By Kirsty Needham
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, seeking re-election in a tight race, is a pragmatic leader who pledged to end divisions but was set back by the failure of a referendum on Indigenous people and the headwinds of global inflation.
His centre-left Labor government pulled Australia closer to major security ally the United States, committing A$368 billion ($232 billion) to their AUKUS nuclear submarine partnership with Britain.
He also restarted dialogue with China after a diplomatic freeze, saying stabilising ties with Australia’s biggest customer was in the national interest.
That effort secured the removal of an unofficial boycott of A$20 billion of Australian commodities and the release of a journalist jailed for three years.
Those who know Albanese, 62, say he is genuinely motivated by a mix of pragmatism and concern for social justice gained from childhood struggles, when he was brought up in public housing by a single mother on a disability pension.
“There is a lovely softness to him. I have seen him cry,” said Labor parliamentarian Linda Burney, a long-time neighbour in inner Sydney, who attributed her entry into politics to encouragement from the prime minister.
“He has just been a rock in my life,” added Burney, who became the first Indigenous person elected to the parliament of New South Wales in 2003, before going on to be Minister for Indigenous Australians in federal parliament.
Polling shows Australians are likely to elect a hung parliament, leaving either Labor or the opposition Liberal-National coalition to strike deals with independents to form a minority government.
WORKING CLASS BOY MADE GOOD
In the 2022 campaign that won Albanese the prime minister’s office after nine years of conservative rule, Labor spotlighted his working-class credentials heavily.
Albanese was an old mate who had “a socialism of the heart”, British singer-songwriter Billy Bragg wrote on social media after the prime minister quoted his lyrics during his first press conference in the role.
The first in his family to attend university, Albanese studied economics and engaged in student politics.
But by 2024, media headlines focused on his A$4-million ($2.5 million) purchase of an oceanfront house in New South Wales, amid a housing affordability crisis that has become the dominant theme of the 2025 election.
Despite delivering early on core promises to boost childcare funding and lift wages of low-income workers, Albanese was hampered as global inflation caused by the war in Ukraine drove up energy prices and interest rates, said Frank Bongiorno, a professor of history at the Australian National University.
Burney, who sat in cabinet meetings, said Albanese worked with his team to craft household relief measures such as energy bill rebates that were “just crucial in terms of seeing Australia through very difficult times”.
Albanese has been called over-cautious after setting a two-term strategy for what he wanted to achieve, said Bongiorno, who added it was uncertain if he would get another chance at the job.
“There hasn’t been a one-term federal government in Australia since 1932, the depression era,” Bongiorno said.
Labor’s 2025 election promises feature tax cuts and a centrepiece pledge of A$8.5 billion more for healthcare under a revitalised Medicare.
Albanese’s passion for the National Rugby League, a sport he discussed with U.S. President Donald Trump on their first telephone call in 2025, eventually dovetailed with geopolitics.
Australia pledged A$600 million ($378 million) to bring its Pacific Islands neighbour Papua New Guinea into the league and fund its team – if it rejected security ties with Beijing.
PNG leader James Marape said in February he would “forever appreciate” Albanese’s support to create the first national team.
As prime minister, Albanese staked significant political capital on improving the position of Australia’s Indigenous peoples.
He pushed ahead with a national referendum in 2023 seeking to recognise them in the constitution, despite opposition by the conservative Liberal-National coalition.
Albanese said he accepted responsibility after more than 60% of Australians voted “No”.
“That was an enormously damaging episode to the government, it sapped its confidence, it sapped its sense of purpose, it made the government for the first time look like a loser,” said Bongiorno, who has authored a book on the Labor Party.
Albanese’s policy themes owe a debt to Bob Hawke, Labor’s longest-serving prime minister, in whose reformist government he worked as a research officer, after being elected president of the party’s youth wing at 22.
Hawke launched the universal health scheme Medicare and took steps towards a treaty with Indigenous people but ultimately failed to deliver it.
Albanese was at the centre of managing Australia’s last minority government, as Leader of the House for Labor Prime Minister Julia Gillard, between 2010 and 2013.
“If it is a hung parliament, his leadership, his negotiation skills and his experience in the political arena is going to be absolutely critical,” said Burney.
($1 = 1.5883 Australian dollars)
(Reporting by Kirsty Needham in Sydney; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Lincoln Feast.)
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