Liberal leader, Scott Morrison led the coalition to a surprising victory in the 2019 Australian federal election. The results have ensured the Liberal government being elected for a third term and also endorsed Scott Morrison as Prime Minister of Australia.
Community views and reaction:
SBS Radio's Urdu show was overwhelmed with calls and messages from the Pakistani and Urdu speaking community in Australia expressing their views about the 2019 federal election.
"These are shocking results, how come all the polls go wrong. Either surveyed people did not reveal the truth or there was a last minute change of mind..it is unbelievable".
"All my friends and my self were expecting an easy ALP win but it's a pity that Bill Shorten has to leave leadership in this way."
"I am not excited by the absence of left-wing politicians such as Pauline Hanson and Fraser Anning since the same vote bank has gone to the ruling party and now Liberal cannot ignore its vote bank."
"I am happy by the results because it will not only give assurance of continuation of the policies but also better for the economy and businesses."
"I think hard days are coming ahead for Australian migrants and that is not good for a country like Australia where every fourth Australian is born overseas."
Analysis:
Professor Samina Yasmeen, Researcher of School of Social Sciences at University of Western Australia (Perth) and director and founder of the University’s Centre for the Muslim States and Societies said that polls were not communicating the right data to the people.
"State variations of the polls had not been taken into account," said Dr Yasmeen.
Dr Yasmeen also talked about the global trend against migration in the Western world and its impact on Australian voters.
"Locally we saw a huge advertising campaign of United Australia party of Clive Palmer and globally there is a growing fear of migrants, both these factors impacted the Australian Labor party vote bank," she added.
Clive Palmer might not get a single seat in parliament however his sixty million dollar election campaign deterred voters from Labor party".
Participants views:
Ali Khan and Rizwan Afzal both are political workers who kept themselves engaged with grassroots voters in the 2019 election campaign. Both of them agreed that the migrant community is reluctant to participate in Australian politics due to several factors.
"Participation in political activities can begin from volunteer work to paid work and it is not hard at all, you might only need to spend one to four hours per week. This can leverage community reach towards mainstream political activities," Mr Khan told SBS Urdu.
Rizwan Afzal agreed with Mr Khan's analysis and said that "[The] migrant community brings inherited fear from their country of origin about political activities which plays a major role in keeping them from engaging in Australian politics."
