Australia is far from its own Zohran Mamdani moment. Here's why
Their cheese tastes gross, there's no national paid parental leave and their healthcare system is — to put it mildly — awful. Oh, and that's before you get to the guns. Then there's their political system, complete with an electoral college that makes a mockery of the notion of "one person, one vote". It's not ideal.
But on one front, they do have an edge over our system here in Australia: breakthrough, often young, candidates have more of a chance of getting into powerful positions within the major parties.
At the May federal election, Australia elected one of our most diverse parliaments ever with a higher number of women, better multicultural representation and more MPs with disabilities.
It is a parliament that is more like the community it represents, but when it comes to who gets to be a minister vs who's on the back bench things are much more homogenous.
In Australia, for better or worse, it is very difficult for an unexpected 'upset' candidate to win a position of much influence in our politics.
In the United States, it's a different story.
Take New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, who recently won the race to be the Democratic candidate for NYC against the wishes of the party establishment.
Yes, mayor is a local government position, but if you're running a city with more people in it than the whole of Victoria it's a pretty big deal.
As illustrated by how much some members of the media in the US are straight up freaking out about Mamdani's candidacy which has also seen him subjected to vitriolic racism from the wider political establishment.
We'd need another whole column with an extended word count to get into the ins and outs of the policies he's running on and whether evidence indicates they will or will not work.
But in short, his pitch was that he's a fresh voice, who wants to make New York a cheaper place to live and that his opponent Andrew Cuomo was backed by billionaires who didn't care about regular people — who had also had to step down from being Governor of the state after subjecting 13 women to sexual harassment.
Though as anyone who follows US politics with any passing interest knows, this is not enough to stop someone making it to the highest echelons of US politics.
Just ask the most successful breakthrough candidate they've ever had.
Disruptive candidates like Mamdani, Donald Trump and Democrat Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are the exception, not the rule.
But senior lecturer in politics at the Australian National University Jill Sheppard says there's a reason we see them less in Australia.
"What we know of both major parties is that their membership base is getting old and it's predominantly very white and in the case of the Liberals in particular, it's very male," she says.
Unlike Australian pre-selections, the mayoral primaries were open to voters who weren't party members.
"A lot of traditionalist Democrats at the moment are arguing that their wishes were overridden," says Sheppard.
"That could absolutely happen here, but the difference is that a renegade faction would have to actually join the party and go to meetings and be part of the party and abide by its constitution and do all these things."
Sheppard says while Trump and Mamdani are far apart on policy, their experience breaking into politics has some similarities.
"In 2015 when [Trump] was going through his first presidential primary race, a lot of Republicans thought he's annoying, he's getting a lot of attention, but it's fine because our party elders are backing other people."
Similarly in 2025 Mamdani "was able to organise this support outside of the big trade unions, outside of the party elders inside Congress and basically build a workaround to get into politics," she says.
"We just don't have anything like that here right if you want to become elected."
Of all the 21st century's greatest thinkers, Buffy the Vampire Slayer has the neatest summation of how things work in politics: "It's not about right, it's not about wrong. It's about power."
And in Australia, if you want to have access to the power held by the major parties you need to play by some very particular rules.
"There's a real assembly line for incoming politicians that has changed the nature of the kinds of people that get elected," says Sheppard.
"There is a sense that you have to do the hard yards in a party branch."
While the parliament is slowly growing more reflective of the community it represents, factions — formal or otherwise — dominate who gets a shot, when and at what.
There is significant evidence that people often choose to hire those who look and behave like them, this is no different in politics.
In politics this can lead to a stale, feedback loop exacerbated by factions.
And the thing about a blocked up system? It causes problems.
Just look at issues the Liberal Party is having because its membership doesn't have much of an inclination to preselect women in winnable seats.
Now you might be thinking, but Claudia! What about the independents?!
And yes, the substantial number of independents in politics compared to years prior shows it is possible for unexpected candidates to break into parliament.
What they have not broken into is the ministry or the balance of power. There is a flip side to all of this: stability.
"Even though we don't like the people that we vote for, we still like the system," says Sheppard of Australian politics.
"On the other hand, that can get stagnant, right? You become so stable that you don't move, you're just this sort of turtle that forgets how to walk."
Stability is currently in short supply in the United States at least at a federal level.
We don't know what a Mamdani mayorship would look like because he hasn't actually won it yet.
Here in Australia, it is easy to dismiss these upsets as matters far away especially when Labor has such a thumping majority.
But eventually, there will be a need for renewal and when that time comes if the new generation of political leaders are just carbon copies of their predecessors voters may cry out for something new.
The major parties need to ask whether that new thing can include them.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Australian
33 minutes ago
- The Australian
Editorial. Yoorrook justice report will fail for same reason as Voice to parliament
It will fail for the reason the voice to parliament was rejected by the Australian people at the 2023 referendum. A decisive majority demonstrated no appetite for denying, as the national anthem puts it, that 'we are one and free'. As prime minister Kevin Rudd put it in the 2008 apology to the Stolen Generations, 'profound grief, suffering and loss (were inflicted) on these our fellow Australians'. There is also a sleight of hand in the report, making the case that the memory of the destruction of cultures weighs so hard on Indigenous Australians now that a parallel government is needed to lift their burden. The commission presents 100 recommendations, many focused on symbolism that will do nothing to reduce Indigenous imprisonment or improve health and housing, employment and education. Despite this, Rueben Berg, co-chairman of the First Peoples' Assembly of Victoria, said on Tuesday: 'When it comes to issues facing First Peoples, we need a different approach, one that draws on the expertise of First Peoples to design and deliver practical solutions to local challenges. That's what treaty is all about.' It is also exactly what the Coalition of Peaks is doing without a political assembly. The 80 or so grassroots community organisations that make up the Peaks work on the federal government's Closing the Gap program and are 'accountable to our communities, not governments … we know how to best advance our lives'. Ideologues who cannot accept the voice result may not like it, but the Peaks approach is politically practical while the Yoorrook commission's call for 'the transition to genuine nation-to-nation relationships' is not. As for those of its recommendations that call for specific improvements to the lives of Indigenous Australians, they are all matters for government now. Indigenous Australians in Victoria working to build careers and set their children up for long and happy lives are entitled to all the assistance government provides. They have a right to see their cultures respected and their histories acknowledged. And Premier Jacinta Allan knows it, responding with a back-covering 'we share the Yoorrook Justice Commission's goals of truth and justice and will carefully consider the commission's final findings and recommendations'. The history of settler society is far more nuanced than appears in the commission report; British governments were not indifferent to the rights of Indigenous Australians. It is incontestable that the arrival of 19th-century settlers was a calamity for millennia-old Australian economies and cultures. But the Yoorrook Justice Commission's recommendations must be judged on how enacting them would improve the circumstances of disadvantaged Indigenous Australians now and in the future. Awareness, indeed anger, among Indigenous Australians today at what occurred in the past should be recognised – it was the point of Mr Rudd's apology, which is still recognised in Sorry Day. But history cannot be undone; guilt is not hereditary. 'Let the dead Past bury its dead,' as poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow put it.
ABC News
33 minutes ago
- ABC News
Victoria's Yoorrook Justice Commission a 'blueprint' for the rest of Australia, First Nations leaders say
In 1834, life for people living in what's now known as Victoria was about to drastically change. Within 17 years, a new British colony had been founded and those who had lived there for millennia were dwindling in numbers. It was not from natural sickness or old age "but by the quiet, bureaucratic sanctioning of violence. A poisoned meal, a raid at dawn, a report filed away whose careful phrasing obfuscated the reality". In those 17 years from the arrival of the Henty brothers, Aboriginal people from Gunditjmara and Kulin lands dropped from a population of 15,000 to just 2,000 people. For those whose ancestors were killed, this is a history well known. More than 170 years later, it has never been forgotten. These were the findings released on Tuesday from Australia's first formal truth-telling commission, the Yoorrook Justice Commission, which investigated Victoria's colonial roots and the impact they continue to have on First Nations people today. The commission's 'Truth be Told' report documented the massacres and frontier violence that occurred and the government policies that forced Aboriginal peoples onto missions and reserves where traditional practices were banned. It examined the legislation that allowed children to be forcibly removed from their families and their culture. The report called it a "genocide". But it also highlighted the resistance of Aboriginal people: "They held on to one another, to their languages, to Country. In a time when the world around them insisted on their disappearance, survival became the ultimate resistance." For Senator Lidia Thorpe, reading those words was validating and one step closer to justice. "As long as I've been alive my uncle Robbie Thorpe has taken on many politicians for genocide against our people," the Gunnai, Gunditjmara and Djab Wurrung woman said. "I think it's a bit of healing, acknowledgement and justice that my uncle and others have been fighting for all of their lives." In the years that followed — the founding of what we now know as Victoria — government action ramped up. "The colony's preoccupation shifted from Aboriginal land to Aboriginal blood," the report stated. "Once the land had been fenced, surveyed and renamed, attention turned inwards to the bodies and lineages of those who remained." In 1886, the Aborigines Protection Act (Vic) was imposed "as a mechanism for the disappearance of Aboriginal people under the ongoing pretence of a regime of 'protection'". "The colony had decided that First Peoples would need to be made to vanish." Yorta Yorta man Ian Hamm was separated from his family when he was three weeks old under these government policies and gave testimony to the commission. "It can only be classed as the deliberate actions of trying to completely destabilise the presence of a people from the place they have always been," he told ABC Radio Melbourne. "Not just destabilise them but effectively proactively wipe them out." He said there is a 'maturity' in acknowledging genocide. "It tells me what I already knew. It's written in a single word that everybody understood but nobody would utter those words. Now it's written down." CEO of Reconciliation Australia Karen Mundine said now the findings were laid bare, many will be watching to see if the Victorian government will "do things differently" and continue to "show leadership" as the first state embarking on truth-telling and treaty-making in the country. "I think there is power in words," she said. "When we know history, when we understand the injustices that happened and existed, it's really for us to do something with that knowledge. "The reports are not done as a kind of exercise in report writing, but they're actually done with care and consideration to see better outcomes for First Nations peoples." The Yoorrook Justice Commission released 100 recommendations as part of its final report. Among them is a call for the First Peoples Assembly — a democratically elected body of First Nations people tasked with treaty-making with the state government — to be made permanent and their powers extended to shared decision-making. On Monday, Victorian Premier Jacinta Allen expressed her support for treaty making. However, the opposition stated if it wins power at next year's election, it will not support a new role for the First Peoples' Assembly or a treaty. But Ian Hamm remains confident a treaty will be established. "We can't allow this opportunity to slip, what would that say about us as Victorians, about us as a people, all of us who are resident in this state that we had the opportunity to grasp this moment in time and history, we're going to throw this opportunity under the bus?" "That would reflect poorly on us as people. How could we look ourselves in the mirror with any pride, with any respect for who we are?" Indigenous writer and former Yes campaign leader and Thomas Mayo wants to see all Australians support Victoria in the next stage of treaty negotiations. "There will be concerted efforts from the creators of culture wars that try and keep Indigenous people down in this country and often for their own political ambitions," he said. Mr Mayo wants the public to 'fight against the disinformation' that plagued the Voice Referendum. "The truth-telling report is important because it's there in black and white. It's been a very extensive process, there's been a lot of emotional labour put into it," he said. "Undoubtedly the result is something that is truthful, that people can rely on." States and territories have taken varying approaches and are at different stages of truth-telling and treaty processes across the country. South Australia has established a legislated Voice to Parliament. New South Wales is expected to begin treaty conversations in the coming months. Last year Queensland's Crisafulli government scrapped the state's Truth-Telling and Healing Inquiry, and earlier this year the NT government did the same with its treaty process, which had been underway for seven years. Senator Lidia Thorpe said she hoped the outcomes of the Yoorrook commission would set a road map for other states to follow. "Those recommendations are not only a pathway to treaty, they're a pathway to peace for Aboriginal people in this country, and ways the government can close the gap they continually talk about," she said. "That's why we need federal leadership in this space, so that there's a mandate and a template for the rest of the states and territories to get on board. Don't be left behind." Karen Mundine said she hoped the commission's findings will demonstrate the importance of truth-telling. "As some of our older people begin to age and pass, there's an urgency to record those stories right across the country," she said. "While some formal processes may be winding back, we urge governments and other jurisdictions to think carefully about that.
ABC News
an hour ago
- ABC News
The childcare subsidy gives parents 'choice', but the government must ensure good choices are available
This week's horrifying allegations against a Melbourne childcare worker have provoked shock, grief and reckoning. For those who spend their lives thinking about how to improve the systems and policies our society relies on, moments like this can also provoke change. We expect our governments to be improving our institutions all the time, not just when there is a horror story — and they often do, in ways that do not make headlines — but policy advocates understand the power of a "burning platform" to make reforms stick. This week, childcare advocate Georgie Dent of The Parenthood said leaders needed to go beyond steps already underway to improve screening and surveillance of staff and redesign the sector entirely. Dent's two priorities are an independent national regulator with the power to effectively force the closure of centres that do not meet minimum standards, and a new funding model where child care is provided directly like public schools, rather than subsidised. It is obvious how a national regulator relates to the failures exposed by this week's allegations — in fact, it may surprise many to learn that shutting down substandard childcare centres isn't already standard practice, and the federal government has work underway to change that. The relevance of funding may not be so obvious. But the financial model of Australian child care — where the federal government gives money to parents rather than operating centres itself — has long put it at arm's length from ensuring quality and safety. That is a challenge for the Albanese government, which has long aspired to make those subsidies universal but has limited oversight of what exactly it is subsidising. Our childcare system is built with "choice" at its centre. Rather than the government providing childcare services directly, it pays a subsidy to eligible parents, who choose from a range of providers, including for-profit and not-for-profit organisations. The logic is that high-quality services will naturally follow if parents are "empowered" to give their money to a good provider instead of a bad one. It's a hybrid system: demand is public, with the government paying for at least a portion of the cost of care, but supply is private, with providers competing with one another in a market for customers, and regulations often light-touch. Similar systems are today used for a range of services that were once directly provided by government, including aged care and vocational education, and for disability care through the NDIS. In-home aged care recipients have "packages", NDIS participants have "budgets" and trainees have "fee-free TAFE", all different names for subsidies allowing them to choose their preferred providers. But this choice "revolution", which has taken place in the last few decades, has its critics. Mark Considine, a politics professor at the University of Melbourne, calls it evidence of a "careless state". Though motivated by a desire to improve on often stale government service providers, Considine argues it became an excuse for governments to outsource quality assurance to those who use the services, who may lack the information to make informed choices. Sometimes there may not be much choice at all, like in Australia's childcare "deserts" where only a smattering of providers are available. But even where options are plenty, it is an open question whether those who rely on these services, who are often vulnerable and confronting complicated systems, are really equipped to sort good from bad. That is why Dent advocates the school model — schools being one of a few remaining services directly provided by (state and territory) governments, with hospitals another. "The way schools are funded is directly. Parents are not subsidised to send their children to schools," she said on Wednesday. "There is no accountability for the childcare subsidy … where taxpayers and the [federal] government are able to say that receiving this money is dependent on you meeting these minimum standards … "When we've got services that have almost got a business model around employing the fewest number of staff with the lowest number of qualifications, that creates extraordinary risk." The federal government has not indicated it intends to abolish the subsidy system, but it is considering how to improve regulatory oversight, with Education Minister Jason Clare vowing to deny subsidies to substandard providers in forthcoming legislation, something in train before the events of this week. The government is also considering how to improve training, pay and retention in the childcare workforce, and address childcare deserts. That trio of reforms was suggested by the Productivity Commission, which recommended retaining the subsidy system but also called for a national commission to better regulate quality, similar to Dent's other recommendation. It would be a similar approach to what has unfolded over the last few years in aged care, another sector where stories of neglect and abuse kickstarted a process of change. An Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission was set up in 2019 and has been accompanied by a star rating system to inform choices. A new "rights-based" framework for the system was also legislated last year but recently had its implementation delayed. The jury is out on these changes, and the ABC reported last year that five-star ratings were being handed out to aged care homes found not to be compliant with government standards. Direct provision of government services is no perfect guarantee of quality either, as we often see with schools and hospitals. But there is growing recognition, including from the government itself, that giving people "choice" in the services they access cannot come at the expense of strong oversight to give parents the confidence, no doubt shaken this week, that those choices are safe. If the government does press ahead with universal child care, which will require more providers and more workers, safeguarding quality will be essential.
