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RUBY:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ruby Jones. This is 7am.

Bill Shorten has wanted to be the Prime Minister since he was a teenager.

Yesterday he finally gave up that ambition, announcing his resignation from politics.

Shorten spent almost two decades in parliament, rising to be opposition leader and contesting two elections but never winning.

As an architect of the National Disability Insurance Scheme, his legacy is significant.

But his political failures have shaped the country in enduring ways too.

Today, Schwartz Media’s editor-in-chief Erik Jensen, on how Bill Shorten’s career has changed Australia.

It’s Friday, September 6.

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Audio Excerpt - Bill Shorten:

“Ladies and gentlemen, I've decided not to seek a seventh term in Parliament.”

RUBY:

So Erik, as we talk, Bill Shorten, former Labor leader and ex-union boss, he's just announced that he's leaving politics. He'll retire early next year before the election. What do you think is behind this decision?

ERIK:

I think one of the defining aspects of Bill Shorten is the fact that since he was a teenager, he has been walking up to people and telling them he was going to be Prime Minister of Australia. He was telling his teachers, he was telling his classmates, and he believed it to be inevitable. The realisation that that is not true, and that it is never going to happen, must be an absolutely shattering one.

Audio Excerpt - Bill Shorten:

“None of this would have been possible without the tremendous love, patience, support from Chloe, Rupert, Georgette and Clementine…”

ERIK:

On top of that, Shorten's talked in the past about the selfishness of politics and what politics causes you to ask your families to do. I'm sure that's a factor in this as well.

Audio Excerpt - Bill Shorten:

“The sacrifices they've made. Chloe has been a tower of love and strength, and I think she's shown more courage than I dreamed could exist.”

ERIK:

And, you know, he's going to an important job. He’s going to be vice chancellor of the University of Canberra. I suspect he'll make, probably, a pretty substantial contribution to tertiary education.

Audio Excerpt - Bill Shorten:

“Education is the modern means of taking someone from disadvantaged to advantaged in a way that no other method can, and universities have a critical role to play.”

ERIK:

It is a chance for him to make another meaningful contribution to life and, for all the things you can say about Shorten, he’s genuine in his desire to give service, to do things for the country. And I guess, maybe it's a sad thing, but he's realised that there's not much more he can do in politics because it's not going to go the way he wants.

RUBY:

And, of course, Anthony Albanese took over from Shorten after he failed to become Prime Minister in 2019. What is their relationship like, and to what extent do you think that any tension there might have played into this decision?

ERIK:

There's no tenderness in that relationship. They’re from different sides of the party. They each had a go at leading the party. Shorten didn't get to be prime minister. I mean, they have to have a working relationship but he will, I suspect, not be in regular contact with Anthony Albanese once he's no longer in cabinet. But, I think, if Bill Shorten could have rolled Anthony Albanese and been Prime Minister, he would be thrilled.

RUBY:

Okay, and Erik, you spent quite a lot of time with Bill Shorten in 2019 while you were writing your Quarterly Essay on that election campaign. What did you learn about who he is?

ERIK:

The surprising thing about Bill Shorten is his insecurity.

You know, he's someone who, famously, his brother is taller than him and better at sport and, you know, he's always felt second to that. He is not an especially confident person which is a curious thing in politics. And I actually think it's a very good thing in politics. When you're not a confident person, you lead by consensus, and so a lot of what Shorten has done in politics has been being in rooms where he listens to other people and then tries to find an effective way through.

He's also someone who is extremely effective as a politician, he's just not especially good at getting people to like him. And one of the sadnesses of Shorten is he desperately wants people to like him.

RUBY:

Did you like him?

ERIK:

I liked him because he was insecure, and I think him being insecure is the reason most voters wouldn't like him. He's quite good at talking to people. He's good at genuine connections. He is terrible at translating that into anything bigger than himself. In the, sort of, shallowness of politics that is probably a difficulty, but he's also gone through periods of time where he was hugely liked. Beaconsfield is probably the moment at which, you know, he became a national figure.

Audio Excerpt - News Reporter 1:

“Union Leader Bill Shorten has lived this rescue each and every minute. He says all those who made it happen deserve a medal.”

Audio Excerpt - Bill Shorten:

“Oh it’s sinking in, you don't realise how close you get to these things and I probably, I was probably quite affected by it. I'm really, really happy. I'm happy for the families. I'm happy for Todd and Brant…”

ERIK:

He was a union representative there, on the news every night talking about these men who had been trapped in those mine shafts. The Daily Telegraph, at the time, were running front pages saying Bill Shorten for Prime Minister. When he actually could be Prime Minister, they were running pages that said quite the opposite. But he, I think every time he confronts a problem he genuinely tries to solve it and that's what I think makes him likeable.

RUBY:

And that is perhaps reflected most in his work on the National Disability Insurance Scheme, and its creation is seen as one of his biggest political achievements. He is, of course, right now leading a major overhaul of that scheme. So, how do you think that we should think about his role in relation to the NDIS and the impact that he's had there?

ERIK:

I mean, I think the NDIS will be the great policy of our generation probably in terms of its impact on thousands of people's lives. It's our version of Medicare being introduced. It has allowed thousands of people who live with disability to live in their own homes; live with appropriate support; live with the care that they need; live fuller lives now than they were otherwise going to be allowed to lead.

The reforms that Shorten is pushing through now are obviously controversial because they're largely about cutting money out of the scheme. But I think, in the fullness of time, people will look at the NDIS and think that is one of the Labor Party's great contributions to the country.

RUBY:

And do you think it will be Shorten's legacy?

ERIK:

Shorten and Gillard, I think, will be remembered as the people who did something that no one else thought was worthwhile or possible. And, you know, for anyone who knows anyone on the NDIS, it is a huge and transformative thing. And it should be Shorten's legacy, but actually his unrealised ambitions and how they've changed our politics that's probably what's going to define him.

RUBY:

Coming up after the break, Bill Shorten’s ambition and its consequences.

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RUBY:

For better or worse, I think that the defining public image of Bill Shorten is him standing on the podium in 2019. He's wearing a red tie, his wife, Chloe, is next to him in that red sheath dress, and he was a man clearly expecting to become Prime Minister but instead conceding defeat for a second time. You were there that night, can you tell me about that moment?

Audio Excerpt - Bill Shorten:

“This has been a tough campaign. Toxic at times.”

ERIK:

I was there at the weird little hotel off the airport where they were holding this, and I don't think I've ever been in a sadder room.

Audio Excerpt - Bill Shorten:

“I know that you’re all hurting, and I am too.”

ERIK:

There was this expectation that, you know, Shorten would win. At the beginning of the evening, the room was full of people who thought that they were going to be celebrating another Labor prime minister and, by the time he actually got out to concede, only a third of the people who were there at the beginning were still there.

Audio Excerpt - Bill Shorten:

“While there are still millions of votes to count, and important seats yet to be finalised, it is obvious that Labor will not be able to form the next government.”

ERIK:

Everyone just looked as if they couldn't comprehend that the country had decided that Scott Morrison, this shockingly insubstantial person, was going to be prime minister and Bill Shorten, a man with an actual ambitious reform agenda, was not.

RUBY:

Why do you think he lost that election?

ERIK:

Firstly, because people didn't like him. That is an insurmountable problem in politics. He is not someone people felt drawn to.

Secondly, he was putting forward some very ambitious tax reform and, I think, really good policy to be honest. He was going to fund a series of major initiatives by cutting back negative gearing and capital gains discounts and by taxing franking credits. Those should not be controversial policies. Those are sensible reforms that would help to make the country just a little bit fairer. But he was fundamentally unable to convince people that those things were good.

And one of the problems for him was he believed because those things were so obviously the right thing to do, that people would just agree with them. So he was not worried about the complexity of that reform agenda because he thought, if this is right, people will just get it. And what he learned was that being correct is not the same as being in a position to win.

RUBY:

Yeah, and when you think about it, Shorten's political legacy, it does seem to be tied to this idea of, of what could have been. The Prime Minister that he wanted to be but never became, and the tax reforms that he wanted to introduce but couldn't. What are your thoughts on that?

ERIK:

Yeah. Look, I think we would be a very, very different country if Bill Shorten had won the 2019 election. I remember bumping into one of his advisers in one of the COVID lockdowns on a sort of, you know, the walks that you're allowed to take around the block at the time. And he made the point, and I think it's right, that had Shorten been in office through the pandemic, these things that happened like childcare relief and, you know, the lifting of the rates of welfare payments, that those would not have been temporary measures. That a Shorten government would have used the opportunity, the political opportunity of the pandemic, to help reshape the country and to do these things that we all agreed were good, not just for a short period of time but forever. And, you know, had he won that election, we wouldn't have had the ludicrous embarrassment of the Morrison years and I think we would have actually genuinely invested in a better country.

RUBY:

Do you think that Bill Shorten's time in politics, his 17 years, has changed the way that the Labor Party operates significantly and, I suppose to extend on from that, the kind of country that we live in?

ERIK:

Absolutely. I think the paradox of Shorten is that in attempting to bring complexity to politics, he has created the most simple politics you could imagine. There is no ambition anywhere in any party for serious reform because people look at the 2019 election, they look at Bill Shorten and think the lesson to draw from that is don't try to change anything. And, you know, it's a tragedy for the country that our major parties think the way to win is to promise nothing. And people inside Labor think that Shorten lost that election because he was promising too much. He lost it because he was selling it poorly. But the result of that has been to make our politics less serious, less substantial, and sadly, less meaningful.

RUBY:

Erik, thank you so much for your time.

ERIK:

Thank you Ruby.

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RUBY:

Also in the news today,

The governor of the Reserve Bank, Michelle Bullock, has said it is “premature to be thinking about rate cuts”.

In a major speech yesterday, Ms Bullock pointed to the rising cost of construction and higher rents as key drivers of inflation.

Her speech comes after the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, called out the reserve bank’s successive interest rate hikes for “smashing the economy”.

The reserve bank has raised interest rates 13 times since May 2022.

And, the head of ASIO Mike Burgess says he plans to make tech companies unlock encrypted chats when necessary for national security investigations.

Encrypted platforms are increasingly being used by bad actors to hide their communications. Mr Burgess said the move would not amount to mass surveillance, but wants the cooperation of big tech and will compel them to do so if they don’t voluntarily comply.

7am is a daily show from Schwartz Media and The Saturday Paper.

Our hosts are me, Ruby Jones, and Daniel James.

We’re produced by Cheyne Anderson, Zoltan Fecso, and Zaya Altangerel.

Our technical producer is Atticus Bastow.

We are edited by Chris Dengate and Sarah McVeigh.

Erik Jensen is our editor-in-chief.

Our mixer is Travis Evans.

Our theme music is by Ned Beckley and Josh Hogan of Envelope Audio.

Thanks for listening. See you next week.

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