The federal opposition is in damage control following firebrand senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price’s claims the government is accepting “large numbers” of Indian migrants into Australia to bolster Labor’s vote, claiming that a Redbridge poll had found that 85% 0f those who have Indian ancestry voted for Labor (on a two party preferred vote).

Senator Price has backtracked and has been rebuked by Opposition Leader Sussan Ley, but the comments have caused community anger and concern among Liberals about their standing with Indian-Australian voters.

Following the claim Roy Morgan did an in-depth analysis which demonstrated that Price was – as usual – not exactly getting any of her claims right.

Labor does have a lead among Indian-born voters – 45% to 39% for the LNP but nothing like the 85% on the estimated two party preferred finding. The Indian-born 25-34 years old voters, however, supported Labor by 49% against 36% for the LNP.

Roy Morgan did, however, find that Labor had 49% support from Indian-born voters aged 25 to 34. Compared to 36% for the Coalition. Morgan also found that Indian-born Australians overwhelmingly supported (84%) either the ALP or Coalition.

There was not much support for the Greens in either group although there was a trend towards younger Indian and Chinese groups supporting the Greens.

Nevertheless, both groups vote will be increasingly important. Currently there are around 916,000 Indian-born Australians and 760,000 Chinese-born Australians.

Once again it was Liberal Julian Leeser (now back on the frontbench again after having been benched previously for supporting the Yes vote) has apologised to the Indian community in his electorate for comments made by Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and has called for Price to apologise for the “hurt that has been caused”.

Back in the day political parties sort of tried to win the ‘migrant’ vote. Multiculturalism was still to take firm hold on most of the nation’s politicians – except for some obvious individuals such as Al Grassby but that was perhaps for different reasons. However, from the Whitlam era onwards the efforts were much more systematic – and a quick look at most Parliaments around the country demonstrate that new reality.

Multicultural – especially in cricket -representation has also been slow with sport. The main football codes have been the best performers and competition from real football (called soccer by most Australians) has created genuine multicultural support for the Socceroos.

But however, as in politics Indians are an exception – surprisingly particularly in cricket. Everyone who follows cricket is enthusiastic about Usman Khawaja but where are the other South Asian migrants and families coming through the ranks?

One theory was that young Indian crickets playing in grades below First Class cricket disliked the aggressive culture and the odd racist comment that came when Indian players reverted to their own language to avoid giving something away. As a former club grade cricketer long ago the blog can testify that ‘colourful language’ was an essential  element of a day’s play.

A report by the Scanlon Foundation Research Institute found that, unsurprisingly, South Asian first and second generations had poor experiences of Australian cricket. The report says “their experiences of Anglocentric Australian cricket clubs and pathways have not always been positive”.  A bit of an understatement as the report goes on to list a number of problems from racism to systematic bias and discrimination.

This has resulted in creating their own cricketing experiences in a multicultural club environment.

Cricket Australia has developed its first Multicultural Action Plan which it released in December 2023. In time it should work and Indian Australians playing in Tests can be just as assertive as Virat Kohli has been. There might also be fewer planes being drunk dry on flights to England for Tests although, to be fair to current players, that is now just another thing from back in another day.

The Scanlon Institute has made eight recommendations on how to improve the situation. They include: increasing multicultural presence in cricket boards and executive leadership; find new ways to reward community club volunteers; improve data collection; increase regulation of coaches and umpires and find a way to standardise and improve performances in these areas (including cultural safety training and certification (a recommendation which makes it fairly clear what some of the on field problems might be); providing equitable access to resources and facilities for grassroots clubs and; involving the South Asian diaspora in what the future should hold.

The report is subtle and  considered, but the sub-text of the report is quite evident – racism and exclusion are widespread. The problem needs to be fixed if only to create a situation in which there are far more Usman Khawajas playing at all levels of the game.