Cabinet Secretary (Australian minister) 2007, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd created the new ministerial position of Cabinet Secretary with Australian Labor Party veteran Senator John Faulkner appointed conjointly as Special Minister of State to drive an integrity agenda. The position was carried over by Prime Minister Julia Gillard from 2010 to 2013 and again by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in 2013. In 2015, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull resumed the ministerial position of Cabinet Secretary, broadening its responsibilities and including it in Cabinet. On the 18 January 2017, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced a ministerial reshuffle in which the position of Cabinet Secretary was disbanded and
Julia Gillard conclusion of a criminal investigation. After a week of controversy, Gillard announced that she was asking Slipper to delay his return to the Chair pending the conclusion of concurrent civil proceedings, in an effort to dispel what she described as a "dark cloud" over her government (a reference also to the ongoing Craig Thomson affair involving a Labor MP linked to corruption allegations). In the light of poor polling results for the Gillard Government, speculation that Foreign Minister and former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd wished to challenge Gillard for the leadership culminated with Rudd resigning from the Cabinet on 22