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The 2024 U.S. presidential election, which seemed to have been written as a duel between former President Donald Trump and current President Joe Biden, has been completely overhauled with only three and a half months left before the vote. Biden, who for months believed he was the best candidate to beat Trump on Nov. 5, announced on July 21 that he was withdrawing from the race, and that his vice presidential partner, Kamala Harris, had already clinched the Democratic nomination to take over the election. Now, it seems that the Democrats’ temporary change of command will definitely add more uncertainties to the U.S. election in a hundred days.

A change of command before the battle is a rare event for a U.S. president in more than 100 years, and in just over 100 days, it is even rarer. The entire campaign agenda has changed from the original competition between the two presidents, with the addition of age and ability, to a competition between men and women, whites and blacks, and conservatives and liberals, for the acceptance of Americans. It was like the plot of a Hollywood movie, so to speak.

Biden’s withdrawal shakes up the political scene

Since his poor performance in a live television debate with Donald Trump last month, the 81-year-old Biden has faced mounting pressure to withdraw from the race. While Biden’s situation is becoming more and more passive, his rival Trump’s attempted shooting on July 13 has strengthened the confidence of his supporters, making him a strong candidate who will not be surprised by any changes.

In the eyes of some, the outcome of the presidential election has already been written. It can be said that Biden’s withdrawal was both expected and unexpected. In announcing his withdrawal from the presidential race, Biden said it was “in the best interest of the Democratic Party and the country” and that he supported the nomination of his deputy, Harris. Biden also said he would remain in office for the final six months of his term. While some have argued that if Biden were to withdraw, he should resign immediately and let Vice President Hershey succeed him, so that he could continue to compete with Trump for the presidency, so far Biden has no intention of resigning, and the focus of the community has shifted to changes in the race, not whether Biden resigns.

Biden’s decision to withdraw from the race has apparently reopened what seemed to be a dominant pattern: Democratic campaign fundraising, which had been sluggish since June 27, came back from the dead with the news that Vice President Harris might take over the race.

The campaign raised $46.7 million in just one day, the highest amount ever raised in the 2024 election. Although Harris has not yet been officially named the presumptive new Democratic nominee, it seems logical that Harris, as the current vice president and Biden’s vice presidential partner, would take over the reins of the campaign. She apparently also won a lot of support within the Democratic Party in the first hour of Biden’s withdrawal. The Democratic National Convention is scheduled for August 19-22 in Chicago. In less than a week, Democratic leaders, including former President Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have endorsed Biden, and all potential challengers to Harris have rallied behind her.

Harris has shown in this week that she has become the consensus of Democratic leaders, and has removed the hesitancy that was previously associated with Baily’s reelection bid.

The change of command has reunited the Democratic Party, putting weeks of infighting over Biden’s political future behind them, and quickly rallying the most resources behind Harris to defeat Trump with just over 100 days left before Election Day. The Harris campaign has generated so much interest that more than 28,000 new volunteers have signed up since the announcement, a rate more than 100 times the daily average of Biden’s previous campaign, underscoring the enthusiasm for Harris. The past month has proved that the fate of the White House race can change quickly and permanently. Harris has already secured her ticket to the biggest stage in American politics, but now she must prove she can compete.

The future is uncertain

The U.S. ABC News recently released the results of a poll, Vice President Harris’s approval rate rose 8% to 43%, the Republican presidential candidate Trump holding rate fell from 40% to 36%. The poll noted that Harris has an advantage over Trump in terms of how enthusiastic Americans are about Harris as a nominee for the presidential race. 48% of Americans say they would be enthusiastic if Harris were to become the Democratic nominee, while 39% would be enthusiastic about Trump as the Republican nominee. The survey was conducted in English and Spanish among 1,200 adults nationwide and has a margin of error of 3 percentage points. Trump’s team attributed the temporary rise in the polls to the recent media coverage of Harris as the new Democratic nominee, which is likely to continue for a few days or so. However, it has been 10 days since Biden withdrew from the race, and the enthusiasm for Harris has not dropped significantly, suggesting that the Trump team cannot afford to take Harris lightly.

Speaking to campaign workers in Wilmington, Delaware, Harris admitted that the past few weeks have been a “roller coaster”, but expressed confidence in the new campaign team.

She then pivoted to the theme of campaigning against Trump over the next 100 days, contrasting her experience as a prosecutor with Trump’s felony convictions and portraying herself as a defender of economic opportunity and abortion rights. At a time of unprecedented turbulence in modern American political history, Kamala Harris is having an unusually good time. Trump’s campaign pollster, Tony Fabrizio, has even called this phenomenon the “Harris honeymoon period” – a combination of positive media coverage and positive energy that has given the Democrat a strong momentum.

As the U.S. presidential election enters its 100-day countdown, the Harris campaign, from the Democratic camp, has been receiving an increasing number of donations in recent days, with the vast majority coming from first-time contributors. The U.S. presidential election has not been a mandatory vote like Australia’s. In the last three elections (2018 and 2022 congressional elections and 2020 presidential election), at most one-third of eligible voters voted, with whites making up the highest percentage. Women, blacks, Latinos and Chinese have consistently voted at lower rates.

Harris, on the other hand, is of women, blacks and ethnic minorities (Jamaican and Indian), which makes her and Trump absolutely different from each other in attracting these voters who are traditionally uninterested in elections, and brings different variables to this election. It is widely believed that the race between the two candidates in the U.S. presidential election will be very intense.

However, there is another huge problem for Harris personally, that is, she cannot get rid of the impression that she is Biden’s understudy. Since Harris is running as Biden’s replacement, she will have to align her policies with Biden’s, making it difficult for her to create a fresh and independent image for herself. Coupled with the fact that Harris did not come up with a more appealing policy that demonstrated her independent stance during her tenure as vice president, the outcome of the election will probably still be favorable to Trump. If Harris is elected, she will become the first female president of the United States and the first South Asian president.

Same Country, Different Voters

Australia has mandatory voting, and the influx of immigrants from Asia and other parts of the world over the past three decades has transformed the country into a multicultural nation. It is clear that the traditional support for political alternation between the two major parties, which was based on people’s consideration and choice of two political paths, is no longer the norm. In the past few general elections, only about two-thirds of the electorate voted for the two major parties combined. The two major parties are caught in a dilemma, that is, they are unwilling to risk losing their traditional supporters, and actively reach out to the new multicultural voters to make policy breakthroughs. At the same time, they are unable to devote more resources to winning over ethnic minorities and attracting new immigrants. As a result, independent candidates or a small number of radical political parties have built up space, making it difficult for the winning party to gain an absolute advantage in the legislature.

There is no mandatory voting in the United States, but the election of Hamas seems to have touched a chord in the hearts and minds of those who seem to have a large population in the United States and who have long been apathetic about politics. The large number of first-time donors and volunteers suggests that the mix of voters in this election is likely to be different than in previous ones. And when people’s enthusiasm for political participation is aroused, it doesn’t usually cool off in a short period of time, which means that the United States is about to experience a shift to a different electorate in the same country.

For both Democrats and Republicans, this is an agenda that leaders will have to revisit after the election.

The “Two Americas” Debate

With the recent conclusion of the U.S. Republican National Convention, the “Trump-Vance” group on the Republican side of the 2024 U.S. presidential race has been officially named. As the conservative successor to Trump’s MAGA (Make America Great Again) candidate, Vance, who is less than 40 years old and comes out of the Appalachian Mountains, has been pinned with the hope of continuing Trumpism in the post-Trump era. On the Democratic side, Biden has withdrawn from the race and supported the nomination of Vice President Harris, and whichever combination ends up in the race, it represents a very different side of America. This is not only a reflection of the liberal-conservative divide, but also a reflection of racial, religious, cultural, economic, and other differences in identity and direction of the United States.

With the 2024 U.S. presidential election just a hundred days away, the “two Americas” debate is not only the undercurrent of this election, but also the melody of America’s past for more than 200 years, and the competition for a long time to come. On the whole, the difference between conservatives and liberals lies in the relationship between culture and politics. In short, conservatives believe that culture determines the rise and fall of society and the success or failure of politics, while liberals believe that politics can change culture and customs.
A “cultural America,” that is, a conservative America that is constantly confronted with the reality of economic and social inequality, believes that the fundamental solution to America’s problems lies in its culture; while a “political America,” that is, a liberal America that never stops realizing the ideals of freedom, equality, democracy, and the rule of law, believes that the solution to America’s dilemma lies in its politics.

As the first black/Indian female presidential candidate in history, the Democratic base, including labor unions, minorities, women’s rights, and young people, quickly took a stand in support of Harris. The Republican Party, which has lost the “old man card,” must also reshape the direction of the race. Somewhat surprisingly, Latinos are the fastest growing segment of eligible voters in the U.S. Historically, this group has traditionally supported the Democrats in presidential elections, but recent polls have shown that more and more Latinos are changing their voting preferences, a trend that poses a huge challenge to Harris, the incumbent vice president who is destined to be the Democratic presidential candidate, and who will have to spend the remaining 100 days fighting against the attraction of Trump’s hard-line border policy to Latinos. She has 100 days left to counter Trump’s appeal to Latinos with his hard-border policies. With just 100 days to go before the U.S. election, Biden’s withdrawal from the race and his full support for Harris, who has been temporarily thrust into the front line, versus Trump, whose popularity has skyrocketed as a result of the shootings, there are still countless unknowns about who will win. This election will be a showdown between the old and the new, the traditional and the innovative, the conservative and the liberal, and the future of this beacon of democracy will take a new direction that has never been seen before.

The Way Forward

The biggest fear of those in the Democratic Party who demanded Biden’s withdrawal was that once Biden withdrew from the election, he would not be able to rally the voters. However, the response of the voters in the past ten days or so has allayed their fears.
Obviously, there is a new leader in the Democratic Party. What remains to be seen is whether the concern and support aroused by Ms. Ho Kam Lai can be sustained for a longer period of time, and turn into a new wave of impetus. In order to achieve this, Mario FUJITSU has to put in a lot of resources. The huge donations made in the past 10 days or so seem to have provided the ammunition for the Democratic Party to turn around. If Georgette Hogan’s campaign team can grasp this opportunity, I believe that after the Democratic Party convention in mid-August, the electioneering work will see a new atmosphere.
Perhaps then, we will see a clearer picture of the trend.
Trump’s team seems to have no choice but to make more personal attacks on Georgette in the meantime, in the hope of stopping the situation from getting worse. But until now, it seems that this strategy has not worked, and the picture is not yet clear.

The Paris Olympics are now in full swing, with the 2024 Paris Olympics marking the 100th year since 1900 and 1924, and the third time in the history of France that the city has hosted a summer Olympics. This year’s Opening Ceremony will certainly go down in history: the traditional stadium ceremony will be replaced by an open-air flotilla of boats on the Seine, and the much-anticipated return of five-time Grammy Award winner Liliane Dion will be full of surprises.

French romance and relaxation

From the moment it was announced that the ceremonies would be held outdoors instead of in stadiums, the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games was destined to be different: free, romantic, multifaceted and unrestricted. For the first time in the history of the Games, the opening ceremony was not held in a stadium: on the evening of July 26th, the 33rd Summer Olympic Games opened in Paris, France. With the French flag painted in pyrotechnics on the Austerlitz Bridge and a huge cloud of blue, white and red floating over the city, an unprecedented parade of 85 boats filled with athletes set off from under the bridge.

As the boats skimmed the river, streets and iconic buildings, performances blending classical and modern, traditional and avant-garde took place. The treasures of French art and culture were presented to the audience in a variety of whimsical ways, interpreting the contemporary spirit of “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité” in a way that was both immersive and infectious. The most sacred moment of the opening ceremony was when the female singers and choir sang the French national anthem, La Marseillaise, in tribute to the great women who have dedicated themselves to the women’s rights movement in France’s history. The Opening Ceremony reserved this solemn and serene moment for the great women of history, and is a manifestation of the Olympic Games’ commitment to “respecting the power of women and promoting gender equality”.

The Seine was filled with stars and illusions, and the Opening Ceremony, held along its banks, was drenched in rainwater, breaking the mold. Not since Helsinki in 1952 has it rained on the opening ceremony of any other summer Olympics, but despite the weather, optimism soared as the performances went on, living up to the Parisian motto of “Never Sink”. Crowds still filled the banks of the Seine and the bridges, and some gathered on balconies to watch with gasps and cheers. Every Olympics is different, and this one was very French. The ceremonies began with great solemnity and splendor. As the rain started to pour down and time went on, everything became more lively and fun, like an open-air party for all.

Laziness, relaxation, romance …… France’s labeling is a desire, and the opening ceremony undoubtedly proved it. In fact, this is closely related to the country’s system and philosophy of life. mid-July to the end of August, is a period of French people concentrated vacation. The Olympics did not prevent Parisians from traveling to the south of France, Spain, Italy and other sunny places with beaches. Therefore, after July 15, the busy streets of Paris were mostly filled with tourists. The locals who stayed in the suburban neighborhoods of Paris were mostly tending to their gardens, working out, strolling, walking their children, walking their dogs, running, biking and barbecuing, as if the Olympics had nothing to do with them.

The Olympic Spirit of Never Giving Up

At the end of the Opening Ceremony last weekend, as the giant balloon carrying the Olympic flame rose into the night sky, Celine Dion performed French chanson singer Piaf’s legendary “Ode to Love” beneath the five rings of the Eiffel Tower. It was the first time the French-Canadian singer had returned to the stage since being diagnosed with a rare neurological disorder, also known as Rigid Person Syndrome. After suffering and battling with the disease, Celine Dion sings with her still beautiful and powerful voice on the world’s stage, delivering the gift of life, a spirit that matches the spirit of the Olympics.

In an interview in April, Celine Dion said she was learning to live with Stiff Person’s Syndrome through exercise, physical and vocal therapy five days a week to help manage her symptoms. Celine Dion said she had two choices; train like an athlete and work very hard, or just shut down and end it all, stay at home, listen to her own songs, stand in front of a mirror and sing by herself. At the time, Celine Dion was reluctant to comment on whether she would (or could) return to the stage, but she was adamant that she would continue to try, “One thing that never stops is the will. That’s passion. That’s the dream. That’s determination.”

Previously, Celine Dion said her goal was to “see the Eiffel Tower again,” and she not only did just that at the Olympic opening ceremony, but she also gave a spectacular performance in a white beaded dress adorned with tassels on the historic landmark’s first stage. Her return was an exciting conclusion to the opening of a showcase of French art, culture, history and society, and a sign that this singer-songwriter suffering from a rare disease is rising above the pain and dedicating herself to becoming the best version of herself, and that the spirit of the Olympics is slowly unfolding in a way that will move the world.

Celine Dion also sang “The Power of Dreams” at the opening ceremony of the Atlanta Olympics in 1996. Her appearance at the Paris Olympics will mark her return to the stage after her July 2019 performance in London. Behind the perfect performance, Celine Dion’s recovery from a strange illness is also very difficult to imagine. It’s no wonder that some have commented that Celine Dion should have won the first gold medal of the Olympics. “If I can’t run, I’ll walk. If I can’t walk, I’ll crawl, but I’m not going to stop.” There could be no more Olympic story of extraordinary effort against overwhelming odds.

A Different Kind of Olympics

The reason why the Olympic Games have evolved from a regional religious festival to the most influential event in the world is that, for more than a hundred years, all the participants have actively inherited the original ideology of “education” and “internationality” in the thinking system of the Olympic Movement of Gulbadan. Now that the shadow of the epidemic has lifted, people are still looking forward to the Olympic Games as a beacon of hope for more open answers to common human challenges such as regional conflicts, gender equality and climate change. After a century, Paris is once again buzzing with the Olympic Games. The Olympic Games have also welcomed a long-awaited audience to Paris, ending two consecutive years of empty stadiums forced by epidemics.

If Greece is the mother of the Olympics, then France is the eldest daughter of the Olympics. Christopher said, before, France has organized a total of five summer and winter Olympic Games, contributed to many Olympic history of innovation. Whether it is in the Seine River to host the opening ceremony, in landmarks and other open space to watch the Olympic Games, or the public can be selected to participate in the marathon, have made the Olympic Games into a completely open field, in line with the definition of the Paris Olympics motto “to make the Olympic Games more open”. Bold, ambitious and different from previous Games. These are the high-frequency words used by Paris OCOG officials to describe this year’s Games, demonstrating the ambition and consensus of a country with deep Olympic roots to influence the future of the Olympic Games.

At the Opening Ceremony, a cluster of laser beams lit up the Eiffel Tower, awakening memories of the Olympic Games from a century ago and spreading Olympic fever to 3,473 streets, 544 squares and 373 avenues in Paris. …… For more than a hundred years, the Olympic Games have been like a compendium of the development of human civilization, showcasing in the name of sport the human body, its limits, scientific and technological progress, and civilization, as well as the development of the world. In the name of sports, the Olympic Games have demonstrated the eternal pursuit of human limits, technological progress, and the wisdom of civilization. The Olympic Games originated in the West, but with the development of the Olympic Games around the world and the popularization of the Olympic spirit, the Olympic Games have become a platform for the complementary coexistence of global cultural diversity and differences. Especially nowadays, with the intensification of geopolitical conflicts and the prevalence of national self-protectionism, the Olympic Games, which can bring the people of the world together, will play a positive role in the stability and unity of the world.

Unlike previous Olympics, which pursued a medal list, the Paris Olympics proved that it is not only an arena for competition, but also a “meeting” for making friends. More and more athletes are showing up at the Olympics to join in the intense atmosphere of competition and to share their sense of relaxation. They not only represent the iterative change of the young generation of athletes’ outlook on sports, but also promote the emergence of skateboarding, surfing, breakdancing, rock climbing, and other sports that are highly respected by the young people. This year’s Olympic Games will inevitably be marked by the Olympic Games’ brand of “change”, promoting sports that are more urbanized, younger, more equal, more inclusive and more sustainable.

The Olympic Games in History

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According to Greek legend, Heculus, the god of power, started the competition on Mount Olympus every four years after winning the competition among the gods. However, the first recorded Olympic Games were held in 776 B.C., with representatives from all Greek city-states participating in the event, which became a competition for honor among the city-states. At that time, there was only a sprinting competition, with a length of 192.27 meters, which was known as the distance of a Stadion, or 600 times the length of Hercules’ feet, and later became the Stadium, or Sports Arena. Later, boxing, wrestling, ancient Greek combat, track and field, long jump, javelin throwing, discus and other sports were added, and the competition was changed from one day to five days, with offerings to the gods and feasts. On the first day of competition, 100 oxen are slaughtered and offered to Zeus, the father of the gods. The winners of the Olympic events were rewarded with wreaths of olive branches and honors. It is important to note that during the Olympic Games, the city-states were not at war with each other, and over time, the olive branch became a symbol of peace. Therefore, although the Olympic Games are now a sporting event for all nations, the main spirit of the games is still world peace. However, in 393, the Roman Emperor Theodosius I banned the Olympic Games because he considered them to be a “pagan event”.
The German Curzius spent years excavating the ancient Greek village of Olympia. In January 1852, he read the report of his expedition in Berlin and recommended that the Olympic Games be restored. The French educator Pierre de Goubertin, honored as the “Father of Modern Olympics,” expanded the scope to the whole world in 1892 at the Sorbonne. The Olympic Games have been held every four years since 1896, with the sixth (1916), twelfth (1940) and thirteenth (1944) not being held due to the war, but the number of years is still in order.
The first Olympic Games were held in Athens, and it was established that different cities around the world would bid to host the Games. 1904 saw the third Olympic Games held in St. Louis, Missouri, USA, which at the time was a center of shipping and transportation, but over time, St. Louis has a population of only 300,000 and is not considered to be a major metropolis. The 10th Olympics were held in Los Angeles in 1932, and the next Olympics, in 2028, were held in Los Angeles. 1936 was the Olympic Games in Berlin, where Germany won the most gold medals, and the Olympics became the focus of Hitler’s “Aryan superiority” campaign, and in 1954, the IOC apologized for choosing Berlin for that year. In 1954, the IOC apologized for choosing Berlin for the Games. The 1940 Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan, were canceled due to World War II, and it was not until 1964 that the Games were held in Tokyo for the first time.
In 2008, China hosted its first Olympic Games in Beijing, marking China’s emergence as a major world power, with a grand opening ceremony that no other country can match to this day. Melbourne, Australia hosted the first Olympic Games in the southern hemisphere in 1956, and many of the Olympic venues of that year are still major sports facilities in Melbourne. Sydney hosted the Olympic Games in 2000, the first time in the 21st century. Brisbane was successful in its bid to host the 2032 Olympics, and preparations for the Games are now underway in Queensland.
The opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, held every four years, has become an opportunity for host governments to showcase their country’s successes and characteristics to the world. However, the number of medals won by each country has also become an important indicator for some countries. For this reason, these ten days or so of the Olympic Games have become the center of attraction for the world’s attention.

As we enter the year 2024, the political situation around the globe is constantly on our minds. After all, it is destined to be a year of uncertainty, with ‘election drama’ in key countries including the United States, Russia and the United Kingdom, a series of elections that are adding more uncertainty to the international political landscape in 2024 and beyond. The question of how Australia will manage in the midst of these changes is also a headache for politicians.

British and French elections are expected but stunned

In the past few days, election results in three countries have attracted global attention: on July 4, the Labour Party in the United Kingdom, led by Keir Starmer, won a landslide victory over the Conservative Party, which had been in power for 14 consecutive years. A day later, Iranian reformist Masoud Pezeshkian was elected in the second round of the presidential election, surprisingly defeating hard-line former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, who not only stood out from the crowd of Conservative candidates, but also received 16.38 million votes, winning 53.6% of the voters’ support. 53.6% of the electorate, making many observers who predicted that Jalili would win the election fall over their heads.

The day after the Iranian election, the results of the second round of voting in the French parliament were released. The far-right National Rally, which dominated the first round of voting, fell into an embarrassing third place, causing party leader Le Pen to lash out at the traditional left, right and center parties for abandoning their candidates. However, the French president, Mr. Macron, was able to hold off the National Rally, but not the left-wing coalition that was improvised before the election. The latter won the most seats, and the earlier prediction of a hung parliament came true, which undoubtedly strengthened Macron’s limp status in the rest of his tenure.

If there is one word that can summarize the characteristics and implications of the three elections in four days, it should be Starmer’s campaign slogan: change. Britain’s Labour Party regains the power it had lost for 14 years, which is particularly striking in the context of the rightward trend on the European continent. In France, Le Pen did not win as predicted at the beginning, only that the number of seats of the National Rally in the parliament has increased significantly. If the left-wing coalition led by Mélenchon and the center coalition led by Macron had not joined hands and adopted the “abandonment strategy”, i.e., voluntarily giving up their own candidates in hundreds of constituencies in order to avoid a fratricidal battle, the National Rally would probably have become the top party of the parliament, and won the power to form a government. The National Rally is likely to become the largest party in the parliament and win the right to form a cabinet.

Although the UK and France elections have not been dominated by the left, it is undeniable that in recent years, due to the dissatisfaction with the immigration policy in the country and after the Russian-Ukrainian war, the far-right force has been rising rapidly in some countries.The rise of the far-right in Europe was more evident in the recent elections to the European Parliament.

Many voters are making different choices with the mentality that “change may not bring good results, while no change will make things worse”, demanding that political organizations and politicians cannot remain indifferent in the face of a society in need of change.

Australia can’t do it alone

Although Australia is geographically positioned to take advantage of the international situation, in the highly interactive world of the internet, the political situation in Australia can be affected by any national political and ideological changes. On the other hand, one of the hottest political news in Australia recently is the resignation of Labor Party Senator Fatima Payman from the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade and the Legislative Council. Senator Peyman of Western Australia, Australia’s first Islamic scarf-wearing member of parliament, had been under pressure to resign after a speech earlier this month in which she said that “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”.

The slogan is seen by some in the Jewish community as a call for the destruction of Israel, while many Palestinians see it as a call for freedom. The slogan is seen as a call for an independent Palestinian state, which runs counter to the Australian Labor Party’s policy of supporting a two-state solution in the Middle East. The Labor Party platform expressed support for “recognizing the right of Israel and Palestine to coexist as two states within secure and recognized borders” and “called on the Australian government to recognize Palestine as a state”. Earlier this year, South Africa filed a lawsuit in the International Court of Justice against Israel for genocide in Gaza, a charge that Israel strongly denies. The case is still pending.

In response to Payman’s resignation, Albanese refuted her comments that the pipeline for expressing concerns in party forums had been “exhausted”. The Prime Minister acknowledged that the Senator from Western Australia had a right to leave the Labor Party, but added that Senator Payman had not at any time made any comments about the Middle East or anything else at caucus meetings. Payman responded that she had tried to express her concerns through the party program and in direct conversations with Albanese and senior ministers, but argued that the decision “had already been made” when it came to caucus meetings for formal approval. Labour’s Friends of Palestine, an organization that campaigns on the issue within the party, came out in support of Payman’s views, arguing that she truly represents the views of many ordinary Labour members.

Tensions within the Labor Party over the Israeli-Hamas conflict are not new. The Islamist frontbencher Husick earlier described Israel’s actions in Gaza as “collective punishment”, while the Jewish backbencher Burns openly opposed Australia’s vote this month to support Palestinian representation in the United Nations. In response to Payman’s departure, Labor’s Friends of Palestine issued a statement expressing the deep disappointment of thousands of Australian Labor Party rank-and-file members, unionists and Labor supporters.

Pluralism needs to ensure minority voices are heard

Australia has always claimed to be a secular society, and has pushed for multiculturalism in its legislation and policies, but has generally retained a vague Christian identity in its society and culture. So when the Muslim community speaks out on specific issues, even if it is in line with ‘Australian values’, it still triggers concerns among white Anglo-Saxon politicians about the status of Muslims in Australian society. In the 21st century, in the midst of a more complex international situation, the Australian media and political class will have to overcome their own Islamophobia.

After Payman’s resignation, she immediately refuted media claims that she had joined the Muslim Vote organization, and dismissed suggestions that her departure was solely due to her religious beliefs. After all, religion is a matter of personal choice, and it is only right to be multicultural by sticking to one’s own, but not imposing one’s own religious views on others, and by expressing one’s own views in a context of respect for each other’s differences. After resigning from the Labor Party, Payman became an independent senator in the Parliament. However, right-wing politicians continue to warn that Payman’s actions could create a new ‘Muslim party’ and threaten Australia’s ‘social cohesion’.

Prime Minister Albanese clearly disagreed, saying that political parties should maintain social cohesion, and that he personally did not believe or want Australia to go down the path of faith-based parties, which would indeed undermine social cohesion. Of course, Payman’s withdrawal and the suggestion that a new campaign called “The Muslim Vote” would support candidates who are opposed to Labor has raised concerns within the party, after all, that some of Labor’s seats with large Muslim populations are likely to be vulnerable at the next election as a result. After all, in the recently concluded British General Election, even though the Starmer-led Labor Party won a landslide majority, it lost four seats to independent candidates who explicitly supported Palestine.

Arguably, Australia’s population is more ethnically and racially diverse than that of the United Kingdom and the United States, but when it comes to parliamentary composition, the picture is different. If minority groups in the community are not included, how their voices are heard is simply represented as a matter of course. After all, the barriers to non-white Australians participating in elections today are still many and varied, and it will take a great deal of will on the part of both major parties to remove them. Australia’s major parties need to think seriously about cultural diversity, and really invest the time and experience to address it, otherwise these politicians who think they are ‘resting on their laurels’ are likely to be hit by the current backlash of neglecting ethnic minorities in future elections, and then it will be too late to do anything about it.

What about the Chinese community?

Except for the Hong Kong immigrants who came to Australia in recent years, or the Xinjiang and Tibetans (who are regarded as Chinese by the Chinese government), very few Chinese are interested in politics, especially in their own country and place, and not many of them are interested, involved and engaged in politics. For those who are more interested, many of them have been exposed to mainstream politics because they have unwittingly become leaders of the Chinese community. These Chinese are not interested in the mainstream due to the fact that the community they are in contact with is not interested in the mainstream, so they are rarely able to mobilize the larger community to become politically active and have the strength and capital to do so. Because of this, many politicians sell their role as a bridge between the mainstream and the Chinese community in the hope that they will be recognized by the leaders of the mainstream political parties.

Because of this, these politicians seldom bring the big issues of the Chinese community to the political parties and ask them to respond. It is rare for a politician like Payman to openly go against the party he is a member of. Dr. Peter Wong in NSW had been a senior member of the Liberal Party. He tried hard to ask the Liberal Party to strongly reject the discriminatory stance of the One Nation Party when it was founded in Pauline Hanson, but failed to get support and formed the United Party with the interests of the ethnic minorities as its center. He then led the United Party in the 1998 federal election, but failed to win a seat. However, it showed that ethnic minorities could have a certain degree of influence in Australia’s political structure if they could form a political party. Later on, Peter Wong ran for the NSW Senate in 1999 as a member of the United Party, and became a senator until 2007. The political power of the ethnic minorities and the Chinese could not be ignored.

Of course, it is very unlikely that the Chinese will become influential as the ruling party or the opposition party. However, in the past 20 to 30 years, the two major political parties have often failed to win a majority of seats in federal or state elections to form a majority government. Under such circumstances, the Chinese community does have the opportunity to elect representatives to become a political force like independent legislators, who can expand their influence on the ruling or opposition parties.

However, most Chinese politicians nowadays have joined the political arena in the form of attachment to mainstream political parties, which naturally avoids the Chinese-centered agenda. However, the case of Payman will bring more thoughts to many Chinese people who intend to enter politics.