China-Australia tensions and racism fuelling Asian ‘reluctance’ to join politics

Australia has less political diversity than Canada, New Zealand and the UK, according to a monitor, while another group says this year’s federal election has fewer candidates of Asian descent than in 2019

Asian-Australian candidates explain why they are running, the xenophobia they face amid China-Australia tensions, and the issues their communities care about

8-MIN READ8-MIN

Australians enjoy the Lunar New Year celebrations in Sydney’s Chinatown on January 29, 2022. Photo: Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Published: 4:00am, 14 May 2022Updated: 1:45pm, 15 May 2022

As Australia draws closer to its federal election on May 21, in an era it had once coined the “Asian Century”, one thing continues to stand out: the lack of Asian-Australians in its parliament.

According to an election watch brief released last year by the University of Melbourne, only three candidates with Asian ancestry were elected to the 151-seat lower House of Representatives in the 2019 election, when the current government was formed. Asian-Australians make up between 14 to 16 per cent of the population, but only 2 per cent of parliament.

This compared poorly to achievements seen in other countries such as Britain, Canada and neighbouring New Zealand, said the university’s Asia Institute researcher Grant Wyeth.

“The ideal of a liberal democratic political system is that its institutions should broadly reflect the make-up of the governed society,” he said. “For a multicultural and migrant country such as Australia, this means its elected legislatures should contain public representatives from a variety of backgrounds, commensurate with their numbers within the population. However, one noticeable feature of Australia’s parliaments is the conspicuous lack of Asian-Australians.”

During a panel discussion with some members of the Asian-Australian diaspora last week, senator from the ruling coalition Andrew Bragg said the talent pool of Asian-Australian candidates was small, and parties were not able to attract more of them to join.

In 2020, when analyst Osmond Chiu and two other Chinese-Australians spoke about the underrepresentation of multicultural communities in Australian politics before a parliamentary inquiry aimed at finding a solution, he was goaded into a loyalty test by another senator, Eric Abetz, and asked to condemn the Chinese Communist Party.