COMMENT | Making political waves Down Under

COMMENT | Sam Lim, a former Malaysian cop and dolphin trainer, is making media waves in the political arena in Australia. Lim, who emigrated to Australia in 2002, won the Tangney seat long held by the conservative Liberal Party in last week’s Australian federal elections. Time will tell if he makes any waves in a Parliament of mostly Anglo-Celtic politicians. Australia is a welcoming society, albeit predominantly Anglo-centric. For all its claims to being a multicultural class act as a nation, the parliamentary representation of growing ethnic minorities is still dismal. You can count the number of non-whites in Parliament on one hand until last Saturday’s elections. Ethnocentrist politics is the result of traditionalism. White Australia has yet to see what Asians can do in leadership roles besides their prowess in fields such as medicine and business. Minorities themselves are to blame for not being more organised politically and being proactive. Australian politics is still very much an old boys club, a bloke-ist party affair, a white man's bastion, and don't expect...