Sydney: Former Australian prime minister Scott Morrison on Tuesday said he was leaving politics to pursue a business career, calling time on a contentious career.

The veteran politician announced he was stepping down as representative for a Sydney suburb next month, after 16 years in parliament.

Morrison said he would "take on new challenges in the global corporate sector."

The conservative leader led Australia during the devastating 2019-2020 Black Summer bushfires and the Covid-19 pandemic, when he shut the country's borders to the rest of the world.

An avid supporter of the fossil fuel industry, Morrison once brought a lump of coal into parliament to show that lawmakers had nothing to fear from the black combustible rock.

He repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that arson was a bigger cause of wildfires than climate change.

His time in office was also coloured by secrecy.

Morrison angered France when he negotiated a deal behind closed doors to acquire US and British nuclear submarine technology, cementing an alliance with Washington while abruptly ditching a long-standing agreement with Paris.

And he secretly appointed himself to several ministerial roles during the Covid crisis, without informing his cabinet, the incumbents, or the public.

  - AFP