Australia prime minister rejigs Cabinet ahead of election expected in 2025

AUSTRALIA’S Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Sunday (Jul 28) announced a Cabinet reshuffle after two senior ministers said they planned to retire at the next election.

The reshuffle, the first since the centre-left Labor Party swept to power at a general election in May 2022, marks an attempt by Albanese to refresh his team ahead of the next poll, expected in 2025.

“I would expect that this is the team that I will take to the election when it is held sometime in the future,” Albanese said in a televised media conference in Canberra.

Among a raft of ministerial changes, the prime minister said that Tony Burke, already arts minister, will take the key portfolios of home affairs, immigration and multicultural affairs, and cybersecurity.

Clare O’Neil shifts from home affairs and cybersecurity to housing and homelessness, remaining in Cabinet, while immigration minister Andrew Giles moves to skills and training, no longer in a Cabinet position.

Northern Territory Senator Malarndirri McCarthy will take over as minister for indigenous Australians.

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The appointments come after long-serving Labor ministers Brendan O’Connor and Linda Burney announced they would retire at the next election.

Albanese paid tribute to O’Connor and Burney as having made an “extraordinary contribution” to the nation over a long period of time.