Triumphant Marles ready to don PM’s shoes in just days
DEPUTY Prime Ministerelect Richard Marles has declared the elevation of Labor from opposition into government as the best moment of his political life.
The Corio MP, elected for a sixth term, will be sworn in as Deputy PM on Monday and will almost immediately become acting PM as Anthony Albanese heads to the Quad security meeting in Tokyo with the leaders of the US, Japan and India.
It is likely Mr Marles will also become Defence Minister later this month, following his time as Labor’s spokesman for defence from July 2016 to January 2021. Asked if the win, and elevation to deputy PMelect, was the best moment in his career, he said: “Certainly, yes, it’s up there with the moment of entering the parliament in 2007.”
Mr Marles said he wanted to bring consistency back to government and revitalise industry in Geelong.
He said Labor would work nationally to strengthen Medicare, to fix aged care, to make childcare more affordable and put in place a “meaningful” plan for climate action “to plot a realistic path to net-zero emissions by 2050”.
Mr Marles said he felt “grief” after the 2019 election loss but was confident heading into the 2022 iteration.
“I think a lot of us (in Labor) felt if we had our time again, we would have played our cards differently in 2019,” he said. “What I felt coming into this election was that the thing I was really confident about was that we were going to maximise our base. We have played the very best hand that we could play.
“I feel very lucky to have been able to have the opportunity that I have.
“The starting point of that is being able to represent the people of Geelong.
“Whatever else we do, the most significant thing for me is being the member for Corio. It’s particularly the case given this is the place where I’ve spent most of my life and where I grew up.”
Mr Marles described Mr Albanese as a “fantastic human being”.
“For him to be the prime minister of this country, he will be wonderful and it will be wonderful because the values inside Anthony are exactly the kind of values that have been missing in this country for a long time,” he said.
Helping Mr Marles through the tough days that guiding the nation will deliver will be his wife, Rachel Schutze.
At the weekend, in front of supporters at Grovedale, Mr Marles said: “I love her very much. She is the love of my life. She is the person who anchors everything that I do. On every difficult day, I know that actually life is OK because I come back to her.”
He is faced with a country where inflation is rising but wages are not keeping up, where meaningful action on climate is demanded and where integrity in politics needs to be restored.
His knowledge of the Pacific region will also be drawn on as an increasingly bellicose China attempts to assert dominance.