Australia has a new prime minister

May 21 evening, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced that he had called Mr. Anthony Albanese and congratulated the Labor leader on his victory in the election on the same day.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has conceded defeat in the election after a “tough night” for his Conservative government.

Anthony Albanese, soon to be Australia’s next prime minister, is a pragmatic leader from the working class who has pledged to end divisions in the country.

“I want to unify the country,” said the leader of the Labor Party, after Prime Minister Scott Morrison conceded defeat. “I think people want to come together, seek common interests, work towards that common goal. I think people are divided enough, what they want is to come together as a country and I intend to lead that,” said Albanese.

Labor’s election campaign has highlighted Mr Albanese’s image as a pragmatic unifier.

Mr Albanese, 59, entered parliament in 1996 – just as Labor entered its first struggle in two decades as the opposition party. The party’s period of return to power, from 2007 to 2013, was marred by leadership struggles in which he openly criticized both sides.

Those years forged Mr. Albanese’s reputation as a coordinator, willing to work beyond lines of thought, as Leader of the House of Commons, where he was in charge of government operations in the country. festival.

After losing the 2010 election, Labor became Australia’s first minority government in 70 years, requiring the party to win support from conservatives or independents to pass legislation.

But by a measure cited by political commentators – the number of laws passed relative to the number of days in office – it is Australia’s most efficient parliament.

“Despite his attempt to cause chaos, what Mr Albanese does (as Leader of the House of Commons) is to make sure that government work gets ahead,” said Craig Emerson, a former Commerce Secretary in the government. onion”.

At the age of 12, Mr. Albanese helped organize a landlords strike to keep his mother’s home from being sold to property developers. Those who know Albanese say his personality is a mixture of pragmatism and a concern for social justice that he acquired during his childhood struggles.

“It gave me a determination, every day and every day, to help people like me, grow up, have better lives,” Mr Albanese told the National Press Club in January, recalling how he used to depend on neighbors for food when his mother, who lived on disability benefits, could not provide.

Mr. Albanese was the first in his family to attend college, where he studied economics and became involved in student politics.

At the age of 22, Albanese was elected chairman of Labor’s youth wing, the party’s youth wing, and worked as a research officer under the economic reform government of Bob Hawke, Labor’s longest-serving prime minister.