John Faulkner says he will not recontest Senate seat

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/30/john-faulkner-says-he-will-not-recontest-senate-seat

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Senator John Faulkner says he will not recontest his seat and will resign from the parliament when his term expires in three years, saying it would be an “indulgence” to seek another term.

Nominations for NSW Senate terms, beginning in 2017, will open on Friday, and Faulkner, a respected elder of the Labor party who has been a driving force behind proposed reforms, has confirmed he will not recontest his Senate spot.

“A quarter of a century [serving in the Senate] is a long time, and my current term still has three years to run,” he said in a statement on Wednesday afternoon. “To seek a further six-year term would be an indulgence.”

Faulkner said he would continue to lobby for party reform as there was no issue more critical for the party in NSW.

“My commitment to party reform and internal renewal remains undiminished,” he said. “At the NSW ALP annual conference in July, I will be arguing just as forcefully for my proposed changes to the party’s rules, to address internal corruption and to open up the closed factional processes of selecting Senate and NSW Legislative Council candidates.”

He said he would continue making representations in ALP forums and in the community at large.

Faulkner was elected to the Senate in 1989 and said it had been an “unqualified honour”.

“I cannot stress enough my intense gratitude and thanks for the trust and support given me over these many years by my party and its loyal and often much put-upon members,” he said. “Neville Wran nailed it when he once said that no one of us could ever claim to have given more to the Australian Labor party than any of us had received from it. That is certainly true in my case.”

Opposition leader Bill Shorten heaped praise on Faulkner, calling him “the keeper of the Labor flame”.

“John is a Labor senator in the finest tradition. He has never cut the cloth of what he says to suit the fashion of the day,” he said.

Shorten said Faulkner had given decades of dedicated service and had a proud legacy as cabinet minister in the Keating, Rudd and Gillard governments.

“John is a keeper of the Labor flame. All of us in the Labor party thank him for the service and guidance he has given our party, and our country,” he said.