Who is the "lion of the Left"?

A while ago I noticed something interesting. It appears that, for some reason, journalist Tracey Spicer, who has become the leader of the Me Too movement in Australia, has retracted an interesting detail from an article that she wrote for the Daily Telegraph that was published on April 29th 2018, and some time after publication that article was put behind a paywall. That article is about sexual assault accusations in regard to famous or powerful Australians. I'm quite sure I read the article in the original form without paying a while ago. When I looked up the full text of the article in an online article subscription database recently, the phrase "known as a ‘lion of the Left’," was missing. Fortunately the original article was quoted in another article that is still openly readable on the internet, including a quote of the paragraph that has been snipped, the quote still having the missing phrase intact 

"“One woman who contacted me with claims of being drugged and raped says her lawyer advised her not to report it because, ‘prosecuting a rape case against such a high profile man would be harrowing’. Another woman says she was drug-raped by her uncle — an Australian media icon — after he spiked her drink. A third alleges she was raped by a legendary politician, known as a ‘lion of the Left’, at the age of 15,” Spicer wrote."

So, I'm guessing someone from "the Left" has spooked Spicer or the newspaper that she wrote for, and caused an episode of self-censorship. If someone somewhere has already reported about this retraction I'd like to know the story behind it. 

Of course, I've wondered who this person is, bearing in mind that accusations are not proof of a crime. The phrase "lion of the left" could be a quote from a written source, and I've had a stab at a phrase search on Google, but I've found that phrase has been widely used to describe various politicians. I've assumed that this "legendary politician" of the left is Australian as Spicer is operating her campaign in Australia. For a moment I wondered whether this could have been an early disclosure from the daughters of the late Australian writer Dorothy Hewett, before they started naming names last month. They named Bob Ellis and an abuser when they were underage, and though he was closely associated with the left in politics in Australia, he never got elected as a politician. Another Bob, Bob Collins, was a known child sex abuser and an Australia politician of the left, but hardly legendary and as I am aware, chose boys as victims. My money is on Bill Shorten, if the allegation is true, and I have no reason to doubt. He has already been accused of rape by a female who has alleged that she was 16 at the time, a very similar accusation. Shorten could fairly be described as a legendary Australian politician who is a lion of the left. Perhaps the choice of the phrase "lion of the left" is a hint at Shorten's legendary record as a political predator? 

Could it be true that the man who is close to becoming Australia's next Prime Minister is a paedophile rapist at least twice over? Such a state of affairs is worse than my worst nightmares. Could it be seen as a less or a more horrible possibility that the accusation about a rape of a 15 year old girl does not have Shorten as the subject, but yet another famous name on the left of Australian politics, neither Shorten nor Ellis nor Collins? If that was true, would that make the ALP a paedophile ring?