Inside the new prime ministership (as told by Australia’s First Dog Toto Albanese)

Toto Albanese, Australia’s Canine Commander in Chief reveals what it has been like inside the first weeks of Anthony Albanese’s prime ministership.

Not everyone understands the enormous responsibility that comes with being Australia’s First Dog, our Canine Commander in Chief.

But with the power of my human Anthony Albanese becoming Australia’s 31st Prime Minister comes great responsibility.

As only the second unmarried Prime Minister in the nation’s history, it will be me to whom he turns on those long lonely nights of worry about some international crisis or other.

Of course he does have his girlfriend Jodie Haydon, lovely woman, but she has her own life to lead and make no mistake it will be me who will shoulder the burden of support.

I know she comes over for sleepovers and for some reason I get kicked off the bed and the bedroom door is closed but that in no way relegates my importance in his life. I was there through the hard times, the chubby pre-makeover years of divorce, faction fighting and the Labor wilderness. It is me, Toto, who knows the real Albo.

Me, Anthony and his girlfriend Jodie went for walkies at Marrickville Library! Picture: Darren Leigh Roberts

It was for that reason that I accepted The Daily Telegraph’s offer of a column because I wanted you to see my Anthony as I do. Then he was photographed going out to collect the newspaper in his old Newtown Jets jumper and I realised you already had.

Truthfully it has all been a bit of a whirlwind. One minute I’m out on the campaign trail wearing an Albo bandana and the next we are moving to The Lodge in Canberra.

As he likes to point out, repeatedly actually, it is a very different form of public housing to the one he grew up in. For me the true test will be how the chef disposes of the leftovers from those swanky dinners with foreign dignitaries.

I really knew my Anthony had become our Wizard of Oz when he pulled on his ruby red Labor slippers, clicked his heels together and said: “We’re not in Marrickville any more Toto.”

In fact he was on the first plane to Japan and then wearing some silly brown batik shirt and wobbling along on a bike beside Joko Widodo, the President of Indonesia. There is nothing a dog likes to see less than their human riding a bike. What about my walks?

The bad news is that Joko gave the bike to my Anthony to bring home. The good news is that it is made of bamboo and won’t last very long once it clears customs and I get my teeth into it.

Look how many people were cheering me - I mean Anthony - on! Picture: Chris Pavlich/The Australian

Finally we headed over to Kirribilli House, our new harbourside digs in Sydney, after Scott Morrison and his dog Buddy finally moved out. Not before time if you ask me.

It was quite exciting. In fact I got so excited I may have inadvertently left a little Toto calling card on the veranda.

This caused something of a crisis because New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was about to arrive and my Anthony was dashing around trying to find something to clean it up. He grabbed a hose but it was still in the Bunnings wrapper and had never been used. This should not have been a surprise given Mr Morrison’s insistence that: “I don’t hold a hose mate.”

I left a little present for Kiwi PM Jacinda Ardern, but I don’t think Anthony appreciated my contribution!

Commemorating the occasion...

As Cavoodle in Chief I was keen to make my first diplomatic introduction but no sooner had I greeted Ms Ardern than I was promptly ejected into the Kirribilli House garden. Most odd, if she had arrived with a dog I would have smelled her bottom instead.

Investigating the grounds I realised that my job in taking over as First Dog from Buddy was not that different from my Anthony taking over from ScoMo. Buddy had also left half hidden piles of sh** everywhere for me to discover and clean up.

I personally would have thought Mr Morrison would have picked all of that up before he left but apparently he said: “That’s not my job.”

Buddy also appears to have buried things his owner would rather not see again. Under the Moreton Bay fig I uncovered a Hawaiian shirt and half burnt tickets for what looks like an ill-timed family holiday.

It is early days but I wonder what I will be asked to bury over the next three years?

Toto was in conversation with Matthew Benns