Labor Will Turn Parliament into a University Identity Seminar Run Amok

Victorian Senator calls for multi-cultural quotas

Labor Senator Jana Stewart is pushing her party to pick culturally diverse candidates under a quota plan to boost the number of parliamentarians from non-English speaking backgrounds.

The Indigenous Senator told the Sydney Morning Herald the Labor party needed to reflect the increasingly non-white face of Australia.

“I’m keen to add a colour lens to all that we do,” she said.

Isn’t it amazing how the more progressives progress, the further and further we regress.

Martin Luther King Jr would be so proud. I well remember that speech where he said:

“I have a dream, where one day my children will be judged, not by the content of their character, but by the colour of their skin.”

Wait. Sorry. I think I got that around the wrong way. Whatever.

Stewart, who’s main claim to fame is that she is the first Indigenous Victorian senator, said the Labor Party needed to lead the way when it came to representing the community.

And how better to represent the community than to look like them.

“In this day and age, it’s unacceptable not to reflect our community,” she said. “The Australian community want to see their leaders look more like them.”

If that’s true then Senator Stewart - who was chosen not by electors but by the Labor Party to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Kimberly Kitching - needs to explain why she should retain her place in Parliament. 

After all, she’s the senator for Victoria where, according to the 2016 Census, 99.2 per cent of people are NOT Aboriginal.

If parliamentary representation is about faces rather than ideas, in what way is someone who represents just 0.8 per cent of citizens representative?

And, while we’re at it, could Senator Stewart please explain how it is that Aboriginals, who comprise 3 per cent of the national population, have managed to occupy almost 5 per cent of federal parliamentary seats.

Is she volunteering to quit parliament in order to better reflect the populace?

Stewart will push for multi-cultural quotas at the National ALP Conference in August.

And it’s difficult to see how the ALP can resist.

After all, they already have quotas for women. If you’re going to stipulate that a certain number of candidates must have breasts, why not black faces?

Per Capita think tank research fellow and Labor activist Osmond Chiu said the proposal to abandon merit had merit.

Chiu pointed out that the first minister of Scotland, the mayor of London and the British prime minister were all people of colour, while in Canada four of the five largest city mayors were people of colour.

Well sure. But how many of them were two spirited gender queer vegans who drive Teslas?

We can play this game all night.

And then Chiu said this …

“People look overseas and they look at Australia and they think ‘what’s going on’.

So true.

Just the other night I was reflecting on the state of Scottish politics and wondering: ‘What’s going on? Why isn’t Australia led by an Asian Muslim?’

Australia is just sooo embarrassing.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported that

“Senior figures in the Left faction want to increase the mix of cultural backgrounds in the caucus but are cautious that a too-ambitious target could result in candidates being picked before they gained relevant skills and experience for a political career.”

You think?

Once you abandon the principle of merit, there is nothing to stop parliament becoming little more than a university campus identity seminar run amok.

And if progressives within the Labor Party have their way, that’s exactly where we are headed.