Anthony Albanese on becoming first Australian-Italian Prime Minister

Anthony Albanese has been asked about how it would change Australia if he were to become the first Italian-Australian Prime Minister.

Anthony Albanese says that people from the Italian community have told him they’ll vote for Labor for the first time in their lives because they want the government to reflect “modern Australia”.

The opposition leader spent Thursday morning at a fuel refinery in Gladstone with Labor candidate for Flynn Matt Burnett, Labor MP Ed Husic and Queensland senator Murray Watt.

Despite a margin of 8.7 per cent, Labor is hopeful it can pick up the central Queensland electorate which spans an area twice the size of Tasmania.

The LNP’s MP Ken O’Dowd is retiring and Mr Burnett is a popular local mayor.

At a press conference, Mr Albanese was asked about how becoming the first Italian-Australian Prime Minister would change the country.

Mr Albanese said he’d been “heartened” by the response he had received, especially from the Italian community.

“There are members of the Italian community saying to me that they are going to vote Labor for the first time in their life because they want an Australia that reflects modern Australia,” he said.

Labor leader Anthony Albanese says becoming the first Italian-Australian Prime Minister would reflect modern Australia. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

“Modern Australia is made up of people called Husic and Albanese. But it’s also made up of people like Watts and Matt.”

Mr Husic is the son of Bosnian immigrants and became Australia’s first Muslim frontbencher when he was appointed as parliamentary secretary in 2013 when Kevin Rudd was Prime Minister.

“We’re a diverse country, and the fact that I have a non-Anglo-Celtic name, and so does our Senate leader as well (Penny Wong), I think it send a message out there hopefully to multicultural Australia that you can achieve anything in this country,” Mr Albanese said.

Mr Albanese then pointed to the multicultural backgrounds of state premiers.

“It’s a good thing that we have in Queensland a Premier called Annastacia Palaszczuk,” he said.

“That we had in NSW, a premier called Berejiklian.

“That in Victoria, we had Steve Bracks of Lebanese descent, and a fellow called Peter Malinauskas just elected in South Australia. I think it’s a very positive thing.”