https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3516-5975
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ABSTRACT
Political representation of ethnic minorities in a liberal democratic system is a crucial step towards having the interests of ethnic minority groups heard. The under-representation of ethnic minorities in a political institution can exacerbate inequality between majority and minority populations and increase feelings of alienation among minority groups. As a country observing increasing ethnic diversity, Australia saw record-level ethnic minority candidates elected in the 2022 federal election. However, the shares of candidates and elected Members of Parliaments with ethnic minority backgrounds are still much lower than their relative shares in the population. In this regard, Australia has lagged behind other major settler countries. In this paper, we examine the political representation of ethnic minorities in Australia’s federal election. Drawing on data from the 2022 federal election and 2021 population census, we find a positive association between ethnic minority concentration and ethnic representation. However, for the two major parties, ethnic minority candidates are less likely to be in safe seats, even when the seat observes high ethnic minority concentration. Findings suggest that ethnic voting is evident but it is perhaps too early to celebrate higher levels of ethnic representation in Australian politics as political parties act as gatekeepers in safe seats.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the two reviewers and participants at the 20th Australian Population Association Conference (the Social Demography session) for their comments and suggestions on the paper.
Data availability statement
The data that support the findings of this study are openly available from Australian Electoral Commission at https://results.aec.gov.au/ and Australian Bureau of Statistics at https://www.abs.gov.au/census.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 This includes Australian residents who reported Australia, New Zealand, United States, Canada, and European ancestries. Note that a person can report up to two ancestries in the 2021 Australian Census where the statistics is sourced from. The 28 per cent is calculated from dividing the number of reported non-European ancestries by the total population size. This is slightly different from the other ancestries variables used in the rest of this paper. See footnote 9.
2 We also noted that there are studies using stated choice experiments (e.g. Dunning and Harrison Citation2010; Carlson Citation2015).
3 In Australia, ethnic voting refers to votes/preferences for ethnic candidates rather than voting for ethnic parties which are not a main feature of Australia’s two-party system.
4 ALP refers to the Australian Labor Party and the LNC refers to the Liberal-National coalition which is sometimes informally referred to as the LNP. However, this acronym is often confused with the Liberal National Party (LNP) of Queensland, who is also counted as part of LNC.
5 Note that the 2021 Census was conducted at a time when the Australian international border was still closed to non-citizens and non-permanent residents. Thus, we found very high correlation between the composition of the resident population and the composition of resident citizen population in the 2021 Census compared to previous censuses. The correlation coefficient between the percentage of overseas-born residents and the percentage of overseas-born residents who have Australian citizenship and are aged 18 years old and above is 0.97.
6 The national median personal weekly income is $805, calculated from the 2021 Census (ABS Citation2022). The calculation is based on the census population aged 15 years old and above. Those who are unemployed or retired are all included.
7 The 2021 Census was conducted on 10 August 2021 and the 2022 Australian federal election was held on 21 May 2022. We approximate a one-year increment in census-recorded age to reflect the voter population (age 18+) in the election. We acknowledge that this method is not perfect as changes in residence, education, labour force status, and income level between the Census data and the election data are not accounted for. Self-reported age can be inaccurate sometimes. The gaps between the number of enrolled voters in AEC statistics and the voter population in the Census may also be contributed to Australian citizens who are 16 and 17 years old and can enrol in the electorate roll list but cannot vote until turning 18 years old. Pearson’s correlation coefficient between the number of enrolled voters in AEC statistics and the voter population in the Census is 0.98.
8 COMPELL relied on public website and public information to compile the list and our best check would only replicate their data compiling process, if not missing anything. Each of the names on the COMPELL list had a link to the candidate’s website. These were active links during the 2022 election, but some were deactivated after the election (for those who did not win the seat). The list also provides a photo of the candidate and thus we are further reassured if the candidate is an ethnic minority from their physical characteristics.
9 Note that up to two ancestries can be reported for each person in the Australian census. Unless otherwise noted, ancestry percentages used in this paper are calculated from dividing the specified ancestry group by the total number of ancestries reported in each electorate. In another word, the denominators of these ancestry percentages are not the population size of an electorate but the total number of ancestries reported in an electorate.
10 Thresholds described in Akoglu (Citation2018) are used.
11 In online Appendix B, we also examine the correlation between candidates’ ethnic background and their election outcomes at the candidate level.
12 It holds for all but two electorates (Wentworth and Durack) that when an ethnic majority candidate was elected, the first preference votes for ethnic minority candidates combined were lower than that for the elected candidate. Thus we did not further question whether ethnic minority voters split their votes but the party strategies.