Karen Middleton - Albanese: telling it straight

A window on the recent turbulent years of federal politics with a deeply personal dimension. This is the whole story of Anthony Albanese and the remarkable mother, Maryanne, who raised him.

Anthony learned his political craft among the tough men and women of NSW Labor, inheriting his mothers devotion to social justice, the South Sydney Rabbitohs and the party his family had served for three generations.

Maryanne adored her only child and Anthony his only parent.

Until his teens, he believed she had been widowed before his birth. Then one evening, she sat him down and told him the truth.

This story reveals what shaped the bloke they call Albo, his climb through politics by playing hard, fast and sometimes loose, and how as he and his colleagues wrestled with Labors future, he discovered his own past.

I think its almost impossible to overstate the influence of those early years on Albo.
BOB HAWKE

To be a man of principle. To be honest. Your handshake is your word. And every moment Ive ever dealt with Anthony Albanese his word is binding.
JOE HOCKEY

This was not how Anthony Albanese was used to being introduced. Kevin Rudd was back in charge, almost three years to the day since being removed as Prime Minister in mid-2010 and now Anthony was there alongside him in Parliaments Blue Room, wearing a new title.

Let me make some remarks before I turn to the Deputy Prime Minister, Rudd said, gesturing to his newly minted number two. The returning Rudd promised his second go at being the nations leader would be accompanied not by vengeance but humility, honour, energy and purpose.

His pledge was in stark contrast to the many months of savagery and rancour that had delivered the Labor Party to this moment. Its parliamentarians had just ousted their second leader by the sword in the time it normally takes to serve a single term.

Having seized power from Rudd in June 2010, Julia Gillard had herself been overthrown in a razor-sharp return of serve. Although Rudds revenge had been in train since the day he was dumped, it seemed strangely swift in its final descent. Swift and bloody.

This time, Anthony had played Brutus. Now he was being rewarded.

Some in the Labor Party were convinced reinstating Rudd gave them a tiny chance at stealing an actual victory from the wide-open jaws of looming electoral defeat. But others in fact, most believed they would still lose as expected, just not by quite as much. Rudd, they hoped, would at least save the furniture. By the conventional wisdom of that second scenario, neither of these two men was going to be in his new job for long.

As things turned out, Anthony was Deputy Prime Minister for just 83 days, the shortest serving since the position was designated officially in 1968. He took that mantle from Frank Crean, who served 132 days back in 1975 and whose son, Simon, was Anthonys unsuccessful opponent in the ballot.

But as he stood beside the triumphal Rudd, lights and cameras trained on them both, Anthony was not focused on how long he might stay but how hed got there.

These past weeks and months had been some ride. Gillard knew he had never supported removing Rudd in the first place. He had said so, publicly, in a now-famously tearful declaration on the eve of Rudds first (and unsuccessful) return challenge in 2012. He was, he said, in politics because he liked fighting Tories, not other members of his own party.

Despite backing Rudd then, he had continued to serve as one of Gillards strategic inner circle and had been loyal to her right up until the point when he wasnt.

Standing there at the podium, he was thinking about a journey that had begun a lot further back.

Rudd spoke to the gathered journalists first, briefly and off the cuff. He hadnt written any speech notes, still not quite believing he was going to get there, despite having spent three years planning this very victory. Anthony also didnt have a formal statement prepared. But when it was his turn, he found he had something to say.

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, he said.

As they often are, his emotions were close to the surface, curling at the edges of his words.

I didnt know I was going to say it, he says, looking back. It was the ultimate gut instinct.

Beyond those friends and colleagues who knew his real, whole story, few listening might have understood exactly what this moment represented for the boy from Sydneys industrial inner west, whose late mum had lived in that same council house for the whole of her life.

Some who did know still wished he wouldnt show his heart quite so readily. They feared it might seem indulgent when his tenure was likely to be so short or that he might seem like hed somehow got there by accident, not through years of relentless political slog.

Standing before the nation with his South Sydney football team membership badge pinned to his suit lapel, acknowledging the third tribe in the triumvirate that had shaped him along with the Catholic Church and the Australian Labor Party, he promised to bring enthusiasm, passion and commitment to the job.

Ill give my all for Labor, he said. His mother had given much the same for him. He wished above everything that she could have been there for this momentous day.

After all theyd been through her sacrifice, their struggle and a personal search he never thought hed embark on here he was on this podium, a heartbeat from the highest political office in the land.

Anthony Albanese never knew his father growing up. For his success in politics and in life, he credits his mother, Maryanne, most.

Bad health since childhood had made life a battle for Maryanne Therese Albanese born Mary Anne Therese Ellery and her schooling had suffered. She was determined her son would have the best sort of life she could make for him, starting with a good education.

She also encouraged his interest in politics. Her devotion to the Labor Party, and her parents before her, meant he had little hope of escaping it.

From before she had even given birth, Maryanne had set her own direction by putting her son first in everything.

She made a decision at that point in time that her life would be lived through me through a child, Anthony Albanese says of his mother. Lots of parents do that but the truth is, its particularly women who do that, much more so than blokes. Its very selfless.

When his mother died in May 2002, Anthony told those gathered at her funeral service that she was the finest person he had ever known.

A two-person family is different , he said, standing before the congregation at St Josephs Catholic Church, Camperdown, next door to his primary school, up the road from home and where most of his familys religious rituals had been performed since before he was born.

Six years into his parliamentary career, this address from such a familiar pulpit was easily the hardest speech of his life.

Mum had to not only be a mother but also a father figure, brother, sister and best friend. She was my soul mate. I am so proud to be her son and so fortunate. Mum gave me strength inspiration and believed that I could be anything I wanted to be.