Why this single photo of Anthony Albanese paying for a meal at a Chinese restaurant with Jodie Haydon explains so much about the PM’s support in his beloved Marrickville

He has been branded a beta male and a “weak” prime minister by his critics and condemned for not doing enough to tackle the cost of living crisis.

But locals in Anthony Albanese’s home suburb of Marrickville in Sydney’s trendy inner west are steadfast in their support for the Prime Minister.

They argue that Mr Albanese – who is battling inflation and reeling from the defeat of his indigenous voice in parliament – ​​is doing a good job in difficult circumstances.

That’s reflected in a recent Newspoll that shows his net approval rating nationally in the red at minus eight, down from a high of 35 in mid-2022.

Daily Mail Australia visited the Sydney suburb where Mr Albanese lived for 33 years – before moving to the Lodge in Canberra after becoming Australia’s 31st Prime Minister in May 2022.

And one possible reason for the locals’ loyalty to the prime minister is clear: he certainly has not left the area, despite the national and international demands of his job.

The man known simply as ‘Albo’ to the 150,000 residents of the safe Labor seat of Grayndler has been a local member since 1996.

As the son of a single mother, he bought his first house in the former working-class district in 1990.

He then purchased another property down the street for $997,500 with his then-wife Carmel Tebbutt.

Gentrification meant he was later able to sell it for $2.35 million. He now rents out the house he lived in before he won the election.

Albo still regularly eats at his favorite local spots: Corinthian Rotisserie, where the menu hasn’t changed in 40 years, and the humble Marrickville Pork Roll bakery.

A mural of Albo in his younger years with wavy hair and an earring adorns the wall of a woman’s bathroom in the Marrickville Metro shopping centre.

He has described it as ‘very, very strange indeed’.

In a distinctly Australian scene, Albanese and his partner Jodie were spotted having lunch at Hung Cheung Chinese restaurant, just meters from his electorate office, on January 4.

“Nobody made a song and dance about him,” a witness told Daily Mail Australia.

‘I only noticed he was there because he and Jodie were accompanied by two burly security men. I was surprised at how few people seemed to recognize him.”

The Prime Minister paid for their plates of yum cha himself before Jodie and his entourage slipped out the back door.

Peter, 54, a former mechanic who was forced into early retirement after a botched stomach operation, said he did not blame the Labor leader even though he was struggling ‘majorly’ with the cost of living crisis. .

“It is not an easy task to be prime minister,” he said.

“He’ll get people from all sides of the fence to say he’s an idiot for doing this or that. If they are so smart, why don’t they run for parliament themselves?’

‘Being Greek myself, all the older Greeks I know think they know how to run the country. And I say to them, ‘Please go to Canberra and tell Mr Albanese how to do it.’

Peter said it was becoming increasingly difficult to build up his pension as prices skyrocketed.

But he acknowledged that he had to take responsibility for his own spending habits.

“Everything has gone up and I’ve had to cut back on little things like cookies,” he said.

‘I was addicted to slot machines. I was going to spend $100 a week, but I stopped a year ago. They’re not taking any more of my money.’

Julius Sydney, 75, a retired building manager, admitted he was “struggling for everything.”

‘I’m walking around looking for better prices, but everything is in disarray. Rent, food prices, electricity bills. “I count every dollar,” he said.

‘I’m not going to the pub. No smoking, no drinking, no gambling, so I don’t waste money.’

But Sydney refused to blame the Prime Minister for his woes.

“He’s trying to do the best, but it’s not like everything depends on him.”

He added: ‘I’m happy if the pension interest rate rises a little, but so does the rent or the electricity bill, so that at the end of the week you are still in the negative.’

A retired civil servant, who has lived in Marrickville for more than 30 years, said he was ‘on the verge of hanging on’ to his one-bed flat because of rising strata fees.

‘I spend money on my physio, on food, on clothing. “I don’t walk around in rags and I’ve had one or two holidays, but I’m as good as broke,” the 75-year-old said.

But he said he would continue to vote for Mr Albanese.

‘I think it’s difficult for any politician to be completely honest because then he would never get elected.

‘But, as politicians say, he is very good and has an immigrant background. A lot of people here are immigrants and they support him too.”

Jason, 39, and Shivani, 37, who paid $650 a week for a two-bedroom apartment in Marrickville for the past two years, said they had to tighten their belts.

‘Yes, we are having a hard time. Groceries, rent, life, everything is taken care of,” Jason said.

‘The rent is too high. If that were to drop, we could pay for everything.”

The couple, who are originally from Fiji and share a three-year-old son, said they could not afford another rent increase.

But Jason, a handyman, was disillusioned with the Prime Minister’s power to change things for the better.

“When the Prime Minister spoke before the election he said he was going to do this, he was going to do that, but the cost of everything is going up,” he said.

“I don’t know if he can change it or not.”

But not everyone had the cost of living crisis at the forefront.

A 28-year-old social worker who formerly lived in Marrickville was dissatisfied with Mr Albanese over the Australian government’s position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

She organized a one-woman protest outside his constituency office on Tuesday with a sign reading “Not a penny, not a dime, no more money for ‘Israeli’ crimes”, and accused Mr Albanese of having “sold out”.

“You have attended pro-Palestine demonstrations and deep in your heart you know that the right thing to do is to stop sending money to Israel, to stop killing brown children and to stop imposing sanctions,” she said.