Back in June, Bill Shorten embraced the media speculation that he’d knocked back a prime ministerial offer to become ambassador to France.
“No au revoir today, my friend,” he joked in parliament, as Peter Dutton goaded him to “give us a little bit of French”.
So it was all the more pointed that in announcing Shorten’s pending retirement from politics on Thursday, Anthony Albanese sought to make a virtue of the timing.
“It is to Bill’s credit that he’s determining his time to walk away,” the prime minister said of his former rival. “A whole lot of people lose their seat, or they don’t get control of their own destiny. Bill has control of his own destiny and that’s a great thing.”
In reality, Albanese wouldn’t have been unhappy if Shorten had taken control of his destiny a bit sooner.
The Paris offer, made and rebuffed, wasn’t the only diplomatic possibility dangled in Shorten’s direction after the 2022 federal election. All were met by the same response. Thanks but no thanks.
Instead, he sought and secured the vice-chancellorship of the University of Canberra, which he takes up in February next year.
Those earlier refusals meant Albanese had to make a spot for Shorten in his ministry before the last election and couldn’t claim it back when reshaping in preparation for the next one.
Responsibility for the national disability insurance scheme gave Shorten stewardship over something he’d been instrumental in establishing but which also needed a serious overhaul.
It was a hard job and not considered glamorous among ambitious ministers. But it bookends his parliamentary service – his ministerial career started there in a junior position and it ends there, steering the landmark NDIS into the next phase and cementing its existence. He has thrown himself into the effort, arguing and arm-twisting across the parliament until he secured support to pass the necessary legislation. It’s notable that his retirement announcement comes so soon after that occurred.
“His work has made our government better and our nation stronger,” Albanese said of Shorten’s 17 years in parliament.
Shorten and Albanese have had a complicated political relationship, especially since Shorten conspired with others to end Kevin Rudd’s prime ministership in 2010 and Albanese publicly condemned them.
Close to Rudd, Albanese was then in fair proximity to the manoeuvres in 2013 that ousted Julia Gillard and restored the former prime minister to office. Albanese became deputy prime minister for three months before Labor was, inevitably, bundled out.
After the loss, Shorten indicated he’d run for the Labor leadership. It was the first ballot after Labor changed its rules to allow rank-and-file members a vote and Albanese decided to run against him, officially to ensure a contest but possibly also driven just a tiny bit by those past events.
Albanese won the popular vote but Shorten secured a majority in the parliamentary caucus and ultimately a majority overall. If any one thing drove Albanese to pursue the leadership from then on, it was that.
The tension has variously simmered and subsided since. Albanese served under Shorten readily but with occasional rancour. Shorten served similarly under Albanese, championing the victims of the Morrison government’s robodebt scheme and advocating for Australians who engage with government services and those with disability in particular.
But he was not going to retire to suit the prime minister’s timing, not even with attractive positions as incentive.
Instead, he’s chosen an academic post, citing his mother as inspiration and emphasising his desire to do something consistent with his “ideals about ensuring that people can fulfill their potential”.
If there’s controversy behind him, there may yet be controversy ahead. The university’s last incumbent departed abruptly and without full public explanation in January this year and the National Tertiary Education Union issued a statement on Thursday seeking clarification on salary packaging arrangements.
The university’s chancellor is Lisa Paul, who headed the employment and workplace relations ministry in 2013 when Shorten was minister and he appointed her to head his review of the NDIS last year.
Announcing the appointment to her academic colleagues on Thursday, Paul emphasised the “rigorous, merit-based selection process” and provided citations endorsing Shorten’s selection from a range of external academics.
Federal cabinet, of which Shorten is a member, has recently taken a decision to impose contentious caps on universities’ overseas student numbers. Government sources suggest he did not need to recuse himself from those discussions or declare any potential conflict of interest because he had not yet applied for the position at the time they were held.
“All ministers are expected to abide by the Ministerial Code of Conduct. The Ministerial Code of Conduct and the Cabinet Handbook set out the approach to declaring and managing potential conflicts,” a government spokesperson said.
Standing alongside Albanese at their joint news conference on Thursday, Shorten was making a few pointed references of his own.
“Regrets, I’ve had a few,” he said, reciting a carefully edited stanza of Frank Sinatra’s famous lyrics from a note he’d prepared earlier. “But then again, too few to mention. I did what I had to do. But much more than this. I did it my way.”
That includes how and when he’d say goodbye. And none of it was in French.
