Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus’s wife Deborah Chemke has died after a battle with cancer.
Anthony Albanese said Mr Dreyfus had informed him of his beloved wife’s death overnight.
“People would be aware that Deborah has suffered for a long period of time from illness and that has meant that Mark was absent from some period in parliament but continued to fulfil his duties,” the Prime Minister Albanese told reporters on Wednesday.
“This (is a) very sad loss after a very long and difficult illness, where Deborah showed enormous courage and fight for a considerable period of time,” he said.
Ms Chemke was diagnosed with mouth cancer in late 2005. She was with Mr Dreyfus and their three children when she died, Mr Albanese said.
In an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald in 2013, Mr Dreyfus described his wife of 44 years as a “caring person who is sympathetic, loyal and wonderful to be around”.
Ms Chemke was born and raised in Chile and arrived in Australia in 1972. She met her husband six years later.
The pair married in 1983 and went on to raise three children, Joe, Tom and Laura.
Mr Albanese said Mr Dreyfus would be taking a leave of absence and gave his sincere condolences to his family on behalf of the government and the Labor Party.
“This is a time in which he should be allowed to grieve with his family and I ask that his privacy and the privacy of his family be respected, which is why I’m making this public statement.”