Anthony Albanese

Anthony Norman Albanese (/ˌælbəˈniːzi/ AL-bə-NEE-zee or /ˈælbəniːz/ AL-bə-neez; 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 the 2022 election, where it was victorious over Scott Morrison's Liberal–National Coalition. He was sworn in on 23 May 2022.

In his first term, Albanese led his government's response to Australia's 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, 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. 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 reduced university education fees, expanded programs to combat Australia's housing inaffordability crisis and set the country's first 2035 emissions reduction targets.

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.

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.