Bill Shorten bows out of politics, praised by man who kept him from The Lodge

Coalition figures have joined Bill Shorten’s allies in praising the former Labor leader whose prime ministerial potential was never realised after he bowed out of politics after 17 years for a $1 million university role.

One of the longest-serving party leaders of recent decades revealed on Thursday morning that he would quit in February, before a likely election between March and May, saying he wanted to leave when still young enough at 57 for a new career after a losing two elections as party leader.

He will become the next vice chancellor of the University of Canberra at the start of the new university year, moving full-time to the nation’s capital after decades of flying in as an MP and previously as a union leader.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Shorten would remain in cabinet as the minister for NDIS and government services until February, calling him a friend and heaping praise on the former leader for bringing Labor back to life after the 2013 election loss.

“I’ve experienced some extraordinary political highs in the last 17 years, and let’s face it, some extraordinary political lows,” Shorten said.

The Right faction in Victoria that Shorten once dominated had placed him under pressure to retire but he insisted the call to quit, first reported by this masthead, was his own as wife Chloe and daughter Clementine watched an emotional press conference.

A central figure in Labor politics this century, Shorten’s safe seat is likely to go to the Left in a deal giving the Right Brendan O’Connor’s seat of Gorton. Shorten, elected in 2007, is likely to be replaced in Maribyrnong by United Workers Union official Jo Briskey, though new names could emerge.

Albanese spoke of the robo-debt royal commission, tearing down the Abbott government’s cut-heavy 2014 budget, and the NDIS scheme as legacies. The retiring MP savaged the Greens as a “protest outrage factory” recklessly opposing major changes to make the NDIS financially sustainable.

Bill Kelty, a unionist integral to the Hawke-Keating reform era, said Australians were indebted to Shorten for his role in the Rudd-Gillard governments creating a world-leading disability insurance scheme and said it was a shame he never became prime minister.

The Labor doyen said Shorten’s performance leading government arguments on gambling, economics and NDIS showed his political skills were still evolving. Kelty added that Labor’s cluttered 2019 agenda showed Shorten did not then have the confidence to promise income tax cuts to offset planned tax hikes on negative gearing and franking credits.

“What beat him was his own lack of confidence in himself,” Kelty, a confidante of Shorten, told this masthead. “He tried to placate everybody and be nice to everybody. You ended up with tax reform but no tax cuts ... he wouldn’t have done that today.”

Former prime minister Tony Abbott, who like Malcolm Turnbull was toppled by their party as Shorten led Labor, said Shorten’s absence was a loss for the parliament.

“Yes he’ll continue to serve our country in the academe, but we need more people of courage and conviction in our public life and Bill has been a striver for the higher things,” Abbott said.

Coalition frontbencher James Paterson argued he would be remembered like former Labor leader Kim Beazley, who many have suggested would have made a fine prime minister.

Bill Shorten announces his retirement from politics alongside Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Thursday.Credit: AAP

“Bill is a Labor patriot,” Paterson said.

Albanese and Shorten are not political allies and were on different sides of leadership battles but they have enjoyed a good working relationship in this term.

Shorten’s unexpected loss to Scott Morrison in 2019 has been blamed in part on Labor’s electorally daunting “100 positive policies” agenda.

The NDIS minister said he accepted the verdict of voters in 2019 but added Labor was at its best when it put forward big ideas and when “we use the power of politics to stand up for those who were denied power”.

Albanese said Shorten was a warrior for working people.

“He united the party [after the 2013 loss], he re-energised the caucus, he saw off two prime ministers,” Albanese said.

University of Canberra chancellor Lisa Paul, who co-authored last year’s NDIS review, said Shorten was unanimously appointed by a panel from a field of overseas applicants.

Paul said Shorten’s new salary had not been settled, but he and the university agreed it would be less than the $1.8 million paid to the former vice-chancellor in 2023.

Bruce Bonyhady, an original architect of the NDIS, said Shorten had laid the groundwork to get the scheme back on track.

The first tranche of laws reforming the NDIS passed with both Coalition and Labor premiers’ support last month, despite months of pushback from the Greens, state premiers and some disability advocates.

“That has been an absolutely remarkable achievement,” Bonyhady said.

Those who worked with Shorten in his time as NDIS minister said the scheme’s next leader would need to remain in cabinet.

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