Jacinta Price is wrong to think all Indian voters like me back Labor – but they probably will now

1 week ago 3

Opinion

September 8, 2025 — 7.00pm

As my name indicates, I am of Indian heritage. Now 83 years old, I arrived in Australia more than five decades ago. Whenever I meet newly arrived Indians, they often ask me about racism in Australia when I arrived.

My answer has always been, “I never experienced any racism 55 or so years ago, but in recent years I have had my share of unfortunate encounters at a personal level.”

Surendra Verma with friends of more than 50 years.

When I arrived here, institutional racism was in full force: the White Australia policy did not end until 1975. In those happy days, you could walk into the Australian embassy in New Delhi and enquire about your application. I noticed that my file was clearly marked “non-European”.

But still, I was here, a non-European, as they were the dying days of this abominable policy. Yet, no neo-Nazis were shouting to keep Australia white. There were no crowds of anti-migration Australians marching in the streets.

Of course, there were wog or curry jokes, but they were not laced with hatred, only humour. In fact, I never experienced any cultural racism, and most of my best friends are true-blue Aussies.

My first encounter with personal racism didn’t come until 15 years after I had arrived. It was in my new office. Someone remarked, “Go home.” I just dismissed it simply as a case of implicit bias: an unconscious attitude that affects one’s understanding of others without awareness. I saw no point in making it an issue.

Going back to the question newly arrived Indians have often asked me over the years, when I arrived in Australia, there were hardly any Indians here and most of them were professionals. In fact, Indians were highly admired migrants at the time.

If Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price were there, she would be singing the praises of Indians, not passing disparaging remarks suggesting Labor was bringing in large numbers of Indians because they would vote for Labor, as she did last week.

What has changed in Australia since I arrived? The first wave of Indian migrants was in the 1980s, and most were IT and other professionals. In the late 1990s, the Howard government’s policy to issue visas to TAFE students led to a dramatic rise in Indians in Australia. I know so many young people from India who came here on the pretext of studying cookery or hairdressing (and none of them are now cooks or hairdressers) and became permanent residents.

It’s a bitter truth, but this influx of migrants from India has not done any favours to the image of the Indian community in many Australians’ minds.

Now, Indians are a fast-growing migrant community here. Except for a rare few, this is a law-abiding community, passive, non-violent – and friendly.

I’m surprised at the Indian community’s widespread condemnation of Senator Price’s claims about the Labor government favouring migration of Indians. I would take it as a comment from someone who is trying to score a political point or two, but has no appreciation of the Indian community in Australia. At the same time, I’m amazed at Price’s ignorance of how Indian-Australians vote. India is one of the most multicultural countries in the world. Lumping Indians as one, coherent group is plain stupidity. Besides, it takes five years to become a citizen and then be eligible to vote in an election.

Even if the Labor government’s immigration policy is prioritising Indians (at least in the imagination of Senator Price), these Indians won’t necessarily be voting for a (failed or successful) Labor government. They may be voting for you, Senator Price, if you are still a Liberal candidate and have learned to respect all Australians.

Surendra Verma is a science writer and author based in Melbourne since 1970.

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