating’s four years and 82 days in office, to become Australia’s eleventh longest serving Prime Minister, a particularly historic feat for a leader from the party’s Left faction.

At the 2025 election the Prime Minister delivered a thumping 94 seats in the House of Representatives and with it an implied grasp on Labor’s leadership until after the next federal contest, due sometime in 2028.

“There is a wide held assumption in the media that Labor can’t lose the next election, but nothing is impossible in politics, and if Albo wanted to pull the pin before then he would make history as our first leader to leave on his own terms,” a colleague observes.

Inside Labor circles the popular belief is that the 63-year-old will stay on, but if he wants to hand over to a successor before then he could begin the transition process next year, and his most favoured option would be fellow Left faction ally Mark Butler.

“Albo got Butler to run for the National President of the ALP in 2015, and he has clearly been helping his political career ever since taking over from Bill Shorten after Labor’s 2019 election loss,” another Labor figure notes.

Albanese now commands leadership authority not seen in his party for over a decade, and for the first time in living memory Labor’s caucus is dominated by members from his own Left faction.

Under rules introduced by former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, the votes of rank-and-file party members, who tend to be more progressive than the 123-member parliamentary caucus, are also counted in leadership ballots.

Many in Labor believe Jim Chalmers remains the most obvious leadership successor, with the right-faction Queenslander widely considered the government’s best communicator and performer, but others believe his caucus numbers need to improve.

Victorian right faction leader, and deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, is considered another contender, with his support base in caucus believed to be greater than the Treasurer’s.

As Defence Minister Marles is the government’s most prominent defender of the US alliance, an unpopular position for many Labor party members, and he continues to wear the blame for last year’s removal of Mark Dreyfus and Ed Husic from cabinet.

There is also debate over what role right faction powerbroker Don Farrell would play in a future leadership contest, with the so-called “godfather” close to Marles and controlling votes from his home state of South Australia, as well as WA, Tasmania and the NT.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke, from Labor’s traditionally dominant New South Wales Right faction, enjoys strong support from the union movement as well as members of the “Never Marles” cohort who remain angry at the Deputy PM’s factional ploys.

Former deputy Labor leader Tanya Plibersek is still considered the most popular figure from the party’s left faction and would draw particularly strong support from rank-and-file members in a leadership ballot, but it’s not clear if she would contest.

“The Prime Minister has done his best to crush Tanya ever since taking over the leadership, he has still not forgiven her for joining forces with his rival Bill Shorten back in 2013,” claims a long-serving left-faction member.

Whether or not Albanese decides to step down from the Prime Ministership before the next election, Labor MPs increasingly believe he will eventually move to transfer his caucus numbers to Butler, which include members of the so called “Albo Right”.

If Plibersek decides against contesting any future leadership contest, and with a potential three-way split of right faction candidates in a left-dominated party, Mark Butler could very well emerge as an unlikely future Labor leader.

For now, the telegenic politician is boosting his public profile through regular morning appearances on Channel 7’s Sunrise, while also making popular spending announcements on Medicare and other health initiatives.

But Butler’s critics point out the former Shadow Climate Change Minister was the author of uncosted policies which damaged Bill Shorten’s 2019 campaign, and his career was essentially salvaged under Albanese, who he spent most of the 2025 campaign with.

South Australia has not produced a Prime Minister since Federation, although Labor’s long serving leader Bob Hawke was born in the state and Julia Gillard lived there, before they both moved to Victoria to begin their political careers.

Now the Canberra born Butler, elected to the seat of Port Adelaide in 2007, is increasingly discussed as a possible future Labor leader from the Left, but no one is actively counting numbers, yet.