From Schwartz Media. I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven am. Bill Shorton 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 Eric Jensen on how Bill Shorton's career has changed Australia. It's Friday, September.
Six, ladies and gentlemen.
I've decided not to seek a seventh term in parliament.
So Eric, as we talk Bill Shorton, former labor leader and ex union boss. He's just announced that he's leading politics. He'll retire early next year before the election. What do you think is behind this decision?
I think one of the defining aspects of Bill Shorton 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 realization that that is not true and that it is never going to happen must be an absolutely shattering one.
None of this would have been possible without the tremendous love, patience, support from Chloe, Rupert, Georgette and Clementine.
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.
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 would exist.
And 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.
Education is the modern means of taking someone from disadvantage to advantage in a way that no other method can, and universities have a critical role to play.
It is a chance for him to make another meaningful contribution to life. And for all the things you can say about Shorten, he is genuine in his desire to give service, to do things for the country, and I guess maybe it's a sad but he's realized that there's not much more he can do in politics because it's not going to go the way he wants.
And of course Anthony Albanezi took over from Shorten after he failed to become Prime minister in twenty nineteen. What is their relationship like and to what extent do you think that any tension there might have played into this decision.
There's no tenderness in that relationship. There from different sides of the party. They each had to go at leading the party. Shorten didn't get to be prime minister. I mean they have a working relationship, but he will I suspect not being regular contact with Anthony Albanezi once he's no longer in cabinet. But I think if Bill Shorton could have rolled Anthony Albanezi and been Prime minister, he would be thrilled.
Okay, and Eric, you spent quite a lot of time with Bill Shorten in twenty nineteen while you were writing your quarterly essay on that election campaign. What did you learn about who he is?
The surprising thing about Bill Shorton 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 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.
Did you like him?
I liked him because he was insecure, and I think him being insecure as 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.
Union leader Bill Shorten has lived this rescue each and every minute.
He says, all those who made it happen deserve a.
Medal art thinking. You don't realize 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 brand.
He was a Union representative there on the news every night talking about these men who were 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. There are 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 why I think makes him likable.
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 NDAs and the impact that he's had there.
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 of 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, and they are otherwise going to be
allowed to lead. The reforms that Shortness pushing through now are obviously controversial because they're largely about cutting my 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.
And do you think it will be Shortens legacy.
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 NDIAS, it is a huge and transformative thing and it should be Shortens legacy. But actually his unrealized ambitions and how they've changed our politics, that's probably what's going to define.
Him coming up after the break Bill shortens ambition and its consequences, for.
Better or worse. I think that the defining public image of Bill Shorten is him standing on the podium in twenty nineteen. 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?
This has been a top campaign, toxic at times.
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.
I know that you're all hurting, and I am too.
There was this expectation that 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 was still there.
While there are still millions of votes to count and important seats yet to be finalized, it is obvious the label will not be able to form the next government.
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 short and a man with an actual ambitious reform agenda, was not.
Why do you think that he lost that election?
Firstly because people didn't like him. That is an insurmountable problem in politics. He is not someone people fel draw on too. 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 in capital gains discounts and by taxing frankin 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.
Yeah, and when you think about it shortens political legacy. It does seem to be tied to this idea 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.
Yeah, Look, I think we would be a very very different country if Bill Shorten had won the twenty nineteen election. I remember bumping into one of his advisers in one of the COVID lockdowns on at the walks that you were allowed to take around the block at the time, and he made the point. And I think it's right that had Shortened been in office through the pandemic, these things that happened, like childcare relief and the lifting of the rates of welfare payments, that those would not have
been temporary measures. That a shortened 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. 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.
Do you think that will shortens time in politics? His seventeen years has changed the way that the Labour Party operates significantly, and I suppose to extend on from that the kind of country that we live in.
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 twenty nineteen election, they look at Bill Shorton and think the lesson to draw from that is done 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 Shorton 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.
Eric, thank you so much. For Viata, Thank you Verby. Also in the news today, the Governor of the Reserve Bank, Michelle Bullock, has said its 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 inplation. 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 thirteen times since May twenty twenty two, 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. Miss Burgess said the move would not amount to mass surveillance, but wants the corporation of big tech and will compel them to do so
if they don't voluntarily comply. Seven Am is a daily show from Schwartz Media and The Saturday Paper. Our hosts are Me Ruby Jones and Daniel James. We're produced by Shane Anderson, Zoltanfecho and Zaya Artungrel. Our technical producer is Atticus Basto. We're edited by Chris dmgate and Sarah mcphe. Eric Jensen is our editor in chief. Our mixer is Travis Evans. Our theme music is by Ned Beckley and Josh Hogan of Envelope AUDEO. Thanks for listening, See you next week.