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.