Watching Australia's federal election campaign unfold, it might be easy to forget that we ever repealed the White Australia Policy.
Across the political spectrum, Australia's major and minor parties are failing to reflect the multicultural Australia of the 21st century.
We have fallen far behind similar nations like Canada, who elected 19 Indian-Canadians alone, and ten indigenous parliamentarians, at their last election.
Who we elect to our parliament is not just about the gesture, it is also a reflection of where power lies within our society, and whose voices are given the space to be heard to represent the community.
Jen Kwok, research fellow at the University of Queensland and cofounder of the Asian Australian Democratic Caucus, says political parties don't take cultural diversity seriously. 'They are more clubs than civic institutions in that they have a particular culture and set of priorities that contributes to disengagement not only from Asian Australian populations but entire, very large groups of Australians.'
Kwok says that while we don't have accurate data on the ethnic backgrounds of representatives, let alone candidates, in a response to a question from retiring MP Anna Burke in 2014 the Commonwealth Parliamentary Library compiled a list of representatives with Asian backgrounds, drawing on publicly available sources such as party material and newspaper articles.
Based on that limited analysis, we can put the number of Asian Australians in parliament at either 1.8 per cent or 2.2 per cent. This is compared to 2011 ABS Census data which said 8.4 per cent of our population had one of the top five Asian nations for migration as their country of origin.
All these numbers are sticky and it's incredible we don't have clear government data on diversity. The above stats only refer to country of origin and don't include those who may have complex migrant backgrounds or identify themselves as Asian Australian.
"The reason we need diversity in parliament is that that diversity is symptomatic of the health of the system."
— Jen Kwok
The same data puts the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people at 0.9 per cent of our parliament compared to 3 per cent of the population, though the number has gone up slightly since Pat Dodson entered the senate.
After this election our parliament may actuallty get less diverse. In a factional deal, Labor moved Australia's only Indian-Australian MP Lisa Singh (pictured) to an unwinnable seat on the Tasmanian senate ticket, and Palmer United's Dio Wang is unlikely to be returned in Western Australia.
On the other hand, the ALP's Jennifer Yang has secured a strong spot on the senate ticket in Victoria and the Greens' Alex Bhathal is eyeing off Melbourne's Batman. The ALP's Linda Burney is contesting Barton in Sydney and may become the first Indigenous woman in the House of Representatives. The Liberals in Victoria are running four candidates of clearly Asian background, but all in totally unwinnable seats, a practise reeking of tokenism.
While Labor has consistently performed the best in seats with more Asian constituents, this hasn't been reflected in the caucus room. Tim Watts, an Anglo Labor MP representing the seat of Gillibrand, which takes in Melbourne's highly diverse inner western suburbs, acknowledges that the party has a real problem with Asian Australian representation, and points out that it is an issue across civil society.
How to fix the ALP's problem is another question. In terms of gender equality, Labor has embraced affirmative action since the inauguration of Emily's List and the adoption of internal quotas for female representation in 1994. But Wesa Chau and Jieh-Yung Lo, who last year set up Poliversity, a partisan group in the ALP to advocate for culturally diverse leadership, are coy about advocating for taking a similar approach to cultural diversity. They say the party is getting better at recognising, mentoring and promoting political talent in Asian communities.
Watts notes that defining cultural diversity is a more complex task than achieveing gender quotas, and Kwok agrees that affirmative action is unlikely to be the solution, instead advocating deeper levels of integration across political parties and other civic institutions. 'Engagement in politics is about much more than just having people of physically diverse backgrounds there,' he says. 'The reason we need diversity in parliament is that that diversity is symptomatic of the health of the system.'
Having served two decades in Victoria's state parliament, Labor MP Hong Lim has had a unique insight into the way parties view diversity. He is furious that he remains the only Chinese-Australian on Spring Street. 'The parties only want the big money the Chinese community can give to them,' he says. However Lim said at the end of the day Asian Australians need to take a more proactive role in pushing for their place in the halls of power. 'In this game power is not given, power is taken. We have to be increasingly wanting to take power.'
Jarni Blakkarly is a freelance journalist and radio producer. He has contributed for organisations such Al Jazeera, ABC Radio National, BBC and the Griffith Review. You can follow him on Twitter @jarniblakkarly