The announcement by federal labour MP and cabinet minister Bill Shorten that he would retire from politics shortly has come as no surprise to many observers. A long time union heavyweight and former leader of the Australian Labour Party in parliament, Shorten has a history of destablization and party room coups within the ALP.
Shorten had been planning a party room coup against Anthony Albanese in recent weeks and word leaked out before he could move. Gallagher and Wong are believed to have betrayed Shorten over the planned party room coup against Albanese.
A former trade unionist serving as the current Minister for Government Services and Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme since 2022, Shorten’s name was mentioned in dispatches a being a recipient of CFMEU money over the years.
Alongside Shorten’s name as a recipient of CFMEU funds were those of former Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and Anna Bligh at the state level.
At the federal level though are more names that have been identified as recipients of CFMEU’s slush funds. These include that of labour senator Kathy Gallagher and the Hon. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese himself.
Labour party insiders speak of bitter factional disputes raging within the parliamentay wing of the ALP as having reached a level of toxicity and acrimony over irreconcilable differences, that have become personal between individual members in the various factions within the party. ‘It has become tolerable. Something has to give and it will give in days to come’ a parlaimentary secretary who did not wish to be named said.
There is more to come on this story.
