Anthony Albanese

Anthony Norman Albanese ( /ˌælbəˈniːzi/ AL-bə-NEEZ-ee or /ˈælbəniːz/ AL-bə-neez;[nb 1] born 2 March 1963) is an Australian politician who is the 31st and current prime minister of Australia.[3] He has been the leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) since 2019, and member of parliament (MP) for Grayndler since 1996. Albanese was the 15th deputy prime minister of Australia under the second Rudd government in 2013 and a cabinet minister in the Rudd and Gillard governments from 2007 to 2013. Albanese was born in Sydney to an Italian father and an Irish Australian mother who raised him as a single parent. He attended St Mary's Cathedral College, before going on to the University of Sydney to study economics. He joined the ALP as a student, and before entering Parliament worked as a party official and research officer. 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 deputy leader of the Labor Party and sworn in as deputy prime minister the following day. Following Labor's defeat in the 2013 election, Albanese stood against Bill Shorten in the ensuing leadership election, the first to include party members as well as MPs. Although Albanese won a large majority of the membership, Shorten won more heavily among Labor MPs and won the contest; Shorten subsequently appointed Albanese to his Shadow Cabinet. After Labor's surprise defeat in the 2019 election, Shorten resigned and Albanese became 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. In the 2022 election, Albanese led his party to a decisive victory against Scott Morrison's Liberal-National Coalition, making history as the first Italian Australian to become prime minister. He was sworn in on 23 May 2022, alongside four of his senior frontbench colleagues.