Has any politician in the history of the world marketed his family history as ruthlessly as Anthony Albanese?
The ABC summed it up in 2016:
The story of Anthony Albanese being raised by his single mother, Maryanne, in public housing in Sydney’s inner west is one he has told often in his political career.
“What I was told was that (my mother) travelled overseas, met my father, married him overseas, returned to Australia and that he died in a car accident,” Mr Albanese told 7.30.
“That was what I was told, and from an early age, that was what I believed.”
But when he was about 14 or 15 years old, his mother revealed that there was actually much more to the story.
“We sat down just after dinner one night and she — it was very traumatic for her, I think, to tell me that in fact that wasn’t the case, that my father might still be alive, that she’d met him overseas, fallen pregnant with me, had told him and he had said, basically, that he was betrothed to someone from the town in Italy where he was from.
So on and so forth. Year after year, Albo has used this history to claim legitimacy as a left-wing politician. He is signalling to the less fortunate, primarily renting single mothers, that he will look after them as PM.
How do we reconcile the following then:
Housing advocates warn that the nation’s housing crisis is getting worse, with a survey of hundreds of renters revealing the majority are now under “housing stress”.
Experts often use this threshold when considering housing affordability, particularly for low-income households.
…Among renters and mortgagees combined, it found 75 per cent of people are scared about their financial security because of the housing crisis.
…The report also stated two-thirds of renters said the accommodation crisis was affecting their mental health.
The cause of this is the Albanese Government’s maniac mass immigration program which was recklessly slammed into a tight rental market post-COVID. With obvious results.
Today’s renters are even worse off that Albo’s mother given she, at least, had access to public housing, Albo is building none with a plan to build next-to-none.
The question is why? Why did ‘Albo from the Projects’ start kicking Australia’s renting poor from the moment he took power?
Does Albo want as many people as possible to suffer the way he did?
It appears so, yes. But why given his professed empathy for his Mum? Introductory psychology may help us understand.
Anybody that makes such a public song and dance about admiration for a parent is very likely protesting too much. Usually, such self-promotion hides its opposite, rage at being abandoned by said parent.
Unprocessed rage of this type is acted out on the world at large. It might be through making poor relationship choices. Depression or substance abuse. Or becoming abusive oneself.
In the case of a prime minister, it can be expressed through policy settings that punish those that resemble the parent. In this case, lowly renters. If the whip is mass immigration to recover a foreign father then it is all the more satisfying.
In this frame of reference, Albo is not a left-wing pollie. He is an enraged child throwing the most destructive policy tantrum ever witnessed.
Topping ScoMo’s misogyny was no easy trick.
