Victorian Senator Kim Carr to Retire in June

Senator Kim Carr asks questions during Senate Estimates at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, on Feb. 18, 2019. Tracey Nearmy/Getty Images

Labor’s Kim Carr has announced that he would retire from the Australian parliament at the May election after having been a senator for the state of Victoria since 1993.

Senator Carr, who is 66 years old and the longest-serving member of the Australian Senate, said he was not pursuing endorsement for a place on Labor’s Victorian Senate ticket and would conclude his career as a senator when his current term ended on June 30.

He said that it had been an immense honour and privilege for him to receive the responsibility of representing the people of Victoria in the Senate.

“The Labor Party’s mission to create a fairer Australia never ends, and while I would have liked to have continued to pursue it in the Parliament, issues with my health have made that inadvisable,” Carr said in a statement on March 27.

“In light of recent tragic developments and following determined urgings from my children, I concluded that it was time for me to reassess my priorities.

“Of course, I wish to sincerely thank the voters in Victoria, who have given me the honour five times of serving the Labor cause in the Federal Parliament.”

Carr’s retirement announcement comes just around two weeks after Kimberley Kitching, another Victorian senator, passed away at 52 on March 10.

This photo shows Senator Kim Carr, then shadow minister for higher education, research, innovation and industry, at the Labor Party's election campaign launch in Sydney, on June 19, 2016. William West/AFP via Getty Images

Upon hearing the news of the veteran senator’s retirement, Labor leader Anthony Albanese issued a statement to pay tribute to Carr’s contribution to the Labor party.

“Kim Carr has been a tireless advocate for the cause of Labor during his three decades of service in our nation’s parliament,” Albanese said on March 27.

“The parliament has had no stronger supporter of Australian manufacturing and science than Kim Carr.”

Albanese also said that Carr played a leading role as a long-time national executive member of the Labor party.

“Kim has always been a passionate and resolute campaigner for the Labor Party and the union movement’s push to ensure workers’ rights at work are respected,” he said.

“I wish Kim, Carole [his wife] and their family all the best for their future.”

Meanwhile, Penny Wong, Labor’s leader in the Senate, said Carr was a fitting replacement for John Button when he filled the vacancy left by the resignation of the pre-eminent industry minister in 1993.

During his almost three-decade career in the Australian Senate, Carr held multiple minister positions under the Rudd and Gillard governments, including minister for innovation, industry, science and research, minister for manufacturing, minister for defence material, minister for human services and minister for higher education.

“In more recent years, Senator Carr has been an invaluable contributor to the Labor opposition under Bill Shorten and Anthony Albanese,” Wong said in a statement.

“I wish to acknowledge the role Senator Carr has played as a contributor to Labor’s Senate team and his nearly three decades of service to the people of Victoria and the nation.”