Labor leadership vote in Canberra must be kept secret - NEWS.com.au

Who will Labor choose - Anthony Albanese or Bill Shorten? Picture: Kym Smith Source: News Limited

IT IS Australia's biggest political secret: Who does the Labor caucus want as its leader for the next three years?

And it will be the job of the ALP to make sure it stays a secret for the next three days.

The 86 Labor MPs and senators who survived the September 7 election will vote in Canberra this afternoon and choose between Anthony Albanese and Bill Shorten for Leader of the Opposition.

The plan is to keep the result of that ballot confidential until Sunday when the postal votes of rank-and-file party members are counted.

The caucus ballot will be 50 per cent of the final outcome and the party membership the remaining 50 per cent.

But the rank-and-file have until tomorrow to submit their votes and ALP organisers don't want a leak of today's outcome to influence any late ballots.

Not all caucus members will make it to Canberra with the no-shows mailing in their selections.

Labor sources have downplayed suggestions the dominant right faction will vote exclusively for Mr Shorten and the left for Mr Albanese.

The sources said the outcome was unlikely to be along clean factional lines.

The two candidates will each make 10-minute statements to the special caucus meeting and the ballot will be held. Caucus by itself will later elect a deputy leader.

The internal vote across the ALP's parliamentary and organisational members has never been attempted before but so far no major mistakes have been reported.

The voting process has exhausted those involved who moved from the general election campaign to the equally demanding party leadership national campaign almost straight away.

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