Anthony Albanese Biography

Anthony Norman Albanese was born on March 2, 1963 in Darlinghurst, an inner-city eastern suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, to Italian father Carlo Albanese and Irish origin Australian mother Maryanne Ellery. He was raised by his single mother, who suffered from chronic rheumatoid arthritis, with the family surviving on her disability pension, as well as his grandmother's old-age pension.

He attended St Joseph's Primary School in Camperdown before studying at St Mary's Cathedral College and was the first person in the family to finish school. He subsequently juggled multiple jobs, including one at the Commonwealth Bank, to finance studying economics at the University of Sydney.

He became involved in student politics at the university and was elected to the Students' Representative Council. Later, while working as research officer under then-minister Tom Uren, he was elected the Assistant General Secretary of the New South Wales branch of the Labor Party in 1989.

Anthony Albanese was elected as a member of the Australian Parliament for Grayndler in March 1996 and promised to work for his electorate, the working-class people, and the labor movement. He was appointed a Parliamentary Secretary in 1998 and was promoted to the opposition Shadow Cabinet in 2001.

After Labor Party won the 2007 election, he was appointed as Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Minister for Regional Development and Local Government, and Leader of the House of Representatives in the Kevin Rudd Ministry. To advise the Government on infrastructure priorities, he established an independent statutory body, Infrastructure Australia, which contributed to several infrastructure projects in the following years.

He retained his roles in the subsequent Julia Gillard-led government in 2010 and played a crucial role as Leader of the House to negotiate the support of independent members following a hung parliament. Albanese, who supported Rudd in the party leadership spill in June 2013, was elected Deputy Leader of the Labor Party and was sworn in as the Deputy Prime Minister.

He ran for the leadership of the party in the October 2013 election, but was defeated by Bill Shorten, who then appointed him as Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport and Shadow Minister for Tourism. He was later made Shadow Minister for Cities in September 2014 and continued to hold the roles until Shorten resigned following the party’s unexpected defeat in May 2019, after which he took the leadership unopposed.

At the May 2022 federal election, he led the party to victory against Liberal/National coalition led by then-prime minister Scott Morrison and was sworn in as the 31st prime minister of Australia on May 23. The swearing-in of his interim five-person ministry was expedited before counting was finished so that he could attend the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue meeting in Tokyo the same day.

From 2000 to 2019, Anthony Albanese was married to Carmel Tebbutt, a former politician whom he met in the late 1980s during their time in Young Labor, with whom he shares a son named Nathan.

In 2021, he started dating financial planner and women’s advocate Jodie Haydon, whom he first met at a business dinner in Melbourne in March 2020.

He is a huge fan of music, particularly of bands like Pixies and Pogues, and once intervened as Transport Minister to save a Dolly Parton tour from bureaucratic red tape. He is also a supporter of the rugby league team South Sydney Rabbitohs, where he served as a board member previously and fought for the club to be readmitted to the National Rugby League competition.