By one of the great journalists of our time:
By Vivek Menezes
Yet another political star has risen in Goa’s diaspora, part of one of the most remarkable transnational success stories in the annals of migration. India’s smallest state is an almost insignificant little slice of the Konkan, and its population even more negligible in size, but its grand-daughters and grandsons across the oceans keep on having an outsized impact on the world. Leon Rebello is just 30, and the new “baby of the house” in the equivalent of the Lok Sabha of the Australian parliament, after winning the safe Liberal National Party seat of McPherson in Queensland on the Gold Coast. He will sit across the aisle from another dynamic young Goan political star, the Labor Party’s Zaneta Mascarenhas - herself just 44 - who won landslide re-election from Swan in Western Australia, at the other end of this vast, continent-sized country. In 2022, the only candidate of Indian origin to win out of 26 contests, and the first woman to occupy her seat in 101 years, Mascarenhas made an impressive debut wearing in a red sari in the legislature, where she declared “I am proudly Australian with Goan Indian heritage.”
Compared to India, mainstream political discourse in Australia is mostly conservative across the board. However, Mascarenhas is broadly of the Left, where the Goan/Indian diaspora in “the West” has traditionally felt most comfortable. Rebello, on the other hand, represents the Right. In this regard, he is more akin to the UK Goan diaspora’s Claire Coutinho, the brilliant 39-year-old Conservative Party member of parliament for East Surrey, and top performer of the ill-fated Sunak cabinet. Unavoidably, in this category is also Suella (Fernandes) Braverman, the 45-year-old former Home Secretary who is now in the vanguard of even further right-wing ethnopolitics, which Rebello’s Liberal National Party has also been accused of pursuing. Just last month, Jewish Council of Australia condemned its leader “for picking up neo-Nazi talking points” saying “Dutton has disingenuously tried to position himself as a defender of Jewish Australians, yet his embrace of Trump-style culture war rhetoric tells a different story.”
Via email earlier this week, I asked Rebello directly whether he felt any uncomfortable aspects about being in Dutton’s party. He responded equally directly: “Australia is the most successful multicultural nation in the world. I have always found Australia to be accepting and welcoming of people from all corners of the globe, and I think it sometimes receives an inaccurate and unfair reputation in Indian media. Australia has always embraced my family and given us incredible opportunities, for which we are forever indebted. Throughout my life, I have always strived to be judged on my abilities, as opposed to my race, gender or background. Coming from a Goan background is entirely consistent with my membership of the Liberal National Party. We are the party that believes in the inherent worth and dignity of every human being. And like many Goans, we value reward for effort, freedom of the individual, small business, and family as the key building block of our society. The Liberal National Party should be viewed as the natural home of multicultural Australia.”
Rebello graciously agreed to answer my questions after the veteran Kenyan-Goan-Australian journalist Cyprian Fernandes connected us. In our exchange, he struck me as palpably sincere, in sharing how his family “migrated to Australia around 35 years ago from Goa, and like many migrants, they came in search of opportunities and a better future. Throughout my childhood, my parents made every effort to ensure I [stayed] connected [and] I visited Goa many times over the years and had the opportunity to spend quality time with family and cousins, while being immersed in beautiful Goan culture. I've witnessed first-hand the impeccable work ethic of Goans. From their small business culture, to their labour-intensive practices of meal preparation and manufacturing, Goans are an incredibly hard-working people. Australia provides an egalitarian society that encourages its people, including new migrants, to aspire to be the best they can be. My parents represent the culmination of both this Goan work ethic and Australian aspiration. They gave me a deep appreciation of my cultural heritage, but they are equally proud of the lives they built in Australia, and are the proudest Australians I know.”
It is an admirable feel-good story and Rebello is an excellent advertisement for Australian multiculturalism, as his hometown Gold Coast Bulletin newspaper puts it: “Leon Rebello once poured glasses of water for federal MPs as a part-time job while studying at university. Now, he’s set to not just become an MP but the youngest member of the House of Representatives.” He “fell in love with politics while working as a chamber assistant at federal parliament where he assisted MPs from all parties and worked in the mail room.” Now “he is understood to be the first person to have risen from that position to being elected in his own right.” Rebello was inspired by working with the former foreign minister Julie Bishop, while still studying law at Australian National University: “She had an impeccable work ethic, which we were taught, and that is something I relished. With her, I got to see much of the country and fell in love with Queensland along the way.”
What does all this tell us about Australian meritocracy? To get a long view, I reached out to the distinguished Sydney-based author and academic Roanna Gonsalves, who moved to Australia as an international student in 1998, and whose 2016 The Permanent Resident is an outstanding evocation of migrant life beyond model minority clichés. She said “it’s not surprising that we have people like Zaneta and Leon in Parliament. The reasons are complex. They are hard workers, of course, but they are also both beneficiaries of the significant resources and branding of the two major parties. They tick boxes for the major parties, and the major parties tick boxes for them. That said, representational democracy should not be only about the representation of skin colour, or cultural background, but about the representation of values. We have quite a few politicians from minority backgrounds in Australia, but whether or not their values align with the communities they come from is an entirely different matter. Running for political office can involve glory, but also a lot of sacrifice for candidates and their families. This would be even harder for first and second-generation immigrants who may not have deep roots in this country yet. So, it's commendable that people of Goan backgrounds stand up to represent their electorates, which comprise of all backgrounds, not just Goan. I would hope that such Members of Parliament would remember to further the cause of social equity and justice for all, not just for businesses or for individuals "getting ahead" at any cost.”
With thanks to Oheraldo!
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