Canberra,Australia

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australians vote Saturday to elect their 47th Parliament since federation in 1901 and will likely either return Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s conservative coalition for a fourth three-year term or make opposition leader Anthony Albanese the nation’s 31st prime minister.If neither of the two major parties can secure a majority of seats in the House of Representatives, the leaders will have to negotiate with unaligned lawmakers to form a minority government. This has happened only once since World War II. Here are some facts about the Australian election.WHY IS VOTING COMPULSORY?Australia’s political system is unusual in that voting is compulsory. Voter turnout is consistently high despite the fine for failing to vote being a token 20 Australian dollars ($14).Compulsory voting was introduced in 1924 because public apathy toward elections in the first two decades of federation cast doubt on the legitimacy of results.The system means that voter turnout is high even when many aren’t particularly attracted to any candidate.There are 17.2 million people registered to vote in Saturday's election, which is 97% of eligible adult citizens among Australia's total population of 26 million. In the last election in 2019, 92% of registered voters cast ballots.HOW DO AUSTRALIANS VOTE?Because voting in compulsory, the Australian Electoral Commission goes to some effort and expense to make the process convenient with more than 7,000 polling centers around the country.The commission expects this election will cost AU$400 million ($281 million), plus around AU$70 million ($49 million) that will be distributed to political parties based on how many votes they attract. A temporary staff of 105,000 employees has been hired. Government regulations were changed on Friday to enable people who have recently tested positive for COVID-19 to vote by phone.More than 40% of votes were cast early or by post in the 2019 election and the proportion is on track to exceed 48% in the 2022 election due to the pandemic.Early voting began May 9 and the commission will continue to collect postal votes until 13 days after election day.WHAT'S AT STAKE IN THE ELECTION?The Australian Parliament is a blend of both the British and U.S. models.The British model couldn’t be replicated entirely because Australia lacked an aristocracy to populate an antipodean House of Lords.Australians are voting for all 151 seats in the House of Representatives and 40 out of 76 Senate seats.A majority of seats in the House of Representatives is needed to form a government.The government held a bare minimum majority of 76 seats in the last Parliament. The center-left Labor Party opposition held 68 seats and seven were held by unaligned lawmakers.Governments rarely hold a majority in the Senate because of its higher proportion of fringe parties and independents.The government had 35 senators in the last Parliament, Labor had 26 and the remainder were unaligned.

EXPLAINER: How does Australia's election process work?

Australia

Parliament

Senate

ScottMorrison

AnthonyAlbanese

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — The son of a single mother who raised him on a pension, Anthony Albanese had a humble start to life for a politician who could become Australia’s prime minister on Saturday.His financially precarious upbringing in government-owned housing in Sydney fundamentally formed the politician who leads the center-left Australian Labor Party opposition. He is still widely known by his childhood nickname, Albo.Albanese repeatedly referred during the six-week election campaign to the life lessons he learned from his disadvantaged childhood. Labor’s campaign has focused on policies including financial assistance for first home buyers grappling with soaring real estate prices and sluggish wage growth.Labor is also promising cheaper childcare for working parents and better nursing home care for the elderly.Albanese said his political rise since he joined the party as an impoverished teenager was built on his honesty.“One of the reasons, I think, why that young lad ... became the leader of the Australian Labor Party ... is because my entire political career has been built on my word,” Albanese told the National Press Club this week.As a young child, to spare Albanese the scandal of being “illegitimate” in a working-class Roman Catholic family in socially conservative 1960s Australia, he was told that his Italian father Carlo Albanese had died in a car accident shortly after marrying his ethnic-Irish Australian mother Maryanne Ellery in Europe.His mother, who became an invalid pensioner because of chronic rheumatoid arthritis, told him the truth when he was 14 years old: His father was not dead and his parents had never married.Carlo Albanese had been a steward on a cruise ship when the couple met in 1962 during the only overseas trip of her life. She returned to Sydney from her seven-month journey through Asia to Britain and continental Europe almost four months pregnant, according to Anthony Albanese’s 2016 biography, “Albanese: Telling it Straight.”She was living with her parents in their local government-owned house in inner-suburban Camperdown when her only child was born on March 2, 1963.Out of loyalty to his mother and a fear of hurting her feelings, Albanese waited until after her death in 2002 before searching for his father.Father and son were happily united in 2009 in the father’s hometown of Barletta in southern Italy. The son was in Italy for business meetings as Australia‘s minister for transport and infrastructure.Anthony Albanese was a minister throughout Labor’s most recent six years in power and reached his highest office — deputy prime minister — in his government’s final three months, which ended with the 2013 election.“It says a great thing about our nation that the son of a (single) parent who grew up in a council house in Sydney could be deputy prime minister of Australia,” Albanese said. He had just defeated the son of a former deputy prime minister in a ballot of fellow lawmakers for the post.But Albanese’s critics argue that it’s not his humble background but his left-wing politics that make him unsuitable to be prime minister.The conservative government argues he would be the most left-wing Australian leader in almost 50 years since the crash-or-crash-through reformer Gough Whitlam, a flawed hero of the Labor Party.In 1975, Whitlam became the only Australian prime minister to be ousted from office by a British monarch’s representative in what is described as a constitutional crisis.Whitlam had introduced during his brief but tumultuous three years in power free university education, which enabled Albanese to graduate from Sydney University with an economics degree despite his meager financial resources.Albanese’s supporters argue that while he was from Labor’s so-called Socialist Left faction, he was a pragmatist with a proven ability to deal with more conservative elements of the party.Albanese had undergone what has been described as a makeover in the past year, opting for more fashionable suits and glasses. He has also shed 18 kilograms (40 pounds) in what many assume is an effort to make himself more attractive to voters.Albanese says he believed he was about to die in a two-car collision in Sydney in January last year and that that was the catalyst for his healthier life choices. He had briefly resigned himself to a fate he once believed had been his father’s.After the accident, Albanese spent a night in a hospital and suffered what he described as external and internal injuries that he has not detailed. The 17-year-old boy behind the wheel of the Range Rover SUV that collided with Albanese’s much smaller Toyota Camry sedan was charged with negligent driving.Asked at the National Press Club in January to explain who he was, Albanese replied he was the son of a pensioner mother who had grown up with the security of a local government-provided house.Albanese said he was 12 years old when he became involved in his first political campaign. His fellow public housing tenants successfully defeated a local council proposal to sell their homes — a move that would have increased their rent — in a campaign that involved refusing to pay the council in a so-called rent strike.The unpaid rent debt was forgiven, which Albanese described as a “lesson for those people who weren’t part of the rent strike: Solidarity works.” “As I grew up, I understood the impact that government had, can have, on making a difference to people’s lives,” Albanese said. “And in particular, to opportunity.”

Australia's would-be PM Albanese shaped by humble start

Sydney

Italy

Sammya Mukhopadhyay

Canberra ACT, Australia

In Australia, a billboard is doing the rounds stating: “CCP says vote Labor.” The red billboard featuring a hammer and sickle, symbols of the Communist movement, is endorsed by a fringe conservative political group called Advance Australia. But the conversation the group seeks to inspire is far from fringe. Australia’s relations with China are among the biggest issues in the federal polls scheduled later this month. ,Xi Jinping, the Chinese President and the leader of the Chinese Communist Party, has a strong presence in the Australian domestic political narrative. It was during his regime that China’s relations with Australia soured to a great extent. Now, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who leads a Liberal-National alliance government, and his closest competitor Anthony Albanese, are trading accusations at each other for being closer to Xi. Morrison, while referring to the Albanese, Australian Labor Party’s deputy leader, said he was the Chinese government’s pick in the elections and described him as a “Manchurian candidate.” The phrase is a Cold War-era insult that means a political leader working on behalf of an enemy power. The phrase “Manchurian candidate” comes from American novelist Richard Cordon’s 1959 thriller novel titled “The Manchurian Candidate.”,While Morrison later withdrew his comments, Albanese has heaped the same insult at the Australian prime minister. ,Public opinion polls, notoriously unreliable, indicate a Labor win in the upcoming polls. While Albanese has said, “Xi has changed the nature of the Chinese Communist Party. It’s more forward leaning. It’s more aggressive. And that means Australia, of course, must respond,” indicating a stern view, there exists the expectation that Australia-China relations will alter, even if slightly, if a Labor government in power. On paper, however, the Liberal and Labor foreign policies are nearly the same. ,China is Australia’s biggest trading partner. As such, the lack of a clear communication line between Beijing and Canberra often hurts Australia’s own interests, but, Australian domestic politics has increasingly taken a stern view of China and what is perceived as Beijing’s methods to exert greater influence. ,Over the last few years, there has been bipartisan support in Australia over substantial shifts in the country’s China policy. The national security argument looms large and the focus is on the AUKUS agreement, the Quad arrangement and Canberra’s plans to buy nuclear submarines. The Quad, a four-way alliance comprising Australia, Japan, US and India, is scheduled the meet next month. While who will attend on Australia’s behalf remains unclear, the China question is expected to emerge in a big way when the Quad meets.

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<ul>
 <li>Australia’s China policy has emerged as a major poll issue</li>
 <li>Australia goes to polls on May 21</li>
 <li>Rumors abound that Beijing wants a Labor candidate in power</li>
</ul>

Opoyi Central

Who loves Xi? ‘Manchurian’ slander weighs heavily on Australian polls

XiJinping

Chinese

China

Beijing

India

Japan

American

Asia

IndiaNews

Politics

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A former Australian envoy to the Solomons Islands has accused Australia’s government of losing the trust of South Pacific island countries and of ushering in greater Chinese influence. Retired career diplomat Trevor Sofield told a security summit on Monday he found it ”inconceivable” that the Solomons government did not trust Australia enough to consult when a bilateral security pact with Beijing was first considered.“That would not have happened a few years ago,” said Sofield, who was Australian high commissioner to the Solomons from 1982 to 1985.The pact, which was concluded last month, has been a major issue ahead of Australian elections on Saturday. Australia and its allies including the United States fear the pact will result in a Chinese naval presence less than 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) from the northeast Australian coast.Prime Minister Scott Morrison argues that he is better able than opposition leader Anthony Albanese to take on the security threats posed by China and to strengthen relations with Washington, Australia’s most important defense partner. Sofield, who was manhandled by security staff when he attempted to speak to Morrison at a campaign event last week, said Australia had “lost its way” in the Pacific as China scaled up its influence in the region.“We had a vision,“ he said. “It was underpinned by the fact that if we could assist these governments reach economic security through trade and aid then they would certainly be able to manage their own affairs.”“But we’ve lost that vision and we’ve lost that trust that we developed over time,” Sofield added. Albanese’s center-left Labor Party has condemned the Sino-Solomons pact as Australia’s worst foreign policy failure in the Pacific since World War II.Morrison argues the blame lies with China for interfering in the Pacific.Morrison boasts that a partnership with the United States and Britain announced in September that will supply Australia with a fleet of submarines powered by U.S. nuclear technology was as major achievement to boost Australia’s security.The so-called AUKUS agreement has become a political battleground since an Australian newspaper reported on Saturday that the United States had set bipartisan support as a prerequisite for any agreement going ahead.Morrison on Monday defended his failure to brief Labor earlier on the agreement and suggested the party’s deputy leader Rickard Marles might have leaked the nascent deal to the Chinese.National security is traditionally seen as a strength of Morrison’s conservative coalition, which is seeking a rare fourth three-year term. Labor is ahead in most opinion polls, although the election result is expected to be close.

Former Australian envoy says Australia's lost Pacific trust

Washington

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Early voting began Monday in Australia’s federal election with the opposition party hoping the first ballots will reflect its lead over the government in opinion polls.Voters began casting their ballots at 550 voting stations around the country as two new opinion polls showed the center-left Labor Party opposition had extended its lead over Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s conservative coalition.Voting is compulsory in Australia and almost 17 million adults in a population of 26 million people are expected to vote. Pre-poll voting is available to those unable to vote on May 21 for reasons including work or travel. People conscious of the risks of COVID-19 are expected to vote early to avoid the larger crowds at polling booths on May 21.Opposition leader Anthony Albanese said government lawmakers were discouraging electors from voting early in the hope that Labor’s lead would evaporate before election day.“The bells are tolling for the Morrison government because early voting starts today,” Albanese said. “We want people to participate in our democracy and to vote whenever is convenient.Morrison said many voters had yet to decide which candidate they will support. “As Australians are going to those polls, they’re really starting to focus on the choice that they have to make and it’s a choice between strength, a strong economy and a weaker one under Labor,” Morrison said.Morrison called the election for the last date available to him to maximize the time he had to discredit Albanese as a potential government leader. Using the same tactic in 2019, Morrison defied most opinion polls by leading his coalition to a narrow victory.His coalition is now seeking a rare fourth three-year term.More than 40% of votes were cast before the 2019 election date, and that proportion is expected to increase in the current election.Many observers say the government’s popularity has been harmed by the Australian central bank’s decision last week to raise interest rates for the first time in 11 years to curb inflation. It was the first time that the Reserve Bank of Australia has lifted the cash rate during an election campaign.In the 2019 election, the combined vote for the major parties in the House of Representatives was its lowest proportion since World War II. The trend toward independent and minor party candidates is expected to continue at this month’s election.Some polls are suggesting a rare hung parliament that would lead to Morrison or Albanese forming a minority government with the support of unaligned lawmakers.Several seats held by Morrison’s conservative Liberal Party are being targeted by so-called teal candidates. They are independents seen as a combination of the Liberal Party’s official color, which is blue, and the color of the Australian Greens party.The teal candidates are expected to win support of traditional conservative voters who are dissatisfied with the government’s climate change policies.Both the government and opposition have set a target of net zero carbon gas emissions by 2050.Morrison was widely criticized at the U.N. climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, in November for failing to set more ambitious targets for the end of the decade.The government aims to reduce emissions by 26% to 28% below 2005 levels, while other countries have made steeper commitments.Labor has promised to reduce emissions by 43% by 2030.

Early voting begins ahead of Australia's May 21 election

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia’s opposition party officially launched its election campaign on Sunday with an emphasis on cutting costs of living for voters as inflation surges to its highest rate in 21 years.The center-left Labor Party launched it campaign in the west coast city of Perth for the first time since World War II, in a demonstration of how important Western Australia state is to the party’s ambition to win control of government in May 21 elections.Opposition leader Anthony Albanese promised lower-cost childcare and medicines if he becomes prime minister.With many aspiring home owners priced out of the housing market, a Labor government would buy a stake of up to 40% in dwellings bought by thousands of eligible low- and middle-income earners. Labor also promised to raise standards in aged care and increase pay for staff.“We can do better than this, so much better than this,” Albanese told supporters, referring to the conservative government’s nine years in power.“We will look after the young, we will look after the sick, we will look after our older Australians. No one held back and no one left behind,” Albanese added.Prime Minister Scott Morrison attacked Labor’s plan to take a stake in homes, arguing a Labor government would expect to make money out of such deals.“They will have equity in your home. And as ... your equity goes up, they’re going to keep it,” Morrison said.“I don’t have a plan to make money off people buying homes. Quite the opposite. I want them to own their own home,” Morrison added.Official data released last week showed that Australia’s inflation rose to 5.1% in the year through March. It is the highest annual rate since 2001 when a newly-introduced 10% federal consumption tax created a temporary hike. Inflation in the latest March quarter was sharply higher than the 3.7% three months earlier. The March result was driven by a surge in fuel and housing costs as well as food shortages created by recent Australian floods.While inflationary forces are largely outside Morrison’s control, some observers suspect rising prices undermine his coalition’s claim to be the superior economic managers.Most economists expect Australia’s central bank will on Tuesday raise a benchmark interest rate for the first time since November 2010. The overnight cash rate has been at a record low 0.1% since November 2020.The Reserve Bank of Australia last raised interest rates during an election campaign in 2007. Two weeks later, Prime Minister John Howard’s conservative government was voted out of office after more than 11 years in power.Morrison set the election date on April 10. But parties officially launch their campaigns closer to the poll day when voters are starting to focus more on their choice.Morrison isn’t expected to launch his Liberal Party’s campaign until the weekend before the election.His coalition won 77 seats at the 2019 election in the 151-seat House of Representatives where a government needs to control a majority. The government's majority shrank to a bare minimum 76 seats when a lawmaker quit the Liberal Party last year.Labor won only five of the 16 electoral divisions in Western Australia at the last election. Morrison’s coalition won the rest.Albanese is hoping Labor’s extraordinary popularity at the state parliament-level will brush off on his federal candidates.The Labor state government used strict border restrictions to keep Western Australia largely free of COVID-19 throughout the pandemic until the more infectious delta and omicron variants became entrenched in recent months.Labor was rewarded with a record 53 seats in the 59-seat state legislature in an election in March last year, 13 more than in the previous election.

Australian opposition targets inflation in campaign launch

HouseofRepresentatives

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia’s opposition leader said he tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday in the second week of an election campaign ahead of the May 21 election.Anthony Albanese, the 59-year-old leader of the center-left Labor Party, said he was feeling fine and would isolate at his Sydney home for a week.“While at home, I will continue my responsibilities as alternative prime minister and will be fighting for a better future for all Australians,” Albanese said in a statement.The diagnosis is a setback for his party, which is seeking its first election victory since 2010. Labor has been leading Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s conservative government in opinion polls in recent months.Morrison, 53, tested positive for COVID-19 on March 1 and his symptoms were mild.Morrison and Albanese came face to face Wednesday for the first time since the election was called on April 10 when they attended the first televised leaders’ debate of the campaign in Brisbane. They shook hands and posed together for photographs.It was not immediately clear whether Morrison would also be sidelined from campaigning due to his close contact.Hours before his positive test, Albanese wore a mask while talking to residents at Symons House retirement village in Nowra, a coastal town south of Sydney.Albanese said he found he was infected after a routine PCR test Thursday afternoon ahead of a planned flight across the country to the west coast city of Perth.Australia on Thursday reported 54,137 new coronavirus infections in the latest 24-hour period and 50 deaths in a population of 26 million.

Australian opposition leader gets COVID while campaigning

Brisbane

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia’s prime minister on Monday warned that thousands of asylum seekers will attempt to reach the country by boat if the opposition party wins elections on May 21.The annual number of asylum seekers arriving in Australian waters by boat peaked at more than 20,000 in 2013, the year the conservative government was elected and began turning back boats in a military-led policy known as Operation Sovereign Borders.The government also continued a center-left Labor Party administration’s policy — introduced two months before the election — of banishing boat arrivals to immigration camps on remote Pacific islands. Boat arrivals have since become almost nonexistent.Prime Minister Scott Morrison suggested his coalition government’s success against the people smuggling trade had inspired Britain’s plan to put some asylum seekers on one-way flights to Rwanda.“We established Operation Sovereign Borders and it has been one of the most successful border protection policies anywhere in the world. So successful, that other countries are taking their lead from Australia’s successful approach, and why? It’s the humane thing to do,” Morrison said.Opposition leader Anthony Albanese has said a Labor government would change the national policy on asylum seekers by getting rid of so-called temporary protection visas.Refugees among Australia’s formal protection intake are permanently resettled. But those who arrived by boat are given three-year protection visas. The visas can be extended if refugees can’t be returned to their homelands, but critics argue the uncertainty over their futures gets in the way of creating new lives.Morrison blamed a previous Labor government abolishing three-year refugee visas in 2008 for the surge in boat arrivals that followed. Only 161 asylum seekers arrived in 2008. But more than 2,700 arrived the following year and 6,500 in 2010.“I know that when Labor abolished temporary protection visas in 2008, the armada of people smugglers’ boats came to Australia and that was the launching point,” Morrison said.Refugee Action Coalition spokesman Ian Rintoul, a Melbourne-based refugee advocate, accused Morrison of “scare mongering” over the need for temporary visas that don’t provide refugees with the same rights as permanent visas.Australia’s harsh refugee policies have been criticized by the United Nations and human rights groups.Indonesia has condemned the Australian navy turning back asylum seeker boats to Indonesian ports as a violation of Indonesian sovereignty.Some smuggling crews had developed a tactic of sabotaging their crowded fishing boats after being intercepted by patrol boats so that Australian crews would have to rescue them from sinking.Australian ships have countered by putting these asylum seekers and crews into powered lifeboats that are then towed close to the Indonesian coast and left with just enough fuel to reach the shore.The leader of the Anglican church this week strongly criticized the British government’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, saying “sub-contracting out our responsibilities” to refugees can’t stand up to God’s scrutiny.Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby made the unusually direct political intervention in his Easter Sunday sermon, saying there are “serious ethical questions about sending asylum-seekers overseas.”Labor has been leading the government in most opinion polling in recent months. The government is seeking a rare fourth three-year term.

Australian leader warns of a resurgence in asylum seekers

Rwanda

Britain

The illegitimate son of a single mother who raised him on a pension, Anthony Albanese had a humble start to life for an aspiring Australian prime minister. But despite his disadvantaged upbringing in public housing in Sydney, the man known since childhood as Albo has risen to the top of the center-left Australian Labor Party and is now only an election away from potentially realizing his ambition to lead the national government. On Sunday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison called for an election on May 21. As a young child, to spare Albanese the scandal of being illegitimate in a working-class Roman Catholic family in socially conservative 1960s Australia, he was told that his Italian father Carlo Albanese had died in a car accident shortly after marrying his ethnic-Irish Australian mother Maryanne Ellery in Europe. His mother, who became an invalid pensioner because of chronic rheumatoid arthritis, told him the truth when he was 14 years old: His father was not dead and his parents had never married. Carlo Albanese had been a steward on a cruise ship when the couple met in 1962 during the only overseas trip of her life. She returned to Sydney from her seven-month journey through Asia to Britain and continental Europe almost four months pregnant, according to Anthony Albanese’s 2016 biography, “Albanese: Telling it Straight.”,Also Read | Scott Morrison cooks 'Modi's favorite khichdi' to celebrate India-Australia trade deal,She was living with her parents in their local government-owned house in inner-suburban Camperdown when her only child was born on March 2, 1963. Out of loyalty to his mother and a fear of hurting her feelings, Albanese waited until after her death in 2002 before searching for his father. Father and son were happily united in 2009 in the father’s hometown of Barletta in southern Italy. The son was in Italy for business meetings as Australia‘s minister for transport and infrastructure. Anthony Albanese was a minister throughout Labor’s most recent six years in power and reached his highest office — deputy prime minister — in his government’s final three months that ended with the 2013 election. “It says a great thing about our nation that the son of a (single) parent who grew up in a council house in Sydney could be deputy prime minister of Australia,” Albanese said. He had just defeated the son of a former deputy prime in a ballot of fellow lawmakers for the post. Also Read | Hypersonic arms race: What AUKUS pact on missiles means for the world,But Albanese’s critics argue that it’s not his humble background but his left-wing politics that make him unsuitable to be prime minister. The conservative government argues he would be the most left-wing Australian leader in almost 50 years since the crash-or-crash-through reformer Gough Whitlam, a flawed hero of the Labor Party. In 1975, Whitlam became the only Australian prime minister to be ousted from office by a British monarch’s representative in what is described as a constitutional crisis. Whitlam had introduced during his brief but tumultuous three years in power free university education, which enabled Albanese to graduate from Sydney University with an economics degree despite his meager financial resources. Also Read | India-Australia agree that 'Ukraine should not impact Indo-Pacific',Albanese’s supporters argue that while he was from Labor’s so-called Socialist Left faction, he was a pragmatist with a proven ability to deal with more conservative elements of the party. Albanese had undergone what has been described as a makeover in the past year, opting for more fashionable suits and glasses. He has also shed 18 kilograms (40 pounds) in what many assume is an effort to make himself more attractive to voters. Albanese says he believed he was about to die in a two-car collision in Sydney in January last year and that that was the catalyst for his healthier life choices. He had briefly resigned himself to a fate he once believed had been his father’s. After the accident, Albanese spent a night in a hospital and suffered what he described as external and internal injuries that he has not detailed. The 17-year-old boy behind the wheel of the Range Rover SUV that collided with Albanese’s much smaller Toyota Camry sedan was charged with negligent driving. Asked at the National Press Club of Australia in January to explain who he was, Albanese replied he was the son of a pensioner mother who had grown up with the security of a local government-provided house. Also Read | Modi-Morrison meet: Focus on enhancing closer ties between India, Australia,Albanese said he was 12 years old when he became involved in his first political campaign. His fellow public housing tenants successfully defeated a local council proposal to sell their homes — a move that would have increased their rent — in a campaign that involved refusing to pay the council in a so-called rent strike. The unpaid rent debt was forgiven, which Albanese described as a “lesson for those people who weren’t part of the rent strike: Solidarity works.” ,“As I grew up, I understood the impact that government had, can have, on making a difference to people’s lives,” Albanese said. “And in particular, to opportunity.

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She returned to Sydney from her seven-month journey through Asia to Britain and continental Europe almost four months pregnant, according to Anthony Albanese’s 2016 biography, “Albanese: Telling it Straight.”\"}},{\"type\":\"paragraph\",\"data\":{\"text\":\"Also Read |&nbsp;<a href=\\\"https://opoyi.com/english/scott-morrison-cooks-modis-favorite-khichdi-to-celebrate-india-australia-trade-deal\\\">Scott Morrison cooks 'Modi's favorite khichdi' to celebrate India-Australia trade deal</a>\"}},{\"type\":\"paragraph\",\"data\":{\"text\":\"She was living with her parents in their local government-owned house in inner-suburban Camperdown when her only child was born on March 2, 1963.\"}},{\"type\":\"paragraph\",\"data\":{\"text\":\"Out of loyalty to his mother and a fear of hurting her feelings, Albanese waited until after her death in 2002 before searching for his father.\"}},{\"type\":\"paragraph\",\"data\":{\"text\":\"Father and son were happily united in 2009 in the father’s hometown of Barletta in southern Italy. The son was in Italy for business meetings as Australia‘s minister for transport and infrastructure.\"}},{\"type\":\"paragraph\",\"data\":{\"text\":\"Anthony Albanese was a minister throughout Labor’s most recent six years in power and reached his highest office — deputy prime minister — in his government’s final three months that ended with the 2013 election.\"}},{\"type\":\"paragraph\",\"data\":{\"text\":\"“It says a great thing about our nation that the son of a (single) parent who grew up in a council house in Sydney could be deputy prime minister of Australia,” Albanese said. He had just defeated the son of a former deputy prime in a ballot of fellow lawmakers for the post.\"}},{\"type\":\"paragraph\",\"data\":{\"text\":\"Also Read |&nbsp;<a href=\\\"https://opoyi.com/english/hypersonic-arms-race-what-aukus-pact-on-missiles-means-for-the-world\\\">Hypersonic arms race: What AUKUS pact on missiles means for the world</a>\"}},{\"type\":\"paragraph\",\"data\":{\"text\":\"But Albanese’s critics argue that it’s not his humble background but his left-wing politics that make him unsuitable to be prime minister.\"}},{\"type\":\"paragraph\",\"data\":{\"text\":\"The conservative government argues he would be the most left-wing Australian leader in almost 50 years since the crash-or-crash-through reformer Gough Whitlam, a flawed hero of the Labor Party.\"}},{\"type\":\"paragraph\",\"data\":{\"text\":\"In 1975, Whitlam became the only Australian prime minister to be ousted from office by a British monarch’s representative in what is described as a constitutional crisis.\"}},{\"type\":\"paragraph\",\"data\":{\"text\":\"Whitlam had introduced during his brief but tumultuous three years in power free university education, which enabled Albanese to graduate from Sydney University with an <a href=\\\"https://opoyi.com/why-the-nobel-prize-in-economics-is-not-really-a-nobel-prize\\\">economics</a> degree despite his meager financial resources.\"}},{\"type\":\"paragraph\",\"data\":{\"text\":\"Also Read |&nbsp;<a href=\\\"https://opoyi.com/english/india-australia-agree-that-ukraine-should-not-impact-indo-pacific\\\">India-Australia agree that 'Ukraine should not impact Indo-Pacific'</a>\"}},{\"type\":\"paragraph\",\"data\":{\"text\":\"Albanese’s supporters argue that while he was from Labor’s so-called Socialist Left faction, he was a pragmatist with a proven ability to deal with more conservative elements of the party.\"}},{\"type\":\"paragraph\",\"data\":{\"text\":\"Albanese had undergone what has been described as a makeover in the past year, opting for more fashionable suits and glasses. He has also shed 18 kilograms (40 pounds) in what many assume is an effort to make himself more attractive to voters.\"}},{\"type\":\"paragraph\",\"data\":{\"text\":\"Albanese says he believed he was about to die in a two-car collision in Sydney in January last year and that that was the catalyst for his healthier life choices. He had briefly resigned himself to a fate he once believed had been his father’s.\"}},{\"type\":\"paragraph\",\"data\":{\"text\":\"After the accident, Albanese spent a night in a hospital and suffered what he described as external and internal injuries that he has not detailed. The 17-year-old boy behind the wheel of the Range Rover SUV that collided with Albanese’s much smaller Toyota Camry sedan was charged with negligent driving.\"}},{\"type\":\"paragraph\",\"data\":{\"text\":\"Asked at the National Press Club of Australia in January to explain who he was, Albanese replied he was the son of a pensioner mother who had grown up with the security of a local government-provided house.\"}},{\"type\":\"paragraph\",\"data\":{\"text\":\"Also Read |&nbsp;<a href=\\\"https://opoyi.com/english/modi-morrison-meet-focus-on-enhancing-closer-ties-between-india-australia\\\">Modi-Morrison meet: Focus on enhancing closer ties between India, Australia</a>\"}},{\"type\":\"paragraph\",\"data\":{\"text\":\"Albanese said he was 12 years old when he became involved in his first political campaign. His fellow public housing tenants successfully defeated a local council proposal to sell their homes — a move that would have increased their rent — in a campaign that involved refusing to pay the council in a so-called rent strike.\"}},{\"type\":\"paragraph\",\"data\":{\"text\":\"The unpaid rent debt was forgiven, which Albanese described as a “lesson for those people who weren’t part of the rent strike: Solidarity works.” \"}},{\"type\":\"paragraph\",\"data\":{\"text\":\"“As I grew up, I understood the impact that government had, can have, on making a difference to people’s lives,” Albanese said. “And in particular, to opportunity.\\\"\"}}]}

Shuvrajit Das Biswas

<ul>
 <li>Anthony Albanese aspires to be the next PM of Australia</li>
 <li>The current Prime Minister of Australia is Scott Morrison&nbsp;</li>
 <li>On Sunday, Morrison called for an election on May 21</li>
</ul>

#AnthonyAlbanese