Anthony Albanese slams Liberals for mocking his Italian surname following attack reports

Anthony Albanese has criticized Coalition political ads that mock his Italian surname, likening them to schoolyard taunts.

Ahead of the federal election, Mr Albanese was speaking to a crowd of 400 members of the Italian community at the Marconi Club in Sydney on Wednesday.

Advertisements were featured prominently by the Coalition during the election campaign, featuring the opposition leader frowning with the slogan: ‘It won’t be easy under Albanese’.

“People my age and older in this room will know that at school people made fun of your name,” he told the crowd.

“My opponents think it’s still okay to mock someone’s name in their advertising, and that’s something they need to look at.”

He also praised the Italian community for their contribution to Australia.

“People come to Australia to work hard, to get ahead and to provide a better life for their children and grandchildren and no community has done this more than the Italian community,” he said.

“When you work hard you should be able to get ahead…but right now it’s hard to get ahead.”

The south-west Sydney location is in Fowler’s constituency where Labor has parachuted Home Secretary Kristina Keneally into the shadows.

“It’s a great opportunity to give Fowler something they’ve never had before, which is a senior minister representing them,” Ms Keneally said.

When asked last week what he thought would be Australia’s first prime minister with an Italian name, Mr Albanese said he reflected modern Australia.

Speaking to the media in Gladstone, a reporter referred to former Prime Minister Paul Keating’s 1996 comment that: ‘When you change government, you change country’.

“You will be the first Italian Australian to win and Ed Husic will be the first Muslim Australian in the cabinet. Have you thought about how this will change the country? »

Mr Albanese replied that he was ‘encouraged’ by his support for overseas Australians.

“Members of the Italian community tell me they are going to vote for the first time in their lives because they want an Australia that reflects modern Australia,” Mr Albanese said.

“I have a non-Anglo-Celtic name, as does our leader of the Senate. I think it sends a message out there to hopefully multicultural Australia that you can achieve anything in this country.

He also pointed out that he was the group of popular prime ministers with foreign names, including Annastacia Palaszczuk in Queensland, ex-Prime Minister Gladys Berejiklian of NSW and Steve Bracks of Lebanese-born Victoria.

“A guy called Peter Malinauskas just got elected in South Australia.”

“I think it’s a very positive thing.”

Mr Albanese was born and raised in Sydney by his single mother Maryanne Ellery in council housing.

She had told him that her father had died in a car accident after they met abroad and got married, but when he was 15 she revealed a different story.

“We sat down just after dinner one night and she, it was very traumatic for her, I think, to tell me that actually that wasn’t the case, that maybe my dad was still alive. “, he previously said at 7:30 p.m.

“She had met him abroad, had gotten pregnant with me, had told him and he had said, basically, that he was engaged to someone in the town in Italy where he was from,” did he declare.

Maryanne had adopted her father’s name, worn engagement and wedding rings, and Mr Albanese believed it was because of the guilt she felt as a Catholic woman with an out-of-wedlock child in the 1960s .

Several decades later, after having a son of his own, he made the decision to reunite with his father with the help of Carnival Cruises boss Ann Sherry – whose company had bought the cruise business through which the couple s was met.

He eventually met his father in the Italian town of Barletta and discovered he had a half-brother and a sister.

“The bell rang…and the door opened, he came in and opened his arms to me and we kissed.”

He has since returned to Italy several times to meet his extended Italian family.

Mr Albanese’s father, Carlo, died in 2014.