Bob Carr’s elevation to foreign minister under the former Labor federal government was a mistake, one of his former colleagues says.

Labor MP Michael Danby has taken issue with some of the commentary in the former NSW premier’s tell-all book, Diary of a Foreign Minister.

Mr Carr became foreign minister after being parachuted into a Senate vacancy by former prime minister Julia Gillard.

“In retrospect, given all the division he caused … it was a mistake,” Mr Danby told ABC radio on Thursday.

“Here’s a bloke plucked from obscurity … a former provincial premier who dumps on Gillard and the former Labor government… the Labor Party supported him all his political life, how about a bit of decency?”

In the book, Mr Carr reveals he likes his breakfast oats steel-cut, complains about airline food and explains his preference for first-class over business-class plane travel.

Mr Carr says the book is intentionally full of self-parody and irony.

But Mr Danby is unimpressed.

“A lot of people are laughing at the book – they’re not laughing with you Bob, they’re laughing at you,” the shadow parliamentary secretary to Opposition Leader Bill Shorten says.

Mr Carr also discusses a “very unhealthy level” of influence held by the Jewish lobby in Canberra.

Mr Danby, who is Jewish, rejected this.

“(They) have as much influence as any other lobby does,” he said.