Australia’s new first lady: Anthony Albanese’s girlfriend Jodie Haydon to move into Kirribilli House

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Anthony Albanese‘s partner of two years will be Australia’s new ‘First Lady’ after the Labor leader claimed victory in the federal election.

Jodie Haydon, 43, and Mr Albanese will be only the second unmarried pair to be handed the keys to the Prime Minister’s residences after Julia Gillard and her partner Tim Mathieson in 2013.

While rare for an unmarried PM to be elected in Australia, they do have some company, with New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern postponing her wedding to fiancé Clark Gayford earlier this year amid an Omicron outbreak.

Ms Haydon, who has been dating Mr Albanese, 59, since 2020, has previously said she would continue in her career if he were elected, having taken on the role of woman’s officer for the NSW Public Service Association in February.

Mr Albanese was previously married to NSW deputy premier Carmel Tebbutt for 19 years and with whom he shares a 21-year-old son Nathan – who appeared on stage last night with the couple.

While Ms Haydon, the daughter of NSW central coast schoolteachers, did not take a role at the forefront of Mr Albanese’s campaign, she has regularly appeared by his side during events throughout recent weeks.

Along with Nathan and ‘First Dog’ cavoodle Toto, the couple are expected to move into the PM’s official Sydney residence Kirribilli House on the Lower North Shore.

‘I will turn my attention to that if we are successful on Saturday,’ Ms Haydon said in the lead up to the election.

‘I’m not getting ahead of myself when it comes to thinking about that.’

Earlier this year, Ms Haydon criticised outgoing PM Scott Morrison in a podcast – two weeks after posing for a magazine photoshoot with the then Opposition leader.

She blasted the Prime Minister for not implementing all 55 recommendations of the Jenkins report into sexual harassment.

She spoke about the issue in her role as women’s officer for the NSW Public Service Association.

‘One of the things we could be doing is adopting Respect at Work, the 55 recommendations that the Jenkins report has delivered,’ she said. 

‘You know, these steps are actionable, they’re tangible, but at the moment, they’re missing in action, we haven’t seen these implemented more broadly.’

The Respect@Work Report made 13 recommendations that required changes to Commonwealth law.

The Government implemented six of them in September and is now consulting on the rest to avoid any unintended consequences. 

Labor has vowed to immediately implement all the recommendations, which include imposing a duty on employers to takes steps to eliminate sex discrimination and allowing unions to bring claims to court.

Ms Haydon also praised Brittany Higgins and Grace Tame, two young women who have spoken publicly about sexual harassment.

‘I think we all looked at her bravery and thought here’s someone who’s taking the Australian of the Year platform and using it to tell their story,’ she said of Ms Tame, who was sexually abused by her maths teacher. 

She said she would use her new role to ‘really advance women’s issues but agitate for change’. 

‘I’m going to be pretty relentless, I think,’ she said. 

The couple posed for the March edition of Women’s Weekly at his home in Marrickville, inner-west Sydney. 

Mr Albanese also revealed he wooed his girlfriend with a date at a hipster brewery near home.

The craft beer fanatic enjoyed his first night out with Ms Haydon at the Young Henrys brewery in Newtown.

‘We had what I thought would just be a drink at Young Henrys in Newtown, and we got on really well. That’s how it started,’ he told Women’s Weekly.

The pair met in early 2020 at a conference in Melbourne where Mr Albanese was speaking. 

The then Opposition leader asked the crowd if there were any fellow South Sydney fans present and finance worker Ms Haydon, who lives in his Grayndler electorate, shouted: ‘Up the Rabbitohs’.

He later introduced himself and they decided to go for a drink when they were back in Sydney.

Mr Albanese had recently split from Ms Tebbutt after 19 years of marriage and 30 years together.

He said he was still ’emotionally bruised’ from the sudden split which involved no third parties but came as a shock. 

Ms Haydon, who has never been married or had children, said she wasn’t looking for a relationship but realised she had fallen in love with Mr Albanese when he had a car crash in January 2021.

His Toyota was rammed by a Range Rover and he was rushed to hospital for X-rays but escaped serious injury.

Ms Haydon recalled arriving at the scene of the crash in Marrickville after a phone call and seeing her boyfriend’s smashed-up car. 

‘I saw the mess of a car before I saw him and thought ‘he couldn’t survive this”. It was very scary, and in that moment, you realise just how much you love this person – the fear of losing them,’ she said.

‘As I jumped in the ambulance and saw Anthony, I knew then the depth of my feelings towards him.’