Following the Australian federal election on May 21, there will be at least six members of Parliament of Asian descent in Parliament. However, many political analysts believe that Asians are still lagging behind other democracies in Australian politics.
In the previous term, only 3 out of 151 seats in the House of Representatives were held by MPs of Asian descent. None of them were Bangladeshis. The three were Gladys Liu from Chisholm in Melbourne, Ian Goodenough from Murray in Perth and Dave Sharma from Wentworth in Sydney.
The number of Asian federal members has doubled since this election. Six candidates of Asian descent have won the May 21 election.
“This is a significant milestone, but not enough,” Erin Chiu, founder of the Asian Australian Alliance and a former member of the Labor Party, told SBS News. The good news is that the number of Asian Australians entering Parliament has doubled. However, it should not be considered as the highest.
According to the 2016 census, more than 16 per cent of Australia’s population is of Asian descent.
Of these, only six MPs represent less than 4 per cent of the 151-seat lower house.
More than 5 per cent of New Zealand MPs and more than one in 10 Canadian MPs are of Asian descent.
In this election, there were 20 candidates from Asian background in the Liberal Party of Australia. Two of them were of Bangladeshi descent. None of the 20 could win. There were 9 members of the Labor Party. 6 of them have won.
