A “lion” of the Australian labour movement, “the man who should have been prime minister” or “an absolute prick” – however you feel about him, there is no denying Bill Shorten’s massive impact on modern Australian politics.
Those epitaphs, from friends and foes, were offered to the Guardian following the news that after almost two decades as the member for Maribyrnong, Shorten would be exiting federal politics to take up the role of vice-chancellor at the University of Canberra in February.
He will remain in cabinet until the start of the academic year but for those within his inner circle, his exit was a matter of when, not if. Shorten had been Labor’s Icarus – flying high as a “future prime minister” but ultimately watching his highest ambitions crash and burn. Still he has left an indelible mark on politics and the Labor party.
Eighteen years ago Shorten was catapulted into the national arena. A small earthquake caused a rock fall that trapped 17 miners under the ground in Beaconsfield, Tasmania. Fourteen made it out. Three remained trapped.
One of those three, Larry Knight, was killed. Brant Webb and Todd Russell were discovered to still be alive six days after the collapse. As the then 38-year-old national secretary of the Australian Workers’ Union, Shorten was beamed into Australian living rooms night and day, wrapped in an AWU jumper, talking through the rescue.
Three days before Shorten’s 39th birthday, Webb and Russell were freed. And Shorten, already on the road to federal politics, was fast-tracked as one of Labor’s great new hopes.
The next year, 2007, Shorten was elected to federal parliament. Immediately appointed as parliamentary secretary (now known as assistant minister) for disabilities, he made his impact known. The national disability insurance scheme was one of the first policies he pushed for – he says he was the first politician to use the term. But it was his early involvement in ousting Kevin Rudd for Julia Gillard, an ultimately successful campaign which saw Gillard take the prime ministership in June 2010, that marked the early years of his federal political career.
From there Shorten made his way to the frontbench, as minister for financial services in 2010 and then into the cabinet as employment minister in 2011.
“He was never shy,” one Labor colleague said. “You always knew what Bill was thinking – not from his cabinet contributions, although he wasn’t exactly loath to speak up there. But from who he was talking to, before and after cabinet.”
Shorten is now known as one of Labor’s best retail politicians but the Gillard years weren’t his best showing. It was in defence of his factional ally that he made his infamous “I haven’t seen what she [Gillard] said, but let me say I support what it is that she said” gaffe.
“I support what my prime minister said,” he said in a somewhat tortured interview in 2012. “My view is what the prime minister’s view is.”
Four months later Shorten was apologising for “pie gate” after he swore at a pie shop owner after mishearing what he thought was a criticism of Gillard.
Rudd would return to the prime ministership in time to lead Labor to a sound defeat in 2013. It was from those ashes Shorten that was elected opposition leader in the party’s first leadership vote involving grassroots members.
He was seen as a future prime minister and Labor rallied around him as a foil to Tony Abbott. Shorten became known for his “zingers”, one-liners deployed to win the media soundbite contests and make the evening news, made famous by Shaun Micallef’s Mad as Hell.
By the time of the 2016 election Shorten had been shaped into a folksy version of his union rabble-rousing past, making headlines during the election campaign against Malcolm Turnbull by asking a passing shopper what her favourite lettuce was.
On polling day Shorten stole the cameras again with his democracy sausage-eating technique. It, like the lettuce, was mocked and ridiculed, but dominated Australian social media.
One Labor insider said: “What people never understood about the ‘zingers’ and ‘cringe socials’ was they were about capturing attention.
“And they did that. Quite effectively.”
What people also didn’t see was how effective Shorten’s campaign was. Labor gave Turnbull and the Coalition a scare, winning 14 seats off the then-government and setting up the next three years as a waiting room for power.
But what Labor and Shorten, by then considered one of the most cunning political animals in the parliament, failed to see was Scott Morrison coming up the inside track. Morrison was not only adept at appearing folksy, he upped the ante with a daggy dad routine. Most crucial of all, and perhaps Shorten’s biggest miscalculation, was that despite Morrison’s years on the Coalition frontbench, in 2019 he was largely an unknown to voters. And Shorten, by then opposition leader for six years, had seen his popularity rating slide.
Footage resurfaced of him telling Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2018 that he was “going to be Australia’s next prime minister” when the Hollywood star and former California governor didn’t appear to recognise him at the end of a charity run.
Shorten took an ambitious policy platform to the 2019 election but ultimately he and his team couldn’t sell it. The result of the 2019 election almost mirrored 2016 in terms of seat outcome but the loss ended Shorten’s rise.
He accepted his role in the Albanese opposition and, while his mark could still be seen on some internal ructions, he channelled most of his energy into fighting robodebt, a campaign he continued into government.
He finishes his political career where he started it – the NDIS. And while some see Shorten’s legacy as “dismantling the greatest achievement he ever made in politics”, others saw his final legislative push as “doing the hard thing to save what he loved the most”.
Shorten may be exiting the federal political arena but few expect him to exit entirely. After all, his biggest successes have always been in his behind-the-scenes manoeuvring. And he has never followed the script entirely.
“Regrets – I might borrow from someone else,” he said in announcing his coming retirement.
“Regrets, I’ve had a few. But then again, too few to mention. I did what I had to do but much more than this – I did it my way.”
