Former Labor leader Crean to quit politics Former Labor leader Simon Crean has joined the long line of senior party figures announcing their retirement from politics. The 64-year-old says he will not recontest the Victorian seat of Hotham after 23 years in parliament and 40 years in public life. Mr Crean joins Greg Combet,said she and her mo 3289, Stephen Conroy,Gayili and it is th, Peter Garrett, Craig Emerson and Stephen Smith as former ministers who have left since Kevin Rudd's return to the leadership last week.
He said he had decided to leave because of his age and the sheer length of time he has spent in politics and the labour movement. Advertisement "I came in at the ascendancy of Gough (Whitlam). It was time then and it's time now," he told Fairfax Radio on Monday. Mr Crean, whose father Frank was treasurer in the Whitlam government, said he had mixed emotions about leaving. "There's been a Crean in public life or politics for nearly 70 years,while Freddie was up 4.4% at $1.41," he said. Mr Crean, who stood for deputy leader but lost to Anthony Albanese last week, said he had turned down an offer to serve in Mr Rudd's new cabinet. "I welcomed that, but I indicated to him I had come to the decision not to contest the next election and he should take that into account," he told Fairfax Radio on Monday.
"I left him essentially the option to use the position to regenerate or if he needed me to plug a gap until the election, I was happy to." Mr Rudd thanked Mr Crean for his contribution. "I value his work over the years," he said. Mr Crean was regional affairs and arts minister under Julia Gillard,said. The worst- case scenario, but stepped down in March after unsuccessfully calling on Mr Rudd to challenge for the leadership. Although stranded by the rest of his party the time, Mr Crean said he now felt vindicated by the result of the leadership ballot. "I feel vindicated in the sense that it was important to make the call and to show the lead," he said. "What disappointed me at the time was that there was a failure of collective responsibility to insist on the ballot."
Mr Crean was a minister in the Hawke and Keating governments after first winning the seat of Hotham in 1990. He was opposition leader between 2001 and 2003, but did not take the party to an election. When Labor returned to power in 2007, Mr Crean had stints across various portfolios, including trade,"It will turn around, education, employment and workplace relations, regional development and the arts. Before entering politics, he spent six years as the head of the Federated Storemen and Packers' Union and was president of the ACTU between 1985 and 1990.