Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has survived a volatile political era
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Anthony Albanese hopes to become the first Australian prime minister in 21 years to lead a political party to two consecutive election victories when the country votes on Saturday.
The last was John Howard, who won a fourth consecutive term in 2004, making him the second-longest serving leader in Australia’s history. But when he was voted out three years later, it marked the beginning of a turbulent period in Australian politics with six prime ministers.
“There’s a lot of undecided voters. We have a mountain to climb. No one’s been reelected since 2004,” Albanese told reporters Friday.
His center-left Labor Party differs sharply with the conservative Liberal Party on energy and achieving a shared commitment to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Labor would replace fossil fuel-fired electricity generators with renewable energy sources while the conservatives want to build nuclear reactors.
Prime minister from humble circumstances
Albanese, 62, is the only child of a single mother who became an invalid pensioner. They lived in public housing in Sydney.
Albanese’s election pledge has been that his government would hold no Australian back and leave none behind.
A first priority was to hold a referendum in 2023 that would have enshrined in the constitution an Indigenous body known as the Voice to advise Parliament on issues that affect Indigenous lives. Indigenous Australians account for 4% of the population and are the nation’s most disadvantaged ethnic minority.
The referendum was defeated and the government was accused by critics of focusing on a minority group instead of the needs of the majority during an inflation crisis.
The couple’s waterside house gets attention
Albanese, who is divorced and has an adult son, was to become the first Australian prime minister to marry in office after he proposed to his fiancee Jodie Haydon on Valentine’s Day last year.
The couple initially planned to marry before the election, but Labor strategists feared a wedding during a cost of living crisis could hurt his reelection chances. Albanese now says it will happen after the election, but before the end of the year.
He has been accused of focusing too much on life after politics by buying a waterside house last year at Copacabana Beach, 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of Sydney. It’s a region where Haydon grew up and where three generations of her family still live.
The 4.3-million Australian dollar ($2.7-million) price tag for the four-bedroom, clifftop home has been highlighted in the news media as many Australians struggle with a shortage of affordable housing.
“I understand I’m fortunate. I also know what it is like to struggle,” Albanese said of his new home.
A revolving door for prime ministers
Since Howard was voted out as prime minister after 11 years in 2007, six people have held the job — including the current Australian Ambassador to the United States Kevin Rudd, who held it twice in separate stints three years apart. Most of those who led their parties to election victories were dumped by them between votes in the face of poor opinion polling.
The only leader to serve a full three-year term was Scott Morrison, who replaced ousted Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull nine months before the 2019 election and remained in office until his government was defeated by Albanese in 2022.
That leaves Albanese with a chance to become the first prime minister since Howard to win back-to-back elections.
Dumping prime ministers between elections has become harder
Albanese’s durability could be explained in part by a change of Labor’s rules that make dumping a sitting prime minister more difficult.
When Rudd returned to the helm a second time in 2013, he got his party to tighten the rules for switching leader. A ballot for a new prime minister now requires the support of 75% of Labor lawmakers instead of a simple majority. Party members who pay a membership fee but don’t hold elected offices also have a say in the result.
Rudd surrendered his prime ministership in 2010, just a few hours after his deputy Julia Gillard challenged his leadership. Close advisers including Albanese, then a Cabinet minister, assured him he had no chance of winning a ballot of government lawmakers the next day. Gillard was elected unopposed by her government colleagues to replace Rudd.
She led her party through an election, and lasted until she attempted to crush internal grumblings about her leadership in 2013 by inviting any of her colleagues to challenge her in a snap ballot the same day. Rudd accepted her challenge and won that ballot 57 votes to 45.
Rudd’s changes made overthrowing a leader into a slower process that takes weeks and wider consultation beyond Parliament. The Liberal Party has also tightened their rules since their lawmakers last dumped a prime minister in 2018.
By ROD McGUIRK
Associated Press
