O’Connor, Burney confirm retirements as MPs jostle for promotion

Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney and Skills and Training Minister Brendan O’Connor have quit Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s frontbench and will retire from politics at the next election, creating a pair of vacancies in the cabinet.

Albanese said the upcoming retirements of the veterans, both of whom have been in frontline politics for more than two decades, allowed him to refresh his ministry after two years with an unchanged team.

Outgoing … Linda Burney and Brendan O’Connor.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

New ministers will be announced on Sunday, and factions are jostling to determine who will be promoted.

Cabinet rearrangements allow the prime minister to move ministers, potentially including Immigration Minister Andrew Giles and Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil, who have been under pressure over the government’s response to the High Court’s contentious NZYQ ruling that freed asylum seekers from indefinite detention, and promote new people, such as NSW senators Tim Ayres and Jenny McAllister or Victorian MPs including Julian Hill or Kate Thwaites.

Giles has told MPs he understands the political reality and opposition calls to dump him, even if some of his Labor colleagues believe he has been treated unfairly in the media and his standing has been hurt by unforeseen events.

Pat Conroy, currently in the outer ministry and a close ally of the prime minister, may be promoted to the cabinet.

Colleagues of Immigration Minister Andrew Giles believe he has been harshly treated in the media.Credit: Joe Armao

Agriculture Minister Murray Watt is considered a frontrunner for a new portfolio that would keep him in cabinet and Senator Malarndirri McCarthy is a strong chance to replace Burney in the Indigenous Australians portfolio.

Both McCarthy and Conroy are from the party’s Left faction, as are the two ministers departing from cabinet, so the pair of promotions would maintain the factional balance in the cabinet.

There is also speculation around changes to the assistant minister ranks, with Andrew Charlton and Luke Gosling potentially in line for promotion from the backbench.

Burney, 67, entered the NSW parliament in 2003 and served in a series of senior portfolios before switching to federal politics in 2016

O’Connor, 62, came into federal parliament in 2001 and has been a fixture on Labor’s frontbench in a string of portfolios since 2007.

Flanked by both MPs in Sydney on Thursday, Albanese deflected questions about changes to his frontbench and emphasised he had led an “incredibly stable government”, saying “no government in living memory has had the same cabinet and ministerial positions for its first two years in office”.

“I am proud to call [them] my friends. I am proud to have witnessed first-hand their passion for this nation, their determination to leave the country better for their contribution,” Albanese said of the departing ministers.

O’Connor, a low-profile minister who has driven the government’s politically important free TAFE agenda, was praised for remaining in politics after the death of his wife in 2018.

“It would have been understandable if he stepped back at that time. He made a decision, along with Una, his lovely daughter, that he wanted to continue to make a contribution to our country,” the prime minister said of the man he has known since their days in Young Labor.

On Burney, a close friend and factional ally for decades, Albanese said she had overcome more discrimination, hardship and loss in her life “than most of us can comprehend” and that as an Indigenous Australian, she had been born into a country that had treated her as a second-class citizen. Burney has lost both her husband and son.

Her successful career in NSW and then federal politics, in which she served in a series of senior portfolios and as deputy leader of the state party, was “remarkable proof that what Linda has drawn from everything she had to endure is not bitterness or despair. It is positive, it is one of hope and one of optimism for our nation.”

Despite the defeat of the Voice to parliament referendum last year, Albanese said Burney had continued to advocate for First Nations people and had implemented policies that focused on job creation, training, community empowerment and self-determination for Indigenous Australians.

‘The Voice referendum didn’t deliver the outcome we had hoped, but I think history will treat it kindly … I gave all that I could.’

Outgoing Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney

Burney, who fought back tears, said history would look kindly upon the government’s attempt to create a Voice to parliament in the Constitution.

“Of course, the Voice referendum, as the prime minister said, didn’t deliver the outcome we had hoped, but I think history will treat it kindly. But I know in my heart, I gave all that I could to close the gap and to advance reconciliation,” she said.

“I have been through more than my fair share of life’s ups and downs.

“Progress doesn’t always move in a straight line. We make progress and then we have setbacks. That’s the history of Indigenous justice in this country. But with every passing generation, the arc bends a little bit more towards justice. I have had my bit and the time for a new generation is now. The referendum outcome was of course disappointing, but we accept that outcome.“

“There are some silver linings in that outcome. The silver lining of 6.5 million Australians saying, ‘Yes’. The silver lining of a new generation of young Indigenous leaders coming through.”

O’Connor said if someone had told him when he was first elected in 2001 that he would go on to serve in three cabinets in three governments, “I would have told them they are dreaming.”

He said he had chosen to retire for three reasons: to ensure renewal, to spend more time with his daughter and father, and because he was leaving his portfolio in “pretty good nick”.

Credit: Matt Golding

He listed the creation of Jobs and Skills Australia, a body that advises the government on the skills needed in the labour market, a $30 billion, five-year national skills agreement and the establishment of four training centres of excellence as key reforms he had implemented.

“We need to not leave people behind, as the prime minister often says, and I do believe that investment in the reforms and foundation skills, opening up access for people to improve themselves so they can acquire other skills in the labour market is absolutely vital,” he said.

“I have seen governments come and go, Labor and Liberal. This is the most cohesive, united government I have witnessed since I was elected,” he said.

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