Federal election 2019: Bill Shorten wants Julie Bishop in a high profile job

Bill Shorten says he will talk to Julie Bishop about giving the former WA Liberal MP a high-profile job if he becomes prime minister.

Asked by The West Australian’s political editor Lanai Scarr at Wednesday’s Leadership Matters event if he believed Ms Bishop would make a good US ambassador and would she be appointed to the post, the Labor leader said: “I think Julie Bishop is good at most things she does.

“She says she wants to work in the private sector, but I’ll certainly be talking to her. I know that her and Penny (Wong) have a very good working relationship.

“Candidly, I think the Liberal Party made a mistake (by not electing her leader).

“When none of her West Australian colleagues voted for her after everything she’s done for them, from fundraising to policy – what is it so hard about Liberal men to vote for Liberal women in positions of leadership?

“I won’t make that mistake with Julie, I’m happy to work with her. She’s got a lot of things that she wants to do and I don’t want to make her a political issue in this election.

“She’s served this country well. I haven’t always agreed with everything she’s said but I will always rate her very highly for when the plane of Australians was shot down over eastern Ukraine.

“I hope that if I was seeing Vladimir Putin, the way she stood up to the Russians, I hope that in the same circumstances I would behave like her.”

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Pressed on whether Ms Bishop would replace Joe Hockey as Australia’s US ambassador, Mr Shorten said he “would not put a name against a label because we haven’t even won yet”.

“I’m saying to you quite unreservedly here that I’ve got a lot of respect for her, (my wife) Chloe and I know her well, she’s a good person and we can’t waste talent.

“I wouldn’t say that just about her. (Malcolm) Turnbull, love him or hate him, he’s got skills, but the same goes for Julie, the same goes for Kevin (Rudd) and dare I say – even though (John) Howard says I’m Robin Hood to his Sheriff of Nottingham novel – John Howard has got something to do for the nation too.

“We’ve got to be better about our former politicians than pushing them onto the scrapheap too much. That will also help us be a less toxic and less partisan nation.”