Kim John Carr (born 2 July 1955) is an Australian former politician who served as a Senator for Victoria between 1993 and 2022. Representing the Labor Party, he was a minister in the Rudd and Gillard governments.
Carr is a graduate of the University of Melbourne, and before entering politics worked as a schoolteacher and political staffer. He was appointed to the Senate in 1993, filling a casual vacancy, and was made a member of the shadow ministry after Labor's defeat at the 1996 election. Carr held a variety of portfolios in the Labor governments between 2007 and 2013. He was considered a leader of the Labor Left faction in Victoria until 2016 when he formed the Industrial Left, a breakaway mini-faction comprising nearly all of Carr's union allies. He became the most senior senator and thus father of the senate in 2019, retaining the title until his retirement in 2022.
Early life
Carr was born on 2 July 1955 in Tumut, New South Wales. His father was a boilermaker, working on the Snowy Mountains Scheme. The family moved regularly when he was a child, living at a caravan park in Gladstone, Queensland, for a period. He attended Moreland High School in Coburg, Victoria, where "a history teacher fuelled his interest in politics by slipping him copies of socialist literature to read at home". He joined the Labor Party in 1975. He was a secondary school teacher for nine years before becoming a political staffer for Victorian government ministers Joan Kirner and Andrew McCutcheon.
Parliamentary career
Carr was elected to the Senate at the March 1993 election, and was due to take his seat on 1 July. When retiring Senator John Button resigned before the expiry of his term, however, Carr was appointed to the resulting casual vacancy on 28 April. Following his maiden speech, in which he described the opposition as pursuing "inhumane policies", he was accused by Liberal Senate leader Robert Hill of breaking a parliamentary convention around the content of maiden speeches. By 1994, he was regarded as the leader of the Victorian Left faction. His influential position within the party has attracted substantial criticism from factional opponents, Carr was then described by colleagues as "ruthless", "calculating" and a "headkicker".
Carr was re-elected in the 2010 election and retained his portfolio of Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research in the Second Gillard Ministry, which was sworn in on 14 September 2010. He was dropped from the cabinet on 12 December 2011, amid speculation that it was due to his links with former prime minister Kevin Rudd. He remained in the outer Ministry however, as Minister for Manufacturing and Minister for Defence Materiel.
In the Ministerial reshuffle of 2 March 2012, Carr was appointed as Minister for Human Services. Carr resigned his ministerial portfolio on 22 March 2013 after he supported an unsuccessful attempt to reinstall Kevin Rudd as Labor Leader.
Following a subsequent successful leadership spill in which Gillard was defeated, Rudd appointed Carr as the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, and Minister for Higher Education and member of Cabinet in the Second Rudd Ministry.
Carr had been regarded as a longstanding political rival of Albanese.
As the 2022 federal election approached, Carr was facing a preselection challenge to remain on the party's Senate ticket for Victoria. It was reported in early March 2022 that he had lost the support of unions in the Industrial Left faction and was set to miss out on the Senate ticket. He had initially wanted to fight to remain in the Senate. However, following the recent death of fellow Senator Kimberley Kitching and "determined urgings" from his children, he announced on 27 March 2022 that he decided to retire at the election, citing health reasons.