Scott Morrison is set to resign from politics altogether less than two years after he was voted out as prime minister.
Mr Morrison, 55, is expected to make the shock announcement when parliament resumes in February.
The backbench MP, who was prime minister from August 24, 2018 to May 30, 2022, reportedly told colleagues that he will announce his resignation within weeks.
He was elected to the federal parliament in the southern Sydney seat of Cook in 2007, when the Liberal-National Coalition lost heavily to Labor under Kevin Rudd.
Mr Morrison is also expected to announce his plans for where he will work after politics, and is said to have an interest in working in the defence industry.
Scott Morrison is set to resign from politics altogether less than two years after he was voted out as prime minister
Then Prime Minister Scott Morrison (second from right) is pictured in Hawaii on a controversial holiday he took during a bushfire crisis
He has already written a biography aimed at the Christian market which is due to come out later this year.
Plans for Your Good – A Prime Minister’s Testimony of God’s Faithfulness will be published by Harper Collins’ Christian publishing division Thomas Nelson.
Former US vice president Mike Pence, who, like Mr Morrison, is a high-profile Christian, has written the foreword.
The 288-page book is said to be ‘less political memoir and more pastoral encouragement’.
‘It has been written with a broader audience in mind,’ Mr Morrison said last September.
‘It hasn’t been written to be available only in bookshops in Canberra. Particularly in the US, but beyond that too.’
When the Coalition regained power in 2013 after two terms of Labor government, Mr Morrison was appointed Immigration Minister.
Under that, he was responsible for Operation Sovereign Borders, oversaw the turning back of asylum seeker boats and reintroduced temporary protection visas which had been dropped under Labor.
After widely being seen as an effective minister, he was promoted to the Social Services portfolio in late 2014 and then Treasurer in 2015.
In August 2018, Peter Dutton failed to unseat then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull in an internal Liberal Party challenge, but came close enough that Mr Turnbull stepped aside.
In the second leadership ballot that followed, Mr Morrison beat both Mr Dutton and Julie Bishop, becoming party leader and prime minister.
Nine months later, he led the Coalition to victory over Bill Shorten’s Labor, gaining two seats while the Opposition lost one.
Daily Mail has contacted Mr Morrison for comment.
More to come