Tuesday, April 8, 2025
Year : 2, Issue: 32
Reuters: Sydney non-profit worker Az Fahmi was once a dedicated volunteer for Australia’s ruling Labour party, handing out pamphlets to get her local representative, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke, re-elected.
Ahead of a May 3 election, Fahmi is now campaigning to oust Burke over what she believes is his party’s “dismal” response to the Muslim community’s calls for the Australian government to support Palestinians in Gaza.
The approach has angered pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel voters, leaving Labour vulnerable in at least nine of the lower house seats it needs to hold onto its one-seat majority in the 150-seat parliament, election experts say.
Fahmi’s electorate is among three multicultural, working class seats in western Sydney that have long been Labour strongholds, where up to one in three voters is Muslim, despite making up just 3.2% of Australia’s population.
Similarly, Jewish Australians are just 0.5% of the overall population but make up to one-sixth of voters in wealthy inner-city electorates in Sydney and Melbourne.
The demographics of both could result in big swings against incumbent lawmakers, election experts say.
Independent election analyst William Bowe said Labor could face a damaging 20% swing against it in western Sydney, where incumbents secured just over half the primary vote in 2022, mirroring the UK Labour party’s losses last year due to a Muslim voter backlash over the Gaza War.
