Anger in the Victorian Labor Party is reaching boiling point, amid allegations that some Andrews' government MPs have colluded against their own party with the Liberal opposition.
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The accusations highlight the internal instability facing Premier Daniel Andrews and have brought Labor's in-house fight over plum safe seats to a new level of bitterness.
Labor figures say the alleged "treachery" is worse than anything seen in the party since the DLP split of the 1950s.
Two weeks ago, during a fiery question time in State Parliament, the Liberals fired off a series of accusations about an aspiring ALP candidate.
Now many Labor members, MPs and even ministers are seething, believing the allegations were supplied to the Opposition from within the ALP's own ranks.
Opposition education spokesman Tim Smith used question time to accuse would-be Labor candidate Jasvinder Sidhu of using a community volunteer group to pay for party memberships and to stack branches.
Liberal and Nationals MPs openly taunted the Premier, with the opposition shouting across the chamber at Mr Andrews that the allegations were coming "from your side".
Mr Sidhu denies the claims, made under parliamentary privilege, and Consumer Affairs Victoria is "making inquiries" about the volunteer group Let's Feed Inc.
The belief that Labor caucus members were working with the Liberals is widespread in the ALP but not universal, with one frontbencher telling The Age they believed there was no conclusive proof of such collusion.
But another senior party figure said they and their colleagues were in no doubt that the allegations came from Labor and that bitterness within the party would last long after the preselections were settled.
"There was a line," the well-placed source said.
"You never went to the Liberal Party to help attack your factional enemies, it was a line you just didn't cross
"The last time we saw this kind of behaviour was in the [Democratic Labor Party] split of the 1950s."
Internal Labor suspicions were heightened by the timing of Mr Smith's attack, on the day Labor MPs aligned with the National Union of Workers were due to meet to decide who to back in the pre-selections.
The union's stance, and its votes on Labor's public office selection committee, can make or break pre-selection hopefuls such as Mr Sidhu and the parliamentary attack was described by one senior party figure as a "factional drive-by".
Some of the six MPs aligned with the union, including Treasurer Tim Pallas, were understood to be furious after the day's events in Parliament and the meeting ended without resolving which candidates the union would support.
Mr Pallas declined to discuss the events.
The party's painful pre-selection process is set to come to an end on Wednesday evening when the selection committee casts its votes and chooses Labor's candidates in a number of seats for next year's state election.
Mr Smith declined to comment on the origin of the material supporting his questions.
When asked if Mr Andrews was aware of the suspicions of collusion, the Premier's office was dismissive of the attacks and of the claims of bad blood within Labor's parliamentary ranks.
"Only the Liberals could have come up with questions that bad in Parliament," a spokesperson said.
