Teal opens up a new election culture – a new opportunity for Chinese to participate in politics

Independent MP: A possibility

The clearest theme of the 2022 Federal Election was that Australians are extremely dissatisfied with Morrison’s autocratic mode of governance, which had driven the Coalition out of power, and allowed the Labor Party to unexpectedly enter into power, even though the country was still doing well in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. In fact, at the beginning of the pandemic, Morrison’s popularity was very high, and the Coalition’s performance was not bad, only that the Australian people did not accept a “omnipotent” Prime Minister who thought he knew everything and was in charge of everything. But in this election, the six independent Teal women had become a new force in the Australian parliament. If they are re-elected in the 2025 election, it will mark the beginning of a new era in Australian politics. Two-party politics will end, and those who want to be in power will need to establish a cooperative relationship with the independent minority.

The Menzies electorate in Victoria is examined to see if it is possible for an electorate with a high proportion of ethnic minorities to have independent ethnic minority MP.

In fact, in 2022, in the Fowler constituency of West Sydney, the election of Vietnamese-born Dai Le as an independent legislator after the Labor Party’s bullying of the original candidate Tu Le, who was of Vietnamese descent, and the public outcry over the forced replacement of the former Premier, Kristina Keneally, proved that this is entirely possible. But Menzies is a case of testing the influence of ethnic minorities in an extremely marginalized seat.

Multicultural Australia is moving away from a two-party culture

Since the founding of the Commonwealth, a two-party culture has dominated Australian politics. Australians elect a government govern in majority and expect the opposition party, which is of strength, to oversee the government. When the government fails to govern, Australians look to the opposition to come up with a strategy and give them a chance to try it out. As a result, the ruling party and the opposition party candidates together often get the support of more than 80% of the electorate. However, as Australia’s population grows and immigrants become less familiar with Australia’s history and culture, and less able to recognize the role that the opposition has long played in Australian society, more people are unable to decide which party to support.

Over the past 40 years, there has been a significant increase in support for independent candidates and minor parties in both state and federal elections, reflecting the fact that more and more voters no longer support the major parties. In particular, in the last federal election, many voters voted for Teal independent and minor party candidates.

An analysis after the 2022 election found that less than one-fifth of those who voted for Teal were supporters of the Coalition. This means that the traditional Labor and Green supporters are more likely to be dissatisfied with the policies and instead support a quality candidate who is concerned about climate change but who is well known in the local community. If the Independent Member for Teal is re-elected in this election, it means that voters will likely to seek an alternative to the two major parties or the Greens.

The Menzies constituency is in the spotlight

Many people are disappointed with the performance of the traditional political parties, and believe that the lack of resources and focus on ‘safe constituencies’ has led voters to vote for independent candidates who are closer to the community and are not beholden to political parties. The Menzies constituency may also become a case of independent MP other than Teal being elected in this election.

The Menzies electorate is located in Melbourne’s north-east and covers the multi-cultural communities of Doncaster, Templestowe and Box Hill, as well as a large community  of Chinese electors. The electorate has always been an important stronghold for the Liberal Party, and is considered a safe seat for the Liberal Party as it has not been lost to any other party in the 41 years since it was established in 1984. However, in the 2022 federal election, due to criticism of Morrison’s administration and Keith Wolahan’s replacement of Kevin Andrews, who was forced to retire, the Liberal Party nearly lost to Labor for the first time, making Menzies a marginal seat, which is indicative of a change in the electorate’s voting preferences. Moreover, in October last year, the boundaries of the constituency were revised, and Menzies lost the Warrandyte area, which have been supporting the Liberal Party for a long time, and replaced it with Box Hill and its vicinity, which is theoretically in favour of the Labor Party. Therefore, under the current unsatisfactory situation of the Liberal Party’s Dutton election, whether Menzies independent candidate Stella Yee (余慈英) has a chance to break through has become a hot topic.

Stella Yee: I am not satisfied with either party

Stella Yee is the independent candidate of Menzies in this year’s federal election. She is a Chinese immigrant from Malaysia who migrated to Australia with her family in 2001 and has since lived and worked in Surrey Hills and Doncaster, and is very familiar with the culture and needs of the Menzies community, and has been actively involved in community affairs, participating in Rotary, St Vincent de Paul and founding a monthly community magazine ManninghamLife. In addition to her involvement in community affairs, Stella has always had a vision for a political career, hoping to make a difference to the community through public affairs.

In fact, Stella stood as a Labor candidate for Menzies back in 2019 against 11-term Liberal candidate Kevin Andrews, and was unsuccessful, but it did bring Stella a bit of publicity. Stella decided to go her own way with the Labor Party and ran again as an independent candidate in the 2025 federal election, and we had the opportunity to interview Stella to find out more about her electoral journey. When asked about her reasons for standing in the election, Stella said that Kevin Andrews’ political ideas were out of touch with society and that his stance on human rights issues such as same-sex marriage did not reflect the voices of his constituents. Stella also shared a similar view with many of her constituents, saying that Menzies a safe Liberal constituency, it lacked the impetus to change, and needs his constituents, and was less proactive in fighting for resources and campaigning for his constituents. She thinks that Menzies, as a safe constituency for the Liberal Party, lacks the motivation to change, the needs of the voters ignored, and the MP is less proactive in fighting for resources and responding to the voices of the community. Therefore, she hopes to improve this situation by running in the election.

Speaking of her views on the Labor Party, Stella said outright that she was disappointed with the decisions made by the Labor Party. She pointed out that the decision-making of the Labor Party in recent years has deviated from the expectations of the public. She explained that since 2022, the Labor government has been approving the development of natural gas and coal mines, which is a departure from its initial position on climate policy. In addition, Stella also mentioned that more than 70% of the public clearly wanted to ban the appearance of gambling advertisements, and even the government’s report recommended to follow up on the issue, but in the end, nothing was done. What disappointed her even more was that a Labor Party member was punished by the party for supporting the Green Party’s proposal, which made her realize that the system of traditional political parties could not accommodate diversified views, and that was also the reason why she decided to leave the Labor Party.

One may wonder why Stella chose to join the Labor Party if she was so dissatisfied with its policies. Obviously, Stella was probably looking for a strong platform for her to speak out. Her beliefs at the time may have been closer to those of the Labor Party, and she thought that the Labor Party could be a channel for her to promote progress in the community. Although she was unsuccessful, the experience gave her a clearer understanding of the problems and challenges of the current party system, and allowed her to become more mature in her approach to politics and learn how to truly speak out on behalf of her community.

Opportunities for Chinese Independent Candidates

As a Chinese candidate, Stella has an advantage in Menzies, a district full of Chinese. Not only will she be able to connect with the Chinese voters in her district, but Stella, being a Malaysian Chinese, will not be labelled as “pro-China”, thus avoiding concerns about China’s potential influence on Australian politics. Moreover, as a resident of Menzies for many years, Stella understands the needs of the community, and her political views can remain independent of party ideology. This positioning may help her win support from the Chinese community and bring a new atmosphere to Menzies.

In terms of the voting system, Stella may have a good chance of winning. Under the Australian voting system, voters are required to rank all candidates in order of personal preference. If no candidate receives more than half of the votes in the first round of counting, the candidates with fewer votes will be gradually eliminated, and their votes will be transferred to other candidates according to the voters’ preference. As things stand, the Greens have placed Stella second in the proposed voting order, while Labor has placed her third. Therefore, as long as the Liberal candidate fails to get more than half of the votes in the counting of voting and through the allocation of votes, Stella may win as long as she can get more votes than first the Green and then the Labor candidates.

In reality, as an independent candidate, Stella will face a number of challenges, not least of which is funding. While it is important to put forward effective policies, the key to winning the trust of voters is to raise awareness through community outreach. In this regard, Stella admits that funds are indeed limited, but she has tried her best to publicize her campaign within the limited budget so that more voters can know her. For example, she produces promotional flyers at a discounted price through a familiar printer and relies on a large number of volunteers to help her letter-drop the flyers, thus saving a lot of publicity expenses. Besides, she also actively utilizes Facebook advertisements to promote herself to more voters. According to Stella, she need more dedicated volunteers to help distribute her campaign flyers, and the management and commitment of these volunteers will greatly affect her campaign.

Stella’s publicity efforts are obviously weaker than those of candidates from political parties who have huge resources to support them. A candidate of a political party can make use of the party’s professional team to formulate publicity strategies, and has more resources to organize large-scale community activities and place more advertisements, so as to build up a wider exposure and influence in the constituency. Moreover, being a candidate of a major political party is inherently more likely to attract the attention of voters. Without the resources and background of a political party, it is questionable whether Stella can maintain enough exposure for voters to recognize her and get enough first-past-the-post votes.

Labor’s strategy: Gabriel Ng

In fact, the Labor Party recognized the Liberal Party’s precarious position in Menzies and fielded a Chinese background candidate, Gabriel Ng, whose father is a Singaporean immigrant and whose mother is Australian, but whose not-so-Chinese look have been an asset in his bid for mainstream votes. Gabriel Ng was born and raised in Australia, is a lawyer, and represents the diversity of the second generation of immigrants. Whether he can win the trust of the first generation of Chinese immigrants is likely to be evident in this election.

However, by giving this seat to Gabriel Ng, who is not active in the Chinese community, the Labor Party is obviously trying to win the support of the Chinese. In the past, the Labor Party had failed to win the recognition of the Chinese and mainstream society by supporting Jennifer Yang , who grew up in Taiwan, and made them try the second-generation Southeast Asian immigrants instead. It seems that the Labor Party wants to minimize the controversy over the intricate relationship between these candidates and China, so as to avoid the predicament faced by Yang and the Liberal Party’s Gladys Liu as in the 2019 election.

As Gabriel Ng is nominated by the Labor Party, and like Tu Le in the Vietnamese-dominated constituency of Fowler, the challenge to Keith Wolahan depends on the voters’ loyalty to the Liberal Party.

Keith Wolahan’s chances of winning

In last election, Keith Wolahan swooped in to replace Kevin Andrews as the Liberal candidate, leaving him without the support of some of the traditional Liberal voters and leaving Menzies in a marginal seat. Over the past three years Keith Wolahan has made a real effort to build up his personal popularity and influence in the community. But with Labor in government, he really hasn’t done much for the voters in this area. And it seems that Dutton’s policies are not well received by his constituents, which is not too good for Keith Wolahan.

Keith Wolahan is not very active in building up the Chinese connections, but he does attach great importance to Chinese online publicity, and his promotions have been seen on Chinese social media platforms for a long time. There aren’t many Liberal MPs in Victoria, and he’s already gotten a lot of exposure in his first term. If he can win against the combined attacks of Labor, Greens and Stella Yee, it will show his strength.

Conclusion

The outcome of the Menzies electorate in Victoria will be a great inspiration for the future strategies of the two major parties and for ethnic minorities in politics. If Keith Wolahan of the Liberal Party is re-elected, it will show that the efforts of individual legislators in their constituencies cannot be ignored. If Gabriel Ng wins, the Liberal Party will be even weaker in Victoria. I believe that the Victoria branch of the Liberal Party has to do some soul-searching and review, especially on its strategy towards the ethnic minorities, which should not be ignored. If independent Chinese candidate Stella Yee can win the election with successful vote allocation, just like the Teal in 2022, it opens up another possibility for immigrants to enter politics, that is, when both major political parties have lost the trust of the community, they are able to win the recognition of the major immigrants and the local community, and obtain a certain proportion of basic votes, thus gaining an advantage.

In the next issue of this magazine, we will analyze the results of the election and look at the direction of the political situation in Australia.

Article/Editorial Department Sameway Magazine

Photo/Internet