(ANSA) - WASHINGTON, MAY 21 - Anthony Albanese, leader of the Labor party and new winner of the elections in Australia, will be the first prime minister of Italian origin to lead the country.
The father, Carlo Albanese, was in fact from Barletta.
Anthony, however, only met him years later, shortly before his death in Italy in 2014, because the man abandoned him and his mother, Maryanne Ellery, shortly after his birth.
To avoid 'loscandal' in Australia in the 1960s and within a very Catholic family, news was spread that Carlo had died in a car accident shortly after his marriage in Europe.
Only when he was 14 Anthony, whom friends call 'Albo', did he learn the truth from his mother: Carlo was a steward on a cruise ship when he met Maryanne in 1962 during the only overseas voyage of his life to Asia and Europe.
She returned to Sydney she was single and four months pregnant as she recounts the 2016 biography, 'Albanese: Telling it Straight'.
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