Opposition leader in the Senate, Simon Birmingham, has announced he will retire from parliament at the election, to take up a “new, commercially oriented” career.
Birmingham, 50, the most senior Liberal moderate and the shadow foreign minister, leaves a hole in the Coalition team only months out from the election.
He has represented South Australia in the Senate since 2007, and served in a number of portfolios including finance, education and trade in the Coalition governments. In 2020 he replaced Mathias Cormann as Senate leader. In elections he often had an important role as campaign spokesperson.
