BIOGRAPHY:
On May 23, 2022, the leader of the center-left Australian Labor Party, which won the May 21 parliamentary elections, Anthony Albanese took the oath of office as the 31st Prime Minister of Australia.
Childhood:
Anthony Albanese (full name Anthony Norman Albanese, English: Anthony Norman Albanese) was born on March 2, 1963 in Sydney (in southeastern Australia). Has Italian and Irish roots.
Graduate of the Faculty of Economics from the University of Sydney. During his student years, he joined the youth wing of the center-left Australian Labor Party (ALP), Young Labor. After graduating from university, he worked in the staff of the Ministry of Local Government in the Labor government of Robert Hawke. In 1995, he became a senior adviser to the head of the New South Wales government, Bob Carr (ALP).
Political activity:
In 1989, Albanese took up the position of Assistant General Secretary of the New South Wales branch of the ALP. In June 2013, he became deputy chairman of the ALP, and in May 2019, he headed the party.
In 2001, he became a member of the shadow cabinet of the ALP (the Prime Minister of Australia was then John Howard from the center-right Liberal Party of Australia; ALP), where over the years he held a number of ministerial positions, including Minister of Environment. In this capacity, he campaigned against Prime Minister John Howard’s initiative aimed at developing nuclear energy in the country (Australia does not have a single nuclear power plant).
Following the ALP’s election victory in November 2007 (43.38% to 42.09% for the center-right coalition of the ALP and the National Party of Australia, NPA), Anthony Albanese held a number of posts in the governments of Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard. From December 2007 to September 2013, he was Leader of the House of Representatives (the person responsible for organizing consultations and passing government bills in the House of Representatives; appointed by the Prime Minister). During the same period, he was Minister of Infrastructure and Transport. In this capacity, he achieved the creation of an independent body, Infrastructure Australia, which provides research and advisory services to representatives of all levels of government and industry on projects related to investment in the country’s infrastructure. In addition, until September 2010, he served as Minister of Regional Development and Local Government. From June to September 2013, Albanese served as Deputy Prime Minister and also served as Minister for Infrastructure and Transport and Minister for Broadband, Communications and Digital Economy in Kevin Rudd’s second cabinet. Following the ALP’s defeat in the 2013 elections (33.38% to 45.55% for the ALP-NPA coalition), Albanese was appointed shadow minister for infrastructure and transport, regional development and local government. After Albanese took over the leadership of the ALP in May 2019, he became leader of the opposition.
Personal information:
The 59-year-old politician, known to voters as Albo, grew up in social housing and was raised by single mother Marianne Ellery, who lived on a disability pension.
He often cites his upbringing as the foundation of his beliefs and success.
His mother was able to provide him with opportunities that she herself never had. With her support, he became the first in their family to graduate from school and enter university.
Albanese believed his father had died before he was born, but learned as a teenager that his mother had in fact become pregnant by a married man she met while traveling in Europe.
When he was already over 40, he tracked down Carlo Albanese, who lived in Italy, and met his father and half-siblings. Anthony Albanese himself has only one child, son Nathan.
Albanese split from his wife of 19 years in 2019 and campaigned with his girlfriend Jodie Haydon.
Political career:
Albanese is one of the most experienced Australian politicians, the leader of the Labor Party, which won elections for the first time in ten years.
Albanese has been leader of the Labor Party for the past three years, taking office following the shock 2019 election defeat of his predecessor Bill Shorten.
But he became a supporter of the Labor Party at the age of 20.
In 2007, when Labor came to power under Kevin Rudd, Anthony Albanese became Minister for Infrastructure and Transport.
He remained an influential figure as the party entered a difficult period after it replaced Kevin Rudd with Julia Gillard in 2010.
When, thanks to the support of Anthony Albanese, Rudd regained the prime minister’s post in 2013, Albanese became his deputy. However, he only held the position for 10 weeks because Labor lost the election.
Albanese then nominated himself to lead the party. Despite Albanese’s popularity among the party’s rank and file, his rival Bill Shorten enjoyed greater support among members of Parliament and won the post, becoming leader of the Australian opposition.
Albanese’s time came in 2019, after Shorten lost the election twice and resigned as Labor leader.
Albanese became leader of the Labor Party.
Prime Minister:
In the elections on May 21, 2022, the ALP defeated the ALP-NPA coalition. According to preliminary data from the Central Election Commission (approximately 70% of the votes have been counted), the ALP will receive at least 77 seats in the new House of Representatives (the ALP-NPA coalition has more than 50 seats), which made it possible for its leader Anthony Albanese to take the post of prime minister and begin to form a cabinet of ministers.
The new government’s program includes increasing funding for the armed forces (currently 2% of GDP) and creating an agency that will develop new technologies for the army and attract additional private investment. In addition, the government intends to allocate more than 450 million Australian dollars ($316 million) for new equipment for schools and for the renovation of school buildings, build at least 50 emergency centers, reduce prices for medicines and electricity, expand programs to support small and medium-sized businesses, and fight corruption, invest 500 million Australian dollars (more than $350 million) in the regions.
Albanese supports abortion rights and voluntary euthanasia, and is a defender of the rights of LGBT people. He advocates changing the monarchical form of government to a republican one.
What does he promise?
The new prime minister has promised voters “comfortable change”, which he says will come as the conservative Liberal-National coalition, which has been in power since 2013, weakens its influence.
In areas where previous Prime Minister Scott Morrison acted like a “bulldozer”, Anthony Albanese vows to become a “builder”.
In the wake of the pandemic, which saw Australian states cut off from each other and cities separated by strict lockdowns, restoring the country’s sense of unity has become a top priority for the new leader.
“I want to bring Australians together. I want to promote unity and optimism rather than fear and division,” Anthony Albanese said in his victory speech on Saturday night.
During the election campaign, the left-wing politician did indeed adhere to a centrist position, including in order to gain the votes of conservative voters who did not vote for the party in 2019.
Thus, he has abandoned support for aggressive climate action policies while simultaneously using tough rhetoric on China and national security.
- Australia will build nuclear submarines to counter China. Britain and the USA will help her
- Why is Australia refusing to protect the Great Barrier Reef?
- Australian authorities have proposed a lifelong ban on entry of illegal migrants
He also supported Australia’s controversial policy of returning all refugees arriving by boat to where they came from, something he once publicly opposed.
Inspiring example:
However, he remained true to his Labor roots, promising more generous funding for the country’s aged care, lowering the cost of childcare and revitalizing the manufacturing industry.
Labor has also promised to hold a referendum on constitutionally enshrining Indigenous voting rights in Parliament, an advisory body that would give Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people a say in policies that affect them.
Anthony Albanese began his victory speech by repeating that promise.
His other key promise was to put the interests of Australians first and lead by example.
“It says a lot about our great country that the son of a single mother on a disability pension, who grew up in social housing… can stand before you tonight as Prime Minister of Australia. I want Australia to remain a country where there are no restrictions on the path of life depending on where you live, who you worship, who you love or what your last name is,” the new prime minister said.
Australian Prime Minister spoke about the need to protect the civilian population of Gaza:
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said every effort must be made to protect civilians in the blockaded Gaza Strip. This was reported by ABC News, citing statements by the Australian Prime Minister, who spoke at a conference in Melbourne.
Albanese expressed concern about the growing number of civilian casualties in the exclave.
“The life of every Palestinian has the same significance as the life of every Israeli,” the Australian prime minister said.
He noted that Israeli attacks on the Jebaliya refugee camp in the Gaza Strip “raise great concern.”
According to Albanese, he met with Australian citizens whose relatives died in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli-Palestinian conflict:
On the morning of October 7, Hamas’s military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, announced the start of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood against Israel. Thousands of rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip towards Israel, and armed groups entered Israeli settlements.
Hamas said the operation was in response to the storming of the Al-Aqsa mosque in occupied East Jerusalem and growing Israeli settler violence against Palestinians.
In response, the Israeli army announced the launch of Operation Iron Swords against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, using dozens of fighter jets.
Gaza’s 2.3 million residents suffer from food, water and medicine shortages due to Israel’s massive aerial bombing and total blockade of the exclave.
Since the beginning of the escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, more than 9 thousand Palestinians have died. According to official data, about 70% of the dead Palestinians were women and children. The death toll in Israel exceeds 1,400.
The UN General Assembly called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. At the same time, 120 states voted for the resolution proposed by Jordan. However, Israel rejected this proposal.