This is part one in a series. For the full series, go here.
Could you pick out Richard Marles in a line-up? Probably not.
For all his influence, Australia’s deputy prime minister and defence minister remains a grey figure. It is all the more surprising given his role as the Albanese government’s point man with the United States and the driving role he has taken in adopting the budget-breaking AUKUS nuclear submarine deal. He is a career politician former prime minister Paul Keating derided as “well-intentioned” but “seriously unwise” and “completely captured by the idea of America”.
Marles’ backstory couldn’t be more different from that of Albanese — and remarkably so for those who know nothing of his past.
While Albanese sold newspapers on the street as a teenager to make ends meet, Marles attended the august Geelong Grammar School. Albanese was raised by a single mother on a pension. He later learnt that his father was an Italian-born steward on a Sitmar cruise ship. Marles’ mother Fay Marles had a distinguished public sector career, including roles as Victoria’s first equal opportunity commissioner (appointed by the Cain government in 1987) and chancellor at the University of Melbourne. Marles’ father Donald was headmaster of the prestigious Trinity Grammar School. Both parents have been honoured with an Order of Australia award.
Albanese took the NSW ALP route much trodden, starting as a party official (with Labor left legend Tom Uren). Marles took the Victorian ALP route equally well-trodden. After completing science and law degrees at Melbourne University Marles worked briefly at Labor-aligned law firm Slater and Gordon (as did former prime minister Julia Gillard) before joining the Transport Workers Union as a legal officer and ascending through the ranks of the ACTU.
Albanese’s sporting passion is rugby league and in particular the traditional inner-city battler’s club of South Sydney. Marles by contrast has an almost religious devotion to the more-genteel sport of golf. He is a member of two expensive clubs: the exclusive Royal Melbourne Golf Club and 13th Beach Golf Links, an upmarket resort-style club on the Victorian coast.
He’s also, incidentally, an honorary member of the Australian PGA and a member of the United States Golf Association.
With Albanese coming from the left and Marles coming from the right, the two have met somewhere in the middle and are apparently at one on forging a forever defence alliance with the USA and the UK.
