
— With AAP.
Tanya Plibersek has announced she will not run for the Labor leadership.
In a statement released on Monday afternoon, the current Labor deputy leader said she is grateful for the support she has received from her colleagues.
“I am overwhelmed by the confidence my colleagues, the union movement, and Labor party members have placed in me,” she said.
“But now is not my time,” she added.
“At this point, I cannot reconcile the important responsibilities I have to my family with the additional responsibilities of the Labor leadership.”
With Bill Shorten officially stepping down as Labor’s leader following Saturday’s election, the Labor Party now faces the task of choosing a new leader to take on the reinstated Coalition government.
Senior frontbencher Anthony Albanese announced on Sunday he will run for the Labor leadership, with shadow treasurer Chris Bowen expressing interest too.
Shorten is said to have backed Plibersek – and Julia Gillard has also thrown her support behind the 49-year-old from Sydney, in a rare intervention into party politics from the former prime minister.
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Plibersek is the daughter of Slovenian migrants (her father worked on the Snowy Mountains Scheme) who joined the Labor Party at 15, completed degrees in communications and politics and worked for Senator Bruce Childs, a leading figure on the Left in the 1980s.