Anthony Albanese

Anthony Norman Albanese (born 2 March 1963) is an Australian politician who has served as the 31st prime minister of Australia since 2022. He has been the leader of the Labor Party since 2019 and the member of parliament (MP) for the New South Wales division of Grayndler since 1996.

Albanese was born in Sydney, attended St Mary's Cathedral College and studied economics at the University of Sydney. As a student, he joined the Labor Party and later worked as a party official and research officer before entering Parliament. Albanese was elected to the House of Representatives at the 1996 election, winning the seat of Grayndler in New South Wales. He was first appointed to the shadow cabinet in 2001 by Simon Crean and went on to serve in a number of roles, eventually becoming Manager of Opposition Business in 2006. After Labor's victory in the 2007 election, Albanese was appointed Leader of the House, and was also made Minister for Regional Development and Local Government and Minister for Infrastructure and Transport. In the subsequent leadership tensions between Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard from 2010 to 2013, Albanese was publicly critical of the conduct of both, calling for party unity. After supporting Rudd in the final leadership ballot between the two in June 2013, Albanese was elected the deputy leader of the Labor Party and sworn in as deputy prime minister the following day, a position he held for less than three months, as Labor was defeated at the 2013 election.

Following this, Albanese stood for leadership of the Labor Party against Bill Shorten in a leadership election. Although Albanese won a large majority of the membership, Shorten received more support from Labor MPs and became leader. Shorten subsequently appointed Albanese to his Shadow Cabinet. After Labor's surprise defeat in the 2019 election, Shorten resigned as leader, with Albanese becoming the only person nominated in the leadership election to replace him; he was subsequently elected unopposed as leader of the Labor Party, becoming Leader of the Opposition. He led the party to victory at the 2022 election, defeating the Liberal–National Coalition. He was sworn in on 23 May 2022.

In his first term, Albanese led his government's response to a cost-of-living crisis caused by the 2021–2023 inflation surge, held an unsuccessful referendum to enshrine an Indigenous Voice to Parliament in the Constitution, updated Australia's climate targets to reach carbon neutrality by 2050, oversaw an acceleration of renewable energy projects, made major changes to industrial relations laws, enacted the Future Made in Australia industrial policy, created the National Anti-Corruption Commission, introduced a ban on children under sixteen from using social media platforms, established the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme and expanded access to paid parental leave and subsidised childcare. In foreign policy, Albanese pledged further logistical support to Ukraine to assist with the Russo-Ukrainian war, attempted to strengthen relations in the Pacific region, and oversaw an easing of tensions and trade restrictions put on Australia by China. He also administered the official commencement of the AUKUS security pact between Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom, and navigated Australia's response to the Gaza war. After overturning poor opinion polling, his government was re-elected in a landslide victory in the 2025 election, resulting in one of the largest Labor governments in Australian history. In his second term, Albanese's government reduced university education fees, expanded programs to combat Australia's housing inaffordability crisis, set the country's first 2035 emissions reduction targets, created a federal environmental protection agency, responded to the 2025 Bondi Beach shooting and established the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion.

Early life

Family and background

Albanese was born on 2 March 1963 at St Margaret's Hospital in the Sydney suburb of Darlinghurst. He is the son of Carlo Albanese and Maryanne Ellery (1936–2002). His mother was Australian, while his Italian father was from Barletta, Apulia. His parents met in March 1962 on a voyage from Sydney to Southampton, England, on the Sitmar Line's TSS Fairsky, where his father worked as a steward, but did not continue their relationship afterwards, going their separate ways. Albanese's mother adopted Carlo's surname for herself and named Anthony after his cousin Anthony Howett, who had died in a car accident in Northern New South Wales four years earlier.

Growing up, Albanese was told that his father had died in a car accident; he did not meet his father, who was in fact still alive, until 2009. He made contact with his father in 2009, visiting him a number of times in Italy, and also took his family there. His father died in 2014. He subsequently discovered that he had two half-siblings. During the Australian parliamentary eligibility crisis of 2017, it was noted that, although birth to an Italian father would ordinarily confer citizenship by descent, Albanese had no father recorded on his birth certificate and thus meets the parliamentary eligibility requirements of section 44 of the Constitution.

Childhood and education

Albanese grew up with his mother and maternal grandparents in a Sydney City Council home in the Inner West suburb of Camperdown, opposite the Camperdown Children's Hospital. His grandfather died in 1970, and the following year his mother married James Williamson. He was given his stepfather's surname, but the marriage lasted only ten weeks, as Williamson proved to be an abusive alcoholic. Albanese's mother worked part-time as a cleaner but suffered from chronic rheumatoid arthritis, with the family living on her disability pension and his grandmother's age pension.

Albanese attended St Joseph's Primary School in Camperdown and then St Mary's Cathedral College. While at school, he worked part-time selling newspapers. He captained St Mary's on several episodes of the children's game show It's Academic in 1978. Albanese joined the Australian Labor Party (ALP) in 1979 at the age of 15, as a member of Young Labor. He subsequently helped found a Labor Club at his high school.

After finishing school, Albanese worked briefly at the Commonwealth Bank before enrolling in an economics degree at the University of Sydney. There, he became involved in student politics and was elected to the Students' Representative Council (SRC). He stood unsuccessfully for the SRC presidency in 1983, losing to Belinda Neal. It was also there where he started his rise as a key player in the ALP's Labor Left. During his time in student politics, Albanese led a group within Young Labor that was aligned with the left faction's "Hard Left", which the Australian politician Andrew Leigh said maintained "links with broader left-wing groups, such as the Communist Party of Australia, People for Nuclear Disarmament and the African National Congress".

Pre-parliamentary career and travel

After completing his economics degree in 1984, Albanese took on a role as a research officer to the then Minister for Local Government and Administrative Services, Tom Uren, who became a mentor to him. In 1989, the position of Assistant General Secretary of the New South Wales branch of the Labor Party became vacant when John Faulkner was elected to the Senate. The election to replace him was closely disputed between the Labor Left's Hard Left and Soft Left groupings, with Albanese being elected with the backing of the Hard Left, taking on that role for the next six years. In 1995, he left the position to work as a senior adviser to New South Wales Premier Bob Carr.

Albanese's first overseas trip was in 1986, accompanying his friend Jeremy Fisher to Vanuatu. In 1987, Albanese joined his boss Tom Uren on a visit to South-East Asia, which included: a meeting of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific in Bangkok, Thailand; an Anzac Day dawn service at the Kanchanaburi War Cemetery with John Carrick; and a tour of Cambodia alongside Bill Hayden's daughter Ingrid. He then travelled extensively in 1988, visiting Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana, Western Europe on a Contiki tour, and Eastern Europe and Scandinavia as a backpacker. Upon returning to Australia, he began dating Carmel Tebbutt, with whom he would holiday in Europe and South-East Asia, plus a backpacking trip to India in 1991. Sometime during his 20s, Albanese also took part in a tour of the United States by the U.S. State Department, with a thematic focus on the interaction of advocacy groups with the U.S. Government.

In 1990, Albanese bought a semi-detached two-bedroom house in the Inner West Sydney suburb of Marrickville.

Early political career

Entry to Parliament

When Jeannette McHugh announced she would not seek re-election in her seat of Grayndler at the 1996 election, Albanese won preselection for the seat. The campaign was a difficult one, with aircraft noise a big political issue following the opening of the third runway at Sydney Airport, and the newly established No Aircraft Noise party (NAN) having polled strongly in the local area at the 1995 New South Wales election. Veteran political pundit Malcolm Mackerras predicted NAN would win the seat. However, NAN's candidate finished third, with less than 14% of the vote. Despite suffering a six-point swing against Labor, Albanese was elected with a comfortable 16-point margin.