Anthony Albanese’s ‘difficult year’ after break-up with Carmel Tebbutt

After a deeply saddening year, new Labor leader Anthony Albanese has reflected on the personal cost of his political life.

In the middle of last century, a young, heavily pregnant woman returned to Sydney from a long trip abroad. The father was literally half a world away and betrothed to another.

For an Irish Catholic girl in 1960s Australia, this simply would not do.

Young Maryanne Ellery gave birth to her baby, knowing that as soon as she did, the child would be taken from her and put up for adoption.

But a nun at the hospital made a fateful decision — one that changed the course of Australian political history. She placed the newborn back in his mother’s arms and young Maryanne realised she could not let him go.

Taking the baby home to her small council flat in an industrial part of inner-western Sydney, she told people the father was killed in a car accident during her pregnancy.

But, like any good Catholic girl, she wasn’t going to let that alter the child’s good upbringing, nor her good name.

So she took the father’s name as though they were married all along and gave it to her child so he would grow up knowing he was still his father’s son.

That surname was Albanese. And that child will probably be the next prime minister of Australia.

Fifty-six years later, I’m knocking on the door of a modest Federation-era house in the messy suburb of Marrickville in inner-west Sydney. There’s a pair of thongs on the porch and a nondescript Toyota in the drive. The man everyone simply calls Albo answers the door in jeans, bare feet and a football jersey. It’s his first day off in three months.

Joe Hildebrand sits down with newly minted Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese for Stellar Magazine. Picture: Stellar Magazine

The house is as relaxed and informal as his clothes. He lives there with his 18-year-old son Nathan and jokes about what the kid gets up to when he’s away.

Because these days, he’s away a lot.

Right now, the newly minted Opposition leader, formally known as Anthony Albanese, is wrapping up a post-mortem “listening tour” of Australia.

ALP folklore maintains that Maryanne Albanese instilled in her son Anthony three great faiths: the Catholic Church, the Australian Labor Party and the South Sydney Football Club. So far, only the Rabbitohs have had a good year.

RELATED: The device that has broken the spirit of every suburban man

Anthony Albanese and Carmel Tebbutt arrive at last year’s Midwinter Ball at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture Gary Ramage

It’s also been a hard year for him personally.

In January, his 19-year marriage to fellow Labor luminary Carmel Tebbutt, abruptly ended after 30 years together.

“Yeah it has, it has been a difficult year,” he says. “But life can be complex and difficult.”

He doesn’t want to delve into the reasons why. There were no third parties involved, and who really knows why relationships end anyway? Sometimes they just do.

Their teenage son, Nathan, spends time with both of his parents.

“Yeah, he spends time at his mother’s as well,” he says. “We are very close, and I try to make sure I’m sitting down with him and having quality time and talking about how he’s going.”

Still, he remains ferociously aware of how hard it is for politicians to raise kids. “I tried to make sure I was there for things like the weekend sporting fixtures. Spending time with him was sacred.”

RELATED: Weather has been around forever and yet we still can’t cope with it

Amanda Keller on the cover of this week’s Stellar Magazine. Source: Supplied.

Speaking of sacred, what about his other great pillar of faith? How long is it since he has been to Mass?

Albanese still goes to church but only on occasions that matter to him personally. One, he doesn’t want to talk about. The other was his late mother’s birthday. He laughs as he recounts how excited the priest was to see him.

During his mother's many long stays in hospital, a teenage Albanese would take care of their Camperdown home on his own.

Sometimes the neighbours next door would offer him dinner. All poor, all Catholic, all Labor, all taking care of each other. It made him.

“I don’t recall anyone saying they voted anything but Labor until I was in my teens,” the 56-year-old admits with a laugh. “I thought that was just what you did.”

RELATED: Joe Hildebrand: The man that clashed with George Pell

RELATED: Joe Hildebrand: Celebrities are the Greek gods of our age

RELATED: ‘What I learnt when I did a bit of research into Father’s Day’

Labor leader Anthony Albanese speaking during the State Memorial service for former prime minister Bob Hawke. Picture: AAP

And in voting Labor, the public generally knew what they were getting. Except, in the aftermath of Labor’s shock defeat on May 18, turns out no one really knew Bill Shorten.

And while Shorten was inscrutable, Albo was, well, Albo. Even if you didn’t know him, you knew him.

Now the question is whether Albo can lead Labor back from the wilderness and restore it to power. In doing that, Australians might also get their first single dad in The Lodge. Should we be worried about house parties then?

“I think the truth is that politicians, by and large, end up working so hard that people are voting for them, not their circumstances,” Albo says with diplomatic restraint.

“Certainly my circumstance isn’t unique.”

Joe Hildebrand co-hosts Studio 10, 8.30am weekdays, on Network Ten and is Editor-at-large for news.com.au. Continue the conversation on Twitter @Joe_Hildebrand

This is an edited extract from an article which originally appeared in Stellar and is reproduced here with permission.

Stellar is available online and in today’s News Corp’s Sunday Telegraph, Sunday Herald Sun and Sunday Mail