About Bill

Bill Shorten is the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and Financial Services and Superannuation in the Gillard Labor Government.

He was re-elected as the Member for Maribyrnong at the 2010 Federal Election and sworn into the Ministry in September 2010. On 12 December 2011 Bill was promoted to Cabinet and given the additional portfolio areas of Employment and Workplace Relations, while holding onto Financial Services and Superannuation.

As a senior member of the Gillard Government’s economic team, Minister Shorten has played a key role in delivering a balanced budget sharing the wealth of the mining boom through increases to retirement savings, and establishing the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

Since taking on the Workplace Relations portfolio, Minister Shorten has helped broker outcomes in a range of industrial disputes and worked to ensure Australia’s unemployment rate remains one of the lowest in the industrialised world . Bill has also secured safe rates for truck drivers, delivered greater rights and protections for vulnerable textile workers and is overseeing one of the largest investments in training and workforce participation in Australia’s history.

Before his promotion to the Ministry, Bill was the Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities, Children’s Services and Victorian Bushfire reconstruction. Prior to that Bill worked at the Australian Workers Union, holding key leadership positions including State Secretary of the AWU Victoria Branch from 1998 to 2006 and the National Secretary from 2001 to 2007.

Bill has also been a director of AustralianSuper, Australia’s largest superannuation fund and a director of the Victorian Funds  management Corporation. This experience, combined with his MBA from the Melbourne Business School and a Bachelors degree in Arts and Law from Monash University, gives Bill both the education and practical experience required for such a diverse and complex portfolio.

Bill lives in his electorate of Maribyrnong with his wife and three children.