The Fifth Estate: Straight Talk with Anthony Albanese

In a revealing conversation with Fifth Estate host Sally Warhaft, Anthony Albanese reflects on about family, foundations and the political future.

Anthony Albanese has said that his mother raised him in three great faiths: the Catholic Church, the South Sydney Football Club and the Australian Labor Party.

Despite these solid foundations, there was a missing piece to the puzzle of Albanese’s identity. His mother, Maryanne, raised him as a single parent and as the new book, Albanese: Telling It Straight by political journalist Karen Middleton details, Albanese did not meet his father until he was almost 50.

In the intervening years, the boy from working-class Sydney had risen to the top of Australian federal politics. The three great faiths – and the struggles of his early life – have left an indelible impression on Albanese as a politician. Principles of social justice and a commitment to progressive policy guided Albanese as a senior minister, and ultimately Deputy Prime Minister, in the tumultuous Rudd/Gillard era. He’s emerged from that bruising period of Labor history as one of the party’s most popular figures.