Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is a craft beer afficionado who loves “fighting Tories”, clawing his way to the nation’s highest office from hardscrabble blue-collar beginnings.
Albanese’s centre-left Labor Party won a second term in government on Saturday night, dealing a crushing defeat to its conservative rivals.
A Labor Party lifer, Albanese has roamed the halls of parliament for almost 30 years since he was first elected as a fresh-faced 33-year-old in 1996.
“I like fighting Tories. That’s what I do,” was how he succinctly summed up his political mantra in 2012.
The 62-year-old grew up in a modest government-subsidised flat in Sydney’s inner city, and his blue-collar back story has become something of political legend.
He was raised as the only child of a single mother, who worked as a cleaner before her hands were wracked with rheumatoid arthritis.
Albanese spent much of his teenage years looking after his mother Maryanne, crediting his difficult upbringing as the inspiration for a career in progressive politics.
He started working for the Labor Party soon after graduating from the University of Sydney with a degree in economics in 1984.
DJ ‘Albo’
Known simply as “Albo” to friends and foes alike, Albanese has made much of his ability to connect with middle Australia.
A favourite gimmick is helming the turntable at parties and campaign events under the alias “DJ Albo”.
To lighten up his regular appearances on Australian breakfast television, Albanese often calls on his shaggy cavoodle “Toto”.
At the height of his popularity in 2022, a popular Sydney brewery put Albanese’s grinning face on the side of its “Albo pale ale”.
The same beer, bearing a cartoon of Albanese in his student radical days, was handed out at his victory party on Saturday night.
True to his Labor roots, Albanese’s first term has focused on household concerns such as the cost of childcare and hospital funding.
He has promised to embrace renewable energy, tackle a worsening housing crisis and pour money into a creaking healthcare system.
And he won support from many Australians by criticising US President Donald Trump’s 10-percent trade tariffs as “not the act of a friend”.
Stabilising China ties
The rate of inflation has eased under Albanese’s leadership but the cost of food, fuel and rent remains stubbornly high.
One of Albanese’s flagship policies was a national referendum that aimed to give greater constitutional recognition to Indigenous Australians.
That vote ended in a stinging defeat.
His government has poured money into renewable energy and green manufacturing, and is bidding to host the COP climate conference in 2026.
But it has also granted permits for new mining projects while handing out subsidies to polluting fossil fuel industries.
Albanese has, however, been praised for stabilising ties with Australia’s largest trading partner, China.
He was the first Australian premier to visit China in seven years, and helped to end a trade war that hampered billions of dollars in trade.
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