Bob Carr confirms he is leaving the Senate Former foreign minister Bob Carr will enter academia after formally tendering his resignation from the Senate on Wednesday. Senator Carr has confirmed weeks of speculation that he is leaving politics following Labor's election defeat on September 7. "It's been a very great honour for me," Senator Carr said of his 18 months as foreign minister. Life is a learning experience and the last 18 months has been the richest learning experience imaginable. Senator Carr said he believed he had also done some good in the role. Senator Carr was recruited by former prime minister Julia Gillard in March 2012 to take over as foreign minister after Kevin Rudd resigned to challenge for the Labor leadership. He filled a Senate vacancy triggered by the retirement of former minister Mark Arbib. Senator Carr says he will submit his resignation to the president of the Senate on Thursday. He says he now plans to "reinvent" himself as an expert on Asia and is going to take up two part-time academic posts. He will become a professorial fellow at the Sydney Southeast Asia Centre at Sydney University. He will also take up a role as an adjunct professor at the University of New South Wales. Senator Carr said it was "irrational exuberance" that led him to suggest he would stay in the Senate for many years when he first took up the role in federal parliament. "I was very high spirited about taking this job, but my enthusiasm probably got ahead of a more calculated approach to it," he said. He said his view on whether he would resign or stay after the September election had "ebbed and flowed." "But I think this is the better course on balance," he said. Had Labor won government he would have served for at least three years, he said. Turning to the process to replace him, Senator Carr said the idea of a plebiscite of Labor members had "a lot of merit." But "if they (the ALP) were going to do that I think we would have heard of it by now," he said. He refused to nominate a successor for his Senate spot, with former lower house MP Deb O'Neill tipped to be elected by the NSW Labor administrative committee. "I think it is bad form for someone vacating a position to baptise a successor," he said. I've got no influence on that. I've leave that to the process, whatever the process is going to be.