Laurie Oakes has always been a force to be reckoned with.

From his early days covering state rounds for the Daily Mirror to his latest foray into the digital world with his “Turnbull does Trump” story, Oakes has been setting the agenda for Australia's political world for decades.

He admits he's a journalism junkie, once telling a Logies audience that he'd been mainlining his drug of choice for decades, most of it in front of a TV camera.

But now he's stepping back, officially retiring at the close of business on August 18.

As he approaches his 74th birthday, he simply says it's time.

There's never been any fear on Oakes’ part in rocking the political establishment.

Oakes interviews former prime minister John Howard in 2007. (AAP)

The list of his exclusive stories goes on: the Kirribilli leadership pact between Bob Hawke and Paul Keating; staring down Julia Gillard at the Press Club over the Kevin Rudd coup; the leak of the entire 1980 Federal Budget; the travel rorts scandal of 1997 which cost three ministers their jobs; and the Gair Affair, where Gough Whitlam tried to use a diplomatic appointment to shore up his numbers in parliament.

“The story that caused the biggest stink, I suppose, was in 1980 when the entire Budget was leaked to me two days before then Treasurer John Howard was due to deliver it,” Oakes said today.

“I met a contact in a hotel carpark on the Sunday morning.

“He handed over the Budget speech and gave me 15 minutes to read it.

“So I gabbled the whole lot into a tape recorder while he went in and had a quick drink, and then I transcribed it back at the office.

“That evening Mr Howard was at home with toddler daughter Melanie on his lap watching cartoons on TV.

“Then the news started and I came up blowing every detail of his Budget speech.”

Oakes said another story that garnered attention was the travel rorts scandal in 1997.

“I got hold of documents showing a minister had claimed expenses for staying overnight in Canberra at times when he'd actually been at home, and that he'd been allowed to repay the money secretly,” the veteran journalist said.

“Three ministers lost their jobs over that, and the prime minister's chief of staff resigned.

“And there was the Iraqi money story after the 1975 election, when I found out that the Labor Party had arranged to get half a million dollars - an enormous sum in those days - from the Iraqi government to fund its election campaign.

“It involved Gough Whitlam attending secret meetings with shady Iraqi emissaries. A tremendous scandal.

“What I didn't know was that Rupert Murdoch was on to it as well.

“As my newspaper went to press late at night, the new prime minister Malcolm Fraser rang Rupert in London and told him I had written it.

“Rupert delayed printing of The Australian and the Sydney Telegraph for two hours so he could belt out his own version.

“But we were on the streets first. I scooped Rupert.”

Oakes in 1985. (YouTube)

The three-time Walkley Award-winner was no less formidable in his face to face encounters, making his hard-hitting Sunday morning interviews on the Nine Network a "must watch" for political junkies.

Yet still he garnered praise from prime ministers on both sides of the political spectrum.

"He's one of the great pillars of Australian democracy," John Howard said.

Julia Gillard said politics would be unrecognisable without him.

Kim Beazley said he “burnished the reputation of all journalists” and Tony Abbott said he'd been the king of the press gallery for as long as anyone could remember.

Oakes has never been shy about tossing a grenade in among his peers, which he showed most recently with the story on Malcolm Turnbull mocking Donald Trump at the press gallery’s Mid-Winter ball - traditionally an "off the record" affair.

“Journalists spend their time reporting on confidential or private events,” Oakes said at the time.

“You know, there are leaks from Cabinet party meetings. That's our job.”

Speaking to the Melbourne Press Freedom dinner in 2015, Oakes said the local press had not tackled the issue as vigorously as the industry should have.

“I want to argue that we in the Australian media have been somewhat apathetic on the press freedom front, not vigilant enough or as willing to fight as we should have been,” he said.

Yet his peers acknowledge he's one of a kind, with former ABC journalist Kerry O'Brien saying Oakes had chalked up more scoops than any journalist he could think of.

Oakes graduated from Sydney University in 1964 with a Bachelor of Arts, joined the Daily Mirror and took over their state rounds in 1965.

By the age of 25 he was the bureau chief in Canberra for the Melbourne Sun-Pictorial where he was on the spot for the dismissal of Gough Whitlam.

He knew Mr Whitlam was the leader to watch, penning the biography Whitlam PM in 1973, two years before Whitlam took to the steps of parliament to famously declare: "May well we say God Save The Queen, because nothing will save the Governor-General".

Oakes joined Channel Ten in 1975 and five years later he came to the Nine Network, where he became an institution in the Canberra bureau.

It isn't that he hasn’t had other offers: at least two former leaders from each side of politics asked him to hop the fence, but Oakes said he would have been hopeless as a press secretary.

Oakes was inducted to the Logies Hall of Fame in 2011. (AAP)

He wistfully recalls there’s a lingering regret that he didn’t see the political world form the inside.

Now, as he approaches 74, he’s covered 13 prime ministers (more if you count the swaps), 20 federal elections, 51 budgets and one dismissal.

Looking back, what's his take on the prime ministers he's dealt with?

“Gough Whitlam was the prime minister who changed the country most,” Oakes said.

“His program really did transform the place. But he botched the politics and only lasted in the job three years.

“Bob Hawke and John Howard were very effective. Hawke, with his Treasurer Paul Keating, modernised the economy.

“Howard was superb at reading the mood of the electorate, and did some gutsy things - gun control, for example.

“I don't know about the most difficult PM, but Billy McMahon was easily the worst.

“He was a liar and a sneak. He was incompetent. He blamed his own ministers when things went wrong. He was a joke.

“He said things like: ‘We will honour all the problems we have made.’

“It's a disgrace that Billy ever got the job.”

What about the political side of Laurie Oakes? He gets his information from both sides of politics, yet no one really knows who he votes for.

“The truth is, I've voted both ways over the years,” he told Fairfax Media.

“I just don't like people who put ideology into their reporting."

But why after close to 50 years and with what looks to be an interesting year ahead is he closing the door now?

“To pinch an election slogan - it's time,” Oakes said.

“I've been reporting politics since 1965. I've been in the Canberra Press Gallery for 48 and a half years.

“I've been the Nine Network's political editor since December the 1st, 1984 - the day of that year's federal election. And I'm about to turn 74.”

Asked to look in his political crystal ball about the year ahead, Oakes expressed his doubts about the future of the prime minister.

“I don't know if Malcolm Turnbull will survive,” Oakes said.

“The Liberal Party at the moment seems have gone a bit troppo with this really nasty internal brawl over same sex marriage.

“It reminds me of the Labor Party 50 years ago, when factions were more interested in winning internal fights than in winning office.

“The current turmoil in the Coalition is closely tied to the leadership struggle between Mr Turnbull and Tony Abbott.

“But it's almost as though the Libs don't want to hold on to government.

“The way they're going, they'll guarantee that Bill Shorten becomes prime minister.

“And to give Mr Shorten credit, by the way, he's proving a pretty clever politician in the way he's exploiting the situation.”

Laurie Oakes retires: Watch his most important stories View Gallery

Oakes’ final day will be in a couple of weeks and he knows that it will be hard to switch off after a lifetime of politics.

“It’s an addiction,” he said.

“But now I’ll be able to devote more time to reading crime fiction.

“That will be my equivalent of a methadone program.”

There will be many who will echo the sentiment of former prime minister Kevin Rudd, who commented when Oakes was inducted in the Logies Hall of Fame.

“Australian journalism needs you,” Mr Rudd said.

“So don't hang up your boots just yet.”