Laurie Oakes to retire as Channel Nine political editor

Updated

Veteran Channel Nine political editor Laurie Oakes will retire later this month, saying he is "disillusioned" with the state of politics.

The 73-year-old said he was slowing down and not able to "saddle up" for another leadership coup.

"I don't think there's anything special about Laurie Oakes. I'm a bit of a fixture, I've been in the same job for a good while, I've got a bit of experience and learned a few tricks over the years," he told ABC Radio Melbourne.

"I think the press gallery at the moment is as good as it's ever been. I think there are terrific journalists here now in Canberra.

"That's one of the things that I'm pleased about as I bow out."

Oakes said after covering 51 budgets, the business did not "excite" him as much as it used to and he had concerns about the current political landscape.

"I'm a bit disillusioned, too, with the state of politics at the moment," he said.

"I'll just watch it the way normal people watch it from now on and see how that affects me."

He said the Liberal Party "seems intent on throwing away government" and he thought it was possible Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull could face a challenge.

Oakes graduated from Sydney University in 1964 with a Bachelor of Arts. He joined the Daily Mirror in Sydney before moving to television reporting with Channel 10 in 1975.

He joined Channel Nine five years later and has become a Canberra bureau institution.

The three-time Walkley Award-winner's final day will be August 18.

'Speeded-up' news cycle affecting politics, coverage

Oakes said the accelerating pace of new coverage was the biggest change he had seen during his career.

"The changes in communication over the years has speeded everything up," he said.

"Politicians don't get the same leisure to think carefully about what they're doing and they can't go away to have a proper think about policy.

"Journalists, too, they don't really get time to sort of go away and spend time honing a story or time making contacts. They're all running around with a bulletin every five minutes.

"Everything's speeded up and as a result I think what they do and what we do is perhaps not as good as it once was or as it should be."

Laurie Oakes has been central to many pivotal moments in recent Australian political history, including revelations about the night Julia Gillard replaced Kevin Rudd as prime minister and a contentious post-budget interview with Joe Hockey in 2014.

Topics: journalism, information-and-communication, government-and-politics, federal-government, australia

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