At a dusty construction site for the Suburban Rail Loop, a group of state parliamentarians gave the Victorian premier the kind of standing ovation on Monday normally reserved for a political leader who has just won an election.

It was a moment that encapsulates a post-election battle raging inside the Victorian Labor Party between Jacinta Allan’s supporters and detractors over the meaning of Saturday’s result.

Jacinta Allan has claimed Labor’s federal election victory as a win for the Suburban Rail Loop. Credit: Chris Hopkins

Allan said the federal result delivered her government a fresh popular mandate to push ahead with the SRL and reaffirmed majority support for the values championed by Victorian Labor.

The minister responsible for the SRL, Harriet Shing, said Victorians had now backed the project at a federal and state level at four elections.

However, former senator and right-faction power broker Stephen Conroy said it was “delusional” for Allan to argue that her government had helped deliver federal Labor a second term in office.

“The people who were door-knocking across Melbourne all had a toxic view towards the Victorian state Labor government,” he told Sky News. “It is just the reality.

“For her to pretend that her policy agenda delivered the results that Anthony Albanese delivered is just offensive to all of the federal Labor candidates and MPs across Victoria.”

Another senior party figure, unauthorised to speak publicly about internal matters, warned of state Labor misreading the lessons of the federal poll. “The concern here is the state caucus gets lulled into a false sense of security from the federal result. We still have deep, deep issues with state Labor.”

The federal Liberals looked to tie Albanese to Allan in key federal seats with flyers and posters depicting both leaders under the title........

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