The man who lost the unloseable election is retiring from federal politics. The man who came within a whisker of being prime minister, Bill Shorten, now NDIS minister, won’t contest the next election.
After nearly 20 years in politics he is moving on, not taking up a plum government appointment overseas like so many ex-politicians do, but rather to become the next head of the University of Canberra.
It’s such an unusual role for someone with no post-graduate qualifications nor experience within the higher education sector to take. But that’s not to say Shorten isn’t qualified to lead an institution like UC.
As former education minister, Shorten has long been passionate about the sector, and his salary will likely double from what he’s earning as a cabinet minister.
His first task once he takes up the position early next year should be to explain to the government just how bad their changes to foreign student entries is for both universities and the Australian economy.
It will be an early test whether or not Shorten continues to be an apologist for poor Labor policy even when he’s no longer in the Parliament.
But Shorten’s new job is no substitute for his unmet ambition to become prime minister.
The 2019 election defeat was unprecedented as an example of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Labor led in every poll of every polling agency for 18 months counting down to that election, but still lost.
The likelihood is that the polls weren’t wrong – they just inverted late in the electoral cycle. While Labor had long led, the trend lines were narrowing as the election got closer.
Bill Shorten (pictured with wife Chloe) came within a whisker of being Prime Minister and is now NDIS minister but won’t contest the next election
Losing to someone like Scott Morrison would have made defeat even tougher to bear.
Shorten could claim credit for the pressure he applied to both Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull contributing to their demise.
Both PMs were unceremoniously removed from the top job by their party.
Shorten’s biggest political legacy is the role he played in developing the NDIS: coming up with the idea, helping design it and ultimately making it happen.
It’s an achievement the sector will forever be grateful for. As a piece of social policy it is up there with Gough Whitlam’s shift to free education and healthcare, the precursors of HECS and Medicare.
But the fiscal pressures of the NDIS have become all too apparent, as has the need to reform how it applies and to whom, including all manner of adjustments to what qualifies for assistance and what doesn’t.
When it comes to fixing the NDIS so that it is fit for purpose, Shorten ends his time in politics with that task still incomplete.
His political legacy as a public policy practitioner is therefore still up in the air.
Nonetheless, not many politicians are spoken well of on both sides of the aisle, and Shorten is one of those.
Liberals tell me he reaches out when they experience difficult times and does so genuinely.
Perhaps going through the agony of defeat in 2019 helped give Shorten more empathy than most in politics have.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will be happy to see the back of Bill Shorten (pictured together)
For his part Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will be happy to see the back of Shorten.
He spent most of Shorten’s six years as Labor opposition leader undermining the job he did and criticising the decisions he made.
Never on the record of course.
When Albo’s standing in the polls started to slide, he assumed Shorten was doing the same.
I for one can say that despite endless attempt to get him to, he never bagged Albo to me.
The pair became their generation’s leadership rivals, one from the Victorian Right, the other from the NSW Left.
Unusually, the left won out in this showdown between two Labor leaders that never managed to live up to the legacy of the great Labor leaders of the past.