Anthony Albanese

Anthony Norman Albanese (born 2 March 1963) is an Australian politician who has served as the 31st prime minister of Australia since 2022. He has been the leader of the Labor Party since 2019 and the member of Parliament (MP) for the New South Wales division of Grayndler since 1996.

Born in Sydney, Albanese attended St Mary's Cathedral College and studied economics at the University of Sydney. As a student, he joined the Labor Party and later worked as a party official and research officer before entering Parliament. He was elected to the House of Representatives at the 1996 federal election, winning the seat of Grayndler in Inner West Sydney. He was appointed to the shadow cabinet in 2001 by Simon Crean. 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, a role he retained after Kevin Rudd was replaced as prime minister by Julia Gillard in 2010. He supported Rudd's challenges against Gillard in 2012 and 2013. Following a final leadership ballot in June 2013, which saw Rudd return as prime minister, Albanese was elected the deputy leader of the Labor Party and sworn in as deputy prime minister the following day, a position he held for less than three months, as Labor was defeated at the 2013 election.

After the party's election defeat, Albanese stood for leadership of the Labor Party against Bill Shorten in a leadership election. Although Albanese won a large majority of the membership, Shorten received more support from Labor MPs and became leader. Shorten subsequently appointed Albanese to his Shadow Cabinet. After Labor's surprise defeat in the 2019 election, Shorten resigned as leader, with Albanese becoming 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. He led the party to victory at the 2022 election, defeating the Liberal–National Coalition.