This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Tanya Plibersek has been persuaded to take on the key domestic portfolio of education to help sharpen Labor’s frontline political attack on the importance of public services as part of Bill Shorten’s revamped ministerial line-up.



The Labor leader confirmed the change to his deputy’s role on Saturday when unveiling his new ministry in Canberra. By convention, Labor’s deputy leader selects the portfolio of their choosing.

Plibersek said she was “delighted to take on the new challenge of education” which she described as a “really important” policy area.

Kate Ellis, who held the schools portfolio in the last term, will become the spokeswoman for early childhood education and will take on the portfolios for Tafe and vocational education, a cabinet-level position.

The former trade spokeswoman and Labor’s Senate leader, Penny Wong, will take Plibersek’s old portfolio of foreign affairs.



Chris Bowen remained as shadow treasurer, while Queensland MP Jim Chalmers was promoted to finance spokesman with Tony Burke returning to environment.

Richard Marles was promoted from the immigration brief to defence.

Shorten had been negotiating with colleagues up to Friday night.



The revamped education ministry will reconfigure the previous portfolio split between school education and higher education, which was a function of the portfolios allocated under previous arrangements to Ellis, and the Victorian senator Kim Carr, who remains in the ministry only because of support from Labor’s right faction.

Kim Carr to remain on expanded Labor frontbench after right faction's backing Read more

In the lead-up to the reshuffle, Carr was abandoned by the majority of his left faction. In an effort to preserve his position, he formed a new sub-factional grouping that some colleagues have dubbed the “Colston left” after Mal Colston, the Labor senator who quit the party in 1996 after Labor failed to nominate him as the deputy Senate president.

Carr’s position in the shadow ministry was preserved only after direct intervention from Shorten and backing from the right faction.

The Victorian senator was also publicly rebuked by the key figure in the national left, Anthony Albanese, during a special caucus meeting in Canberra on Friday to select the factional tickets for frontbench positions. Albanese made a caustic remark during a procedural debate about people demonstrating their true character not when they were successful, but when they were unsuccessful.

As part of the jostling to save Carr – whose stability pact with the right faction in Victoria underpins Shorten’s leadership – the Labor leader had to expand the shadow ministry by two spots to 32.

Andrew Leigh, the former assistant treasurer, who is not factionally aligned, will have to take a $40,000 pay cut to remain in the shadow ministry.

Sam Dastyari, a key figure from the NSW right, who will come into the ministry in the current reshuffle, will continue to be paid a backbencher’s salary to preserve the cap of 30 spots.

The new ministerial line-up will include Clare O’Neil, a young woman from the Victorian right, Ed Husic from the NSW right, and Linda Burney, a left winger from NSW who will become the first Indigenous woman to sit in the House of Representatives.

Tanya Plibersek criticises Malcolm Turnbull for 'demoting' female ministers Read more

Before Saturday’s formal announcement of the new opposition ministry, Shorten said: “I am determined to keep the issues important to Australians at the top of our agenda – better schools and education, Australian jobs and protecting Medicare.

“We’re not going to take a backwards step fighting for these things. There are few issues as critical to our nation’s future prosperity than education – which is why I am giving it such a priority,” he said.

Plibersek had initially told colleagues she was reluctant to leave the foreign affairs portfolio, but she has been lobbied extensively over the past fortnight to rejoin the fray of domestic politics to capitalise on the groundwork Labor implemented in the recent election about public services.

On the Plibersek appointment, Shorten said: “This is about putting a great policy thinker on the political frontline.”