Simon Crean

Crean as a minister in the 1990s.

Ahead of the 1990 election, Crean was easily selected as the Labor candidate for the safe seat of Hotham; he was elected to Parliament on 24 March, and immediately entered the Cabinet as Minister for Science and Technology.[2] He became Minister for Primary Industries and Energy in 1991, retaining this job when Paul Keating replaced Bob Hawke as Prime Minister in December 1991. After Labor's victory at the 1993 election, Keating moved Crean to become Minister for Employment, Education and Training, a role he would hold until 1996.[3]

After the Labor Party was heavily defeated at the 1996 election, Crean chose to contest the deputy leadership, but was defeated by Gareth Evans by 42 votes to 37.[4][5] He joined the Shadow Cabinet, and after Evans retired from politics following Labor's 1998 election defeat, Crean was easily elected to replace him, becoming Deputy Leader of the Opposition and Shadow Treasurer. In January 2001, Crean was awarded the Centenary Medal.[6]

In November 2001, following Labor's third consecutive election defeat, Crean was elected unopposed to replace Kim Beazley as Leader of the Labor Party, becoming Leader of the Opposition; Jenny Macklin was elected as his deputy, also unopposed.[7] On 4 February 2003, Crean led the Labor Party to condemn Prime Minister John Howard's decision to commit Australian troops to the Iraq War.[8]

Throughout most of 2003, poor opinion polling led to speculation of a leadership challenge against Crean; on 16 June 2003, Crean called a leadership spill intending to put an end to the leadership tensions, winning against Kim Beazley by 58 votes to 34. This failed to stop Crean losing even further ground to Howard in opinion polls as preferred Prime Minister, and on 28 November 2003, Crean announced that he would resign as Leader of the Labor Party, stating that he felt he no longer had the confidence of his colleagues; this made him the first Labor Leader not to contest a federal election since 1916. On 2 December, Shadow Treasurer Mark Latham defeated Kim Beazley in a ballot by 47 votes to 45 to replace Crean; Latham subsequently appointed Crean immediately as Shadow Treasurer. After Labor suffered a fourth consecutive defeat at the 2004 election, Crean resigned from his Shadow Treasurer position; he initially intended to resign from the Shadow Cabinet entirely, but at Latham's insistence, he accepted the role of Shadow Minister for Trade.[9]

Crean retained this position when Beazley returned to the leadership in January 2005. However, in a reshuffle of the Shadow Cabinet in June 2005, Crean was demoted to Shadow Minister for Regional Development. He then faced a pre-selection challenge for his seat of Hotham from Martin Pakula, a member of his former union, the SPU, a move which Crean publicly blamed on Beazley, Hong Lim, and the Labor Right. Beazley refused to publicly support either candidate, but several frontbenchers, including Julia Gillard, supported Crean. This helped Crean to comfortably win the pre-selection for his seat; Crean singled out Senator Stephen Conroy for his part in the move against him, describing his front-bench colleague as "venal" and "one of the most disloyal people I've ever worked with in my life".[10] Following the replacement of Kim Beazley by Kevin Rudd as leader in December 2006, Rudd reappointed Crean as Shadow Minister for Trade.

Crean at the World Economic Forum in January 2010.

After Labor's victory at the 2007 election, new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd appointed Crean to the Cabinet as Minister for Trade. In this role, Crean visited Singapore and Vietnam to pursue Australia's trade and economic interests at a range of ministerial and other high-level meetings. Crean also attended the APEC Meeting of Ministers Responsible for Trade and the OECD Roundtable on Sustainable Development on behalf of the Australian Government. Crean also co-chaired the 8th Joint Trade and Economic Cooperation Committee with the Vietnamese Minister of Planning and Investment Võ Hồng Phúc in Hanoi, leading to an improvement in the trading relationship between Australia and Vietnam.[11]

Following Julia Gillard's election unopposed as Prime Minister in June 2010, Crean was appointed to replace Gillard in the role of Minister for Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, with Stephen Smith taking over as Minister for Trade.[3][12] After the 2010 election, Gillard reshuffled the Cabinet and appointed Crean as Minister for the Arts and Minister for Regional Development and Local Government.[13]

On 21 March 2013, following significant leadership tensions arising from poor opinion polling, Crean called for Gillard to spill the leadership, with the aim of encouraging Rudd to challenge for the position of Prime Minister. This marked a change in Crean's position; he had long been a committed supporter of Gillard. Crean said he would challenge Wayne Swan for the role of Deputy Leader, if Rudd ran for the leadership. However, Rudd declined to run for the leadership, leaving Gillard to retain the leadership unopposed. Gillard quickly sacked Crean from the Cabinet, expressing publicly her disappointment at his "disloyalty" to her.[14] Before his sacking, Crean had been one of the few federal politicians to have never spent a day on the backbench. After Rudd did eventually replace Gillard as Prime Minister in June 2013, Crean ran for the position of Deputy Leader but was defeated by Anthony Albanese by 61 votes to 38. Crean subsequently announced he would retire from politics at the 2013 election.

Crean retired as the first person to serve as a Cabinet Minister under four different Labor Prime Ministers (in Crean's case, Hawke, Keating, Rudd and Gillard) since Jack Beasley (who served under James Scullin, John Curtin, Frank Forde and Ben Chifley).