Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is a politician moulded by his humble start to life as the only child of a single mother who raised him on a pension in gritty inner-Sydney suburbia.
He is also a hero of multicultural Australia, describing himself as the only candidate with a "non-Anglo-Celtic name" to run for prime minister in the 121 years the office has existed.
His friends pronounce his name "Alban-ez," like bolognese.
But having been repeatedly corrected over the years by Italians, the nationality of his absent father, he introduces himself and is widely known as "Alban-easy".
Mr Albanese's financially precarious upbringing in a housing commission home in suburban Camperdown fundamentally formed the politician who has led the Australian Labor Party into government for the first time since 2007.
He is still widely known by his childhood nickname, Albo, and lists his three great faiths in life as The Catholic Church, the Labor Party and the South Sydney Rabbitohs rugby league team.
"It says a lot about our great country that a son of a single mum who was a disability pensioner, who grew up in public housing down the road in Camperdown can stand before you tonight as Australia's prime minister," Mr Albanese said in his election victory speech.
"Every parent wants more for the next generation than they had. My mother dreamt of a better life for me. And I hope that my journey in life inspires Australians to reach for the stars," he added.
Family secret
During the six-week election campaign, Mr Albanese repeatedly referred to the life lessons he learned from his disadvantaged childhood.
As a young child, to spare Mr Albanese the scandal of being "illegitimate" in a working-class Catholic family in socially conservative 1960s Australia, he was told that his Italian father, Carlo Albanese, had died in a car accident shortly after marrying his Irish-Australian mother, Maryanne Ellery, in Europe.
His mother, who became an invalid pensioner because of chronic rheumatoid arthritis, told him the truth when he was 14 years old: His father was not dead and his parents had never married.
Carlo Albanese had been a steward on a cruise ship when the couple met in 1962 during the only overseas trip of her life.
She returned to Sydney from her seven-month journey through Asia to Britain and continental Europe almost four months pregnant, according to the Labor leader's 2016 biography, Albanese: Telling it Straight.
She was living with her parents in their local government-owned house in inner-suburban Camperdown when her only child was born on March 2, 1963.
Out of loyalty to his mother and a fear of hurting her feelings, Mr Albanese waited until after her death in 2002 before searching for his father.
Father and son were happily united in 2009 in the father's hometown of Barletta in southern Italy.
The son was in Italy for business meetings as Australia's minister for transport and infrastructure.
'Fighting Tories' and political turmoil
Anthony Albanese was a minister throughout Labor's most recent six years in power and reached his highest office — deputy prime minister — in the government's final three months, which ended with the 2013 election.
His ascent to the role came on the back of his support for Kevin Rudd in a leadership spill, which saw the former prime minister return as leader, ousting then-prime minister Julia Gillard in the process.
An emotional Mr Albanese had backed Mr Rudd in an unsuccessful leadership spill the year previous, choking back tears when he announced his intent to support Ms Gillard's removal.
He said he had made the move as an attempt to end the infighting which had plagued the party since Mr Rudd's 2010 ousting.
In reference to ending the internal turmoil, Mr Albanese, who was then the leader of the house, said he wanted to get back to "fighting Tories … that's what I do".
Mr Albanese's critics argue that it is not his humble background but his left-wing politics that make him unsuitable to be prime minister.
The Coalition argued throughout the campaign he would be Australia's most left-wing leader since Gough Whitlam.
It was Mr Whitlam's introduction of free university education that enabled Mr Albanese to graduate from Sydney University with an economics degree despite his meagre financial resources.
Mr Albanese's supporters say that while he was from Labor's so-called Socialist Left faction, he was a pragmatist with a proven ability to deal with more conservative elements of the party.
Car crash leads to lifestyle change
Mr Albanese has undergone what has been described as a makeover in the past year, opting for more fashionable suits and glasses.
He also shed 18 kilograms in what many assumed was an effort to make himself more attractive to voters.
Mr Albanese says he believed he was about to die when he was involved in a two-car collision in January last year and that was the catalyst for his healthier life choices.
After the accident, Mr Albanese spent a night in a hospital and suffered what he described as external and internal injuries that he has not detailed.
He briefly resigned himself to a fate he once believed had been his father's.
The 17-year-old boy behind the wheel of the Range Rover SUV that collided with Mr Albanese's much smaller Toyota Camry sedan was charged with negligent driving.
Early start to political life
Mr Albanese said he was 12 when he was involved in his first political campaign.
His fellow public housing tenants successfully defeated a local council proposal to sell their homes — a move that would have increased their rent — in a campaign that involved refusing to pay the council in a so-called rent strike.
The unpaid rent debt was forgiven, which Mr Albanese described as a "lesson for those people who weren't part of the rent strike: Solidarity works".
"As I grew up, I understood the impact that government had, can have, on making a difference to people's lives," Mr Albanese said.
"And in particular, to opportunity."
On election day, before the vote counting started, he spoke of an advantage from his upbringing.
Mr Albanese's partner, Jodie Haydon, and his son, Nathan, from his first wife Carmel Tebbutt, shared the stage with the Labor leader during his victory speech.
Ms Tebbutt, a former deputy premier of New South Wales, married Mr Albanese in 2000.
The couple separated in 2019, but Ms Tebbutt was in the crowd last night and was acknowledged by Mr Albanese during his speech.
ABC/wires
