Anthony Albanese is confident he'll stave off a Greens assault on his inner-Sydney seat, as long as voters put a one next to his name.
He said although it would be a tight battle because of the redistribution, he could hold on to the seat of Grayndler he's represented since 1996.
"I'm confident I will get there as long as people know that if they want me to stay as their member they have to vote for me number one," he told the Nine Network.
"They can't afford to say it's OK we will give him number two."
Mr Albanese, a former deputy prime minister, believes the Liberals will recommend voters preference the Greens in exchange for open tickets where the Greens do not recommend preferencing Labor in other key marginals.
Labor admits it faces a tough fight to keep the long-time frontbencher in parliament with a Liberal-Greens preference deal.
"There's no doubt that the agreement in place between the Greens and the Liberals makes a number of our battles tougher," frontbencher Tony Burke told ABC radio on Wednesday.
Cabinet minister Mathias Cormann says any deal is a matter for the Liberal national campaign director Tony Nutt.
But flipping the argument, he warned there was a real risk of Labor doing a deal with the Greens and a return to the "bad old days" of the Gillard minority government.
Both major parties have ruled out doing a deal with the Greens to form government.
Meanwhile, Mr Albanese was low key on the Daily Telegraph's front page endorsement of him.
