Anthony Albanese made his first mark in Canberra, aged just 35, by laying into John Howard. After growing up on the mean streets of Sydney’s inner west and climbing the greasy poles of student politics and NSW Labor, followed by a stint in the office of his mentor Tom Uren from the party’s industrial left wing, the brash young MP unleashed a savage ad hominem assault on the prime minister. It was 1998.
Stunning for its time, it put the denizens of Parliament House on notice; Albanese was there to kick heads. He mocked Howard’s agenda, his looks, his middle name, his upbringing, for being a class traitor who “moved further north, across the harbour”, and for living at home until he was 32. The prime minister, he said, was a “jerky, whiny apparition that we all see on the box every night”.
