Former Morrison government minister Stuart Robert will not return to the federal parliament after he officially resigned from politics by way of letter.
Robert announced his intention to resign on 6 May but did not give a date of when it would happen. He did not travel to Canberra for the budget week sitting, although staff were seen packing up his office.
On Wednesday, the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, visited Robert’s electorate and criticised the shadow assistant treasurer for his Canberra no-show.
“If you’re a member of parliament, your basic duty – unless there’s a good reason why you’re not in parliament, with other duties or ill health – you have to turn up,” he said.
On Thursday, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Milton Dick, released a statement confirming he had received a letter of resignation from Robert and would now consider possible byelection dates.
Robert said in a statement earlier this month he was resigning to be a “full-time husband, father and son”.
The Liberal National party opened preselections for his Gold Coast seat of Fadden, which Robert has held for 16 years, the day after he announced he would be retiring from federal politics. Nominations remain open, although the field has narrowed down to two candidates, Gold Coast councillor Cameron Caldwell and emergency doctor Dinesh Palipana.
Caldwell is considered the favourite given his ties to the electorate and profile as the council representative for the area, while Palipana is considered a frontrunner for the next state election.
Fadden has been held by the LNP every election bar one since 1977. At the last election, Robert won it with a 10.6% margin, despite an almost 5% swing against him. Labor does not expect to win the seat at the coming byelection, given the need for a double-digit swing
Robert’s departure comes ahead of his close political ally and former Canberra flatmate, former prime minister Scott Morrison, who is also speculated to be leaving the parliament soon.
Robert was reported in the Niki Savva book Plots and Prayers to have prayed with Morrison, a fellow Pentecostal, that “righteousness would exalt the nation”, ahead of the Liberal party leadership vote that made Morrison prime minister.
Morrison elevated Robert, who he often referred to as “brother Stuie” back to the cabinet after he was dumped by Malcolm Turnbull as a minister in 2016.
That put Robert in charge of what became known as robodebt. He admitted during the royal commission to making several comments on the scheme throughout 2019 that he personally believed were false, defending himself by saying he was bound by cabinet solidarity.
After adverse court findings and advice the scheme was unlawful, Robert announced the robodebt scheme would be “refined” on 18 November 2019, but did not apologise and claimed only a “small cohort” of people were affected.
The royal commission into robodebt is yet to announce its findings, although the Labor government services minister, Bill Shorten, has used parliament question time to criticise Robert’s administration of the scheme.
Turnbull sacked him as human services and veterans affairs minister after a scandal erupted over a “private” trip to Beijing that Robert took in 2014 to oversee a mining deal involving a major Liberal donor and meet a Chinese vice-minister.
Robert was assistant defence minister at the time of the trip and has always insisted he took the trip in a private capacity. Robert was also among the Liberal MPs who accepted designer Rolex watches for himself and his wife from a Chinese billionaire in 2013, while in opposition.
Robert, Tony Abbott and Ian Macfarlane were gifted the watches at an informal dinner, but had assumed they were fake. Macfarlane was prompted to get his valued in 2016, which is when the story emerged. The watches were returned.
