Union boss Paul Howes has removed himself from the running for a NSW senate spot that Labor expects will be made vacant by former foreign minister Bob Carr, saying he does not want a destructive and messy fight.
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Mr Howes, who is Australian Workers' Union national secretary, had been tipped to take the possible vacancy, but on Thursday announced he would not be a candidate because it was not in the best interests of the Labor movement.
Senator Carr was brought in to fill the senate vacancy left by Mark Arbib in 2012 and to fill the coveted foreign affairs role. He was re-elected to the Senate in the 2013 federal election.
While Senator Carr has not declared that he will leave Parliament now that Labor is in opposition, it has been widely reported that the NSW Labor Party has been looking for a replacement.
Apart from Mr Howes, former Labor MP Deb O'Neill, former Carr chief of staff Graeme Wedderburn and United Voice secretary Tara Moriarty have also been touted as possible candidates to replace Senator Carr, should he resign.
It has also been reported that Mike Kelly, who narrowly lost the bellwether seat of Eden-Monaro in the election, is being urged to run for the role.
In a press conference, Mr Howes said it was in the interests of the Labor movement that someone else filled the spot.
''I do not want to be the type of person in this movement who destructs and divides because of my own personal ambition,'' he said.
''I was encouraged by the huge support I had but I am a realist and I recognise it would have been a destructive, divisive and pretty ugly and messy fight and, by gees, I've had enough of the messy and ugly fights over the last three years.''
When it was put to him that Senator Carr has not confirmed reports that he will step aside, Mr Howes replied: ''The Labor Party is never great at keeping secrets, is it.''Mr Howes said there was a significant amount of people within
Labor who did not believe he should enter Parliament. ''That's OK, that's their right.''
The union boss, who played a visible role in the dumping of Kevin Rudd in 2010, said that sometimes he should probably ''be a little more faceless'' when he was dealing with policy issues.
Mr Howes, who is backing Bill Shorten in the current Labor leadership contest, would not be drawn when asked who he thought would be the best candidate. Nor would he comment specifically on whether a woman should fill the role – given concerns that when Ursula Stephens leaves the Parliament next June, NSW Labor will not have any women in the Senate.
