After his election to the Senate in 1989, Prime Minister Paul Keating appointed Faulkner as Minister for Veterans' Affairs and Minister for Defence Science and Personnel in 1993. In 1994, Faulkner was moved to the position of Minister for the Environment, which he held until Labor's defeat in 1996. He later served as the Leader of the Labor Party in the Senate from 1996 to 2005, and returned to Cabinet upon Labor's election in 2007, after Kevin Rudd made him Vice-President of the Executive Council and Special Minister of State. He later served as Minister for Defence from 2009 to 2010, when he retired from frontline politics. He became the Father of the Australian Senate in 2014, and retired from Parliament altogether a year later by way of resignation, and is considered by some as an elder statesman. Faulkner has since been a Member of the Board of the Global Panel Foundation – Australasia – an NGO that works global in crisis areas.