Factbox: Key members of Australia’s incoming Labor government


Anthony Albanese, leader of the Australian Labor Party, addresses supporters after incumbent Prime Minister and Liberal Party leader Scott Morrison conceded defeat in the country’s general election, in Sydney, Australia, on May 21. 2022. REUTERS/Jaimi Joy

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SYDNEY, May 22 (Reuters) – The Australian Labor Party ousted the Conservative coalition in elections on Saturday, returning the centre-left party to government after nine years in opposition. read more

High on incoming Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s agenda is a “Quad” group summit in Tokyo, where he will meet with US President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Albanese said he, deputy Labor leader Richard Marles, and three key shadow ministers – Penny Wong on foreign affairs. Jim Chalmers as treasurer and Katy Gallagher in finance would be sworn in Monday to allow the quad ride.

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Below are some details about Albanese, Chalmers and Wong, who will hold some of the most important positions in the government.

ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER

* Born in Sydney’s inner suburbs in 1963, Albanese grew up in public housing with a single mother on disability pension. He entered student politics while completing a degree in economics and began working for the federal Labor Party at the age of 22.

* Albanese’s marriage to a state Labor politician ended in 2019, making him Australia’s first divorced prime minister. He is also the country’s first prime minister of Italian origin.

* He entered parliament in opposition in 1996, aged 33, and often supported progressive causes that resonated with his mostly foreign-born, working-class electorate: higher wages, immigrant rights, transport infrastructure.

* When the Labor Party won office in 2007, his first cabinet role was as infrastructure minister. He became leader of the party after Labor lost the 2019 election.

* Albanese has been portrayed by his opponents as a leftist ideologue, but in recent years he has portrayed himself as a pragmatic centrist. He ran the affairs of the Labor Party’s lower house during a minority government from 2010 to 2013, forcing him to negotiate with the opposition and with independent lawmakers to pass legislation.

JIM CHALMERS – TREASURER

* Jim Chalmers was born in Brisbane, Queensland, in 1978. He has a Ph.D. in political science from reformist former Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating, who argued that Australian leaders must court the media and the public to maintain authority in their party.

* Chalmers began working as a researcher for the Labor Party in 1999 and was a senior adviser to former Treasurer Wayne Swan from 2007 to 2013. His 2013 book, Glory Daze, complained that “hyper-partisan” politics had spoiled Australia’s achievement by avoiding a recession in the global financial crisis, when Labor was in power.

* He was elected to parliament in 2013 as Labor entered what would be nine years in opposition and remains an unknown quantity for many Australians despite having the shadow portfolio since 2019.

* After Labor lost the 2019 election despite being ahead in the polls, Chalmers told The Australian newspaper: “Our task has to be to make change safe and reassuring.”

PENNY WONG – MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

* Born in Malaysia in 1968 to an Australian mother and a Malaysian father and who moved to Australia as a child, Penny Wong is the first Asian-born person to hold an Australian cabinet post. She is also Australia’s first openly gay female MP.

* A senator since 2002, Wong has a high profile in Australian politics with a reputation for plain language and maintaining his composure during heated debates.

* After Labor won the government in 2007, Wong became climate change minister and then finance minister. In 2013, she became Australia’s first female government leader in the Senate.

* Since 2016 she has been shadow foreign minister. In a 2021 speech, she said Australia faced unprecedented challenges, including “a more assertive China” and called for a foreign policy review with “the key task of maximizing our influence in reshaping the region”.

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Information from Byron Kaye; Edited by William Mallard

Our standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.



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