Australian Election 2025

I emerged from the voting booths at Bondi Surf Lifesaving Club last Saturday clad in red budgie smugglers – a pale imitation of former prime minister Tony Abbott in his political (and physical) prime. Before I could reach the barbecue to tuck into a “democracy sausage”, the only thing which has the universal support of the electorate on polling day, a Reuters journalist approached me for an interview. She was hoping to write a story for her international audience on why Australians are so often seen voting in their bathers, and how the democracy sausage had become both a national dish and a symbol of Australian democracy.

Within hours, the content and footage from my interview had been syndicated internationally and re-published across multiple articles and media outlets, racking up millions of views on the social media accounts of NBC News in the US, Channel News Asia and The Straits Times in Singapore and Asia, and Reuters in the UK and India.

The international interest in how Australians do democracy was both fascinating and humbling to behold. Singaporeans commented that the democracy sausage tradition made “the environment light-hearted and fun”, and that they should make a “Demokrasi Lemak” tradition. Americans asked where one keeps Voter ID in budgie smugglers (we don’t need it to vote!) and remarked on how relaxed and widely trusted the voting process seemed.

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The fascination with how Australia does democracy says something more profound about the state of representative democracy around the world. At a time when news headlines are dominated by examples of democratic backsliding across the United States, Europe, and Asia, Australia’s quirky traditions stand out as hopeful symbols of electoral integrity and a unique political and civic culture.

State and Federal election days are celebrations of what it means to be Australian, and everything good about our society and democracy. The festive atmosphere of the barbecue at polling stations shows that we are an inclusive and socially cohesive society. First generation citizens line up alongside First Nations Australians, as voting lines become a peaceful mix of party colours. Nothing says trust in the political system like being comfortable voting alongside your fellow citizens in your bathers. It makes you proud of the society we’ve built together.

Perhaps our national tendency to modesty – or tall poppy syndrome – prevents us from pride in the integrity of our electoral system.

Aside from the cultural features, Australian democratic innovations have created our peaceful, effective, and trusted electoral system. In this sense, the Australian-made institutional architecture shapes the substance of our democracy. Ours is an important example for a world lacking both trust and pride in democracy. It’s akin to the scenes of voters abroad proudly holding an ink-stained finger to the camera to mark a vote, yet celebrated for having held stable in Australia for more than a century.

Compulsory voting and enrolment drive high levels of turnout and moderate our politics and policies. Preferential voting in the House and the Single Transferable Vote system in the Senate lead to more representative outcomes. Saturday elections ensure that more working people can have a say in the electoral process. The Australian Electoral Commission’s independent, effective, and efficient management of the system means that results are widely trusted, with unsuccessful candidates accepting outcomes in good faith, leading to the peaceful transfer of power. As the Lowy Institute Poll has shown over the past 20 years, Australians increasingly regard “democracy is preferable to any other kind of government”.

Although Australia hasn’t always lived up to its ideals, egalitarianism is deeply embedded in our national character and political inclination to expand the franchise. Following the sustained advocacy of suffragists such as Vida Goldstein, one of Australia’s first acts of nationhood after Federation was the 1902 Commonwealth Franchise Act, which gave (white) women both the right to vote and to stand for parliament. Australia was the first nation in history to enact both rights, leading the world in advancing representative democracy and universal suffrage, even as First Nations Australians were excluded from those rights for decades to come.

Compare our democratic mechanisms and processes with those of United States and its presidential elections. Namely the tradition of Tuesday voting, the history of political gerrymandering and voter disenfranchisement, the recent need for armed guards and increased security at voting booths, the patchwork of different voting systems and electoral laws in every jurisdiction leading to inconsistencies and delays in outcomes, and the widespread mistrust in the electoral system amid weaponised allegations of electoral improprieties. Worst of all, President Donald Trump’s normalisation of election denialism, culminating in the 6 January 2021 attack on the Capitol.

Australians should be proud of the integrity of our electoral system and the values which underpin it, and more willing to influence other nations through our example, just as Goldstein and the suffragists did. Perhaps our national tendency to modesty (or tall poppy syndrome) prevents us from doing so. As a result, we miss out on significant soft-power influence in the region and beyond. The Australian example is a model for the world, at a time when democratic norms are eroding across the United States, Europe, and Asia. The humble democracy sausage and budgie smugglers might be the perfect starting point for a discussion about wider democratic reform. As Jack Karlson said, “this is democracy manifest”. Even if he was a crook.

Looking out

It is conventional wisdom among Australian political commentators to observe, and sometimes regret, that foreign policy doesn’t matter in elections in an island country with a once stable two-party system.

This is despite some critical moments in modern electoral history when this was clearly not the case. The Vietnam War provided a key campaign issue for a Labor renaissance in 1969 and 1972. Refugee management, terrorism and the Iraq war worked in the Liberal-National Party’s increased hold on power in 2001 and 2004.

And then, three years ago, the then Labor Opposition and now Labor government, managed to portray the conservative Morrison government as having “lost” the Pacific to China.

With Labor last weekend winning an unexpectedly large majority over an ill-prepared and, it now appears, ideologically disunited Coalition, foreign affairs was hardly the key factor. It is simply unrealistic to expect an international relations seminar room debate about geopolitics, given that in the heat of an election campaign both sides are tactically reluctant to debate even some key tax policies.

But the world is intruding on Australian voting, whether politicians like it or not, through the prism of the increasing activism and maturing of the country’s diverse immigrant communities.

Courting Chinese communities

While migrant community voters have long been pursued at the local level, especially in the Labor Party, this election perhaps marks the first time one such community – Chinese-Australians – has so obviously been a factor in the thinking of both major parties at the national level.

This was driven by the Liberal Party’s recognition in its post-2022 review that the swing against it in electorates with a substantial population of voters with Chinese heritage was almost double the national average. As a result, opposition leader Peter Dutton over the past three years made a distinctive shift. He transformed from being a China hawk to embracing the local Chinese Australian community and acknowledging China as an important trading partner.

Managing foreign policy towards China with a diverse community of about 1.3 million people of Chinese background now looks like a permanent new performance indicator for an Australian leader.

But during the campaign he and other senior Liberals lurched back towards presenting China as a threat at home and abroad in a bid to challenge Labor’s national security credentials. In return, the weekend vote saw even larger swings against the Coalition in electorates with a significant Chinese community than at the last election. It was just less decisive to the result over than in 2022 because of Labor’s larger majority resulting from broader campaign issues.

Senior sitting Liberals, of non-Chinese heritage but with Chinese language skills, such as Queenslander Ted O’Brien and Victorian Keith Wolahan, suffered swings against them. So did new young Chinese-Australian Liberal candidates in winnable seats with significant Chinese communities in Sydney including Scott Yung and Grange Chung.

As a result, Labor’s more nuanced policy of both competing and cooperating with China has delivered three new MPs of Chinese background to the party’s federal parliamentary caucus for a total of six, in what is probably the biggest ever Asian ethnic background group in an Australian parliament.

Managing foreign policy towards China with a diverse community of about 1.3 million people of Chinese background now looks like a permanent new performance indicator for an Australian leader.

A Muslim melting pot

Despite Labor clearly winning support from the Chinese background community, it is easy to forget that before the election there was often more focus on how it might suffer a loss of support from both Muslim and Jewish voters due to the Gaza conflict.

Labor Senator Fatima Payman left the party over the conflict. Two pro-Palestinian groups, Muslim Votes Matter and The Muslim Vote, sought to mobilise voters in Labor heartland seats in Sydney and Melbourne against the party for not taking a tougher stand against Israel. At the same time the Coalition Opposition seemed to be counting on a possible loss of Labor seats to Muslim independents in a finely balanced parliament and an increase in support from Jewish community voters.

The two independent Muslim candidates running against Labor ministers Tony Burke and Jason Clare in Sydney did win double digit first preference votes, but not enough to really threaten the ministers after preferences. On the other hand, in Melbourne, Labor’s incumbent Jewish MPs Mark Dreyfus and Josh Burns each won swings in their favour.

While the electoral forces at work here are not clear, the Albanese government’s attempt to walk a diplomatic middle path on the Gaza conflict appears to have not cost it support. It is notable that while Labor traditionally has stricter party discipline than the Liberal Party, it has given its highest profile Jewish MP in Burns and its highest profile Muslim MP, Industry Minister Ed Husic, notable room to reflect their community sentiment during the conflict.

Australia possibly has the most diverse 800,000 strong Muslim community in the world, with people hailing from Asia, Africa and Europe as much as the Middle East Muslim heartland. They may well have been more motivated by broader election issues than the Gaza conflict underlined by the creation of Muslim community support networks for Labor MPs.

The Greens vs Gaza

Meanwhile, The Greens made the Gaza conflict a major part of its election campaign, in effect appearing at times to elevate a foreign policy issue above the party’s foundation domestic issue of protecting the environment.

While there are many factors at play in the party’s loss of three out of four Lower House seats, including party leader Adam Bandt. Yet it may come to be seen as a case of a party giving foreign policy too much attention in an election rather than not enough.

Vietnamese showdown

While the battle for support from Chinese background and Muslim communities has been the main foreign policy arena in this election, the competition between two Vietnamese background candidates for the once safe Labor seat of Fowler in western Sydney is also instructive. Former Liberal Party member but now independent Dai Le won in 2022 when the Labor Party tried to insert former NSW premier Kristina Keneally into the seat over local Labor favourite and lawyer Tu Le.

Labor turned back to Tu Le at this election, setting up a rare contest between two people from the same ethnic community. Both women are the children of Vietnamese refugees. Dai Le’s victory probably largely reflects the tendency for independents to retain seats they have won off the major parties. She had the unusual combination of a Liberal background and local government experience in the ethnically diverse electorate. This wasn’t a battle over foreign policy.

But, more importantly, it suggests that while Australia’s migrant communities are generally not well represented in parliaments, that may be changing as second-generation migrant children are more able to appeal to broader communities than their parents.

We’re all Indonesian now

Re-elected Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is set to make his first post-election overseas visit to Indonesia next week, cementing the modern tradition of newly elected prime ministers making their first bilateral visit to that country.

The visit will no doubt be contrasted with Peter Dutton’s pre-election declaration at the Lowy Institute that he would have made his first trip to Washington to meet Donald Trump. But Dutton was less well reported in that same speech for having declared the Indonesia relationship to be “sacrosanct”. He later went on in the campaign to challenge the depth of the Labor government’s relationship with the Indonesian government when it was revealed Russia had sought to base military aircraft in Papua.

Indonesia's President Prabowo releases his chat with Australia's President Elect Albanese. He chats with the Australian leader on speaker phone. Albanese says his first foreign visit will be to Indonesia, to which Prabowo says,'date will be fixed'. pic.twitter.com/dYbt5a2h0D

— Sidhant Sibal (@sidhant) May 5, 2025

While this campaign spot fire ultimately rebounded on Dutton in a tactical sense, it did serve to underline how the foreign policy idea of having a stable and close relationship with Indonesia now seems to be embedded in election campaign conventional wisdom.

Both sides wanted to occupy the moral high ground of being better stewards of the Indonesia relationship. And this was only underlined when the little reported Coalition aid program cuts in the last days of the election campaign also specifically excluded Indonesia and Pacific Islands countries.

How much did Donald Trump sway Australia’s election result?

A lot, if you take the implication from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, in the sense that Australians rejected a conservative opposition seen to carry the whiff of a MAGA worldview.

“We do not need to beg or borrow or copy from anywhere else,” Albanese told cheering supporters in Sydney on Saturday night after Labor was returned with a substantially increased majority.

“Our government will choose the Australian way, because we are proud of who we are and all that we have built together in this country.”

Donald Trump is certainly unpopular among Australians. A special Lowy Poll released during the election campaign showed trust in the United States has crashed to its lowest levels. And for the Coalition in Australia, scenes of a key political lieutenant of Opposition leader Peter Dutton intoning “Make Australia great again” and sporting a MAGA cap was seized on by Labor to suggest this style of politics was heading down under.

Trump accelerated global uncertainty, but international unease didn’t begin with his second inauguration in January.

Dutton himself stumbled by arguing that he could have struck a deal with Trump to spare Australia from the President’s punitive tariff regime. True, the Coalition had won an exemption in Trump’s first term. But given that no country was spared this time, Dutton opened himself up to questions about what more he would have surrendered, amid US complaints about Australian quarantine laws and pharmaceutical policy. His focus extended to so-called “culture wars” issues, such as Indigenous ceremonial acknowledgements or the quality of the history taught in the school curriculum. This prompted a devastating quip from commentator Nikki Sava, that three leaders ran in this election, “and only one of them was definitely not Trump”.

However, branding Dutton “Trump-like” carries a risk for the government, now that the next step for Albanese is to work with the US President. Historian James Curran picked up on this point in the campaign, arguing Trump could be furious that “the Prime Minister speaks two languages on America”. In one, Albanese is committed to the US alliance; in the other, he presents himself as the antidote to Trumpian politics in Australia. Trump likes winners, so I doubt the President will much care. It will nevertheless make for an awkward first face-to-face encounter.

When explaining a remarkable result from what is generally seen as an unremarkable campaign, the Trump comparison, while politically effective, may oversimplify a more complex electoral story. Unlike the experience in Canada, where Trump’s annexation threats dominated the campaign, Trump isn’t threatening to make Australia part of the Untied States.

Instead, Dutton was long known as a hard man of local politics. He never really shook that reputation. Trump accelerated global uncertainty, but international unease didn’t begin with his second inauguration in January. Labor had to cope across its first term with the economic aftermath of the pandemic via spiralling inflation and spiking interest rates at home. Ukraine and Gaza dominated headlines. The government’s caution, which the public seemed willing to punish in the months leading up to the election, was judged to be what Australians favoured after all.

The challenge now is to separate campaign rhetoric from diplomatic necessity.

By the time the 2022 Australian election rolled around, the common wisdom was that then prime minister Scott Morrison had “stuffed up” Australia’s relationships with the Pacific Islands. Anthony Albanese pledged that a Labor government would “shore up” Australia’s position in the Pacific. In the days and weeks after the election, new Foreign Minister Penny Wong made repeated trips to the Pacific, promising the island nations that she was there to "listen”.

During this 2025 election season, Pacific issues have been well outside the spotlight in key debates. But Pacific Islands are still closely following the campaign, as they see a stake in Australian elections. Few will be as brazen as Papua New Guinea’s Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko in saying he would personally like to see Labor win, but that doesn’t mean they won’t have opinions.

Most obviously, there are differences in Opposition leader Peter Dutton and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s approaches to climate change. When Albanese became prime minister, Pacific leaders expressed optimism that he would push Australia’s approach to climate change in a more progressive direction. However, after his three years in government, Pacific climate advocates and leaders alike have expressed disappointment in the seeming stagnation in Australia’s climate policy. The approval of new coal and gas projects particularly rankles.

Yet the possibility of climate action with a second Albanese term still appears more promising than the prospects under a Dutton-led government. This is most evident in the Australian joint-bid with Pacific Islands to host the United Nations climate negotiations known as COP31, which Dutton has described as “madness” and said he would cancel if elected. This follows Dutton’s opposition to the 2023 Voice referendum, which proposed a new consultative body for First Nations Australians that prominent Pacific Islanders supported. Dutton has also pledged to do away with Labor’s focus on First Nations foreign policy, despite arguments that Indigenous rights are important to diplomacy in the region.

Dutton’s nuclear energy drive also cuts across Pacific attitudes. Dutton’s preferred path to mitigating carbon emissions is to build nuclear power plants, yet after the human and environmental toll of nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific, the region has staunchly rejected nuclear options in the Pacific.

Yet the nuclear question doesn’t only bedevil the Coalition. Labor is likewise committed to obtaining a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines under the AUKUS pact with the United States and United Kingdom. AUKUS has barely featured in the election campaign, perhaps with neither of the major parties seeing an advantage in the issue, as the Lowy Poll has reflected a decline in trust for the United States under President Donald Trump. But the nuclear boats would be little appreciated in the Pacific.

More important to the security of the Pacific is aid and development. With USAID disbanded and funding mostly ceased, and the United Kingdom also cutting programs, the Pacific Islands will search for greater access to development funding.

It is clear that the Pacific Islands want to be listened to by Australia.

Australia remains the largest donor to the region. This should continue under the next government, given the common perspective in Canberra that the Pacific is an important and increasingly strategic neighbourhood. Indeed, the Coalition this week pledged to increase the loan total for the Australian Infrastructure Fin­ancing Facility for the Pacific from $3 billion to $5 billion. Yet, as analysts have earlier noted, the Coalition made significant changes to aid delivery in 2013 without this being much debated prior to the election. The numbers will be closely watched.

Trade and migration questions also loom. With the introduction of Donald Trump’s tariffs, although since paused, Fiji received one of the highest rates internationally, 32 per cent, and even those Pacific nations in compacts of association with the United States were targeted. This will make access to Australian markets of even greater interest. With migration, and the eventual introduction of an Australian Pacific Engagement Visa, along with the more limited pathway for Tuvalu under the Falepili Union, the region will be looking for these programs to continue if not expand.

It is clear that the Pacific Islands want to be listened to by Australia. Dutton carries baggage from his role as a prominent minister in the previous government as well as his dismissive comments about “water lapping at your door” in rising sea levels, for which he has since apologised. Yet for all Labor’s rhetoric of regional engagement, commentators have expressed doubt that effective listening has occurred.

To be the “partner of choice”, the Pacific will judge the next Australian government on its genuine action to combat climate change, a generous attitude to aid and development, work to improve migration and trade pathways, and its ability to gain regional respect.

Since disturbing reports about a Russian bid to base aircraft in Indonesia broke last week, both sides of Australian politics have continued to exploit the issue to their advantage as the election campaign rolls on. For the opposition Coalition, the incident demonstrated the Labor government’s lack of transparency and weak national security credentials; for Labor, the hyping of the incident underscored the Coalition’s recklessness and inexperience in managing foreign relations. 

But this heated pre-election political debate has left Australians none the wiser about the nature of Russia’s strategic interests, Indonesia’s foreign policy, and Australia’s relationship with Jakarta.

First, Russia’s interest in increasing its defence presence in Southeast Asia is clear. While Moscow is, overall, a declining power in Asia, with limited economic and political relevance to the region, its isolated international position drives it to seek niche forms of cooperation. Over the last six months alone, Russia and Indonesia held a first navy exercise, and a Russian submarine made a port call in Malaysia. Some experts dismiss these activities as a superficial form of geopolitical advertising. Naval assets aren’t required for the war effort in Ukraine, so sending them to Asia sends a message that Russia remains a great power, without much cost.

Russia’s decision to send Sergei Shoigu, a close ally of Vladimir Putin, to Indonesia and Malaysia in February, where he was received at the highest levels, suggests there may be more substance behind Moscow’s intentions. Increasing defence sales to the region is doubtless one objective. But obtaining privileged military access would also serve Russia’s interest, allowing it to collect intelligence on the United States and its allies and giving it leverage to disrupt politics in Asia. In the words of Ian Storey, one of the closest observers of Russia’s activities in Southeast Asia, Russia’s interest in basing in Indonesia was “at least somewhat plausible”.

While Russia’s interest in Southeast Asia is unsurprising, many analysts have already pointed out that Indonesia’s traditional foreign policy approach, emphasising sovereignty and non-alignment, makes agreement to any kind of basing arrangement almost impossible. Just as a firm non-alignment stance, and prickly sensitivities about sovereignty can sometimes make defence ties with Australia slow and frustrating, these same mindsets are a fillip when it comes to slowing down Jakarta’s cooperation with malign actors including China and Russia. Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto is fond of quoting a proverb: “A thousand friends is too few, one enemy is too many.” This philosophy militates against sharp moves that would alarm Jakarta’s neighbours, including Singapore and Australia.

So what can – or should – an Australian government be doing to prevent the unpalatable prospect of closer Russia-Indonesia defence ties? Australians should not kid themselves about Canberra’s ability to influence Jakarta. Indonesia is a sovereign country of more than 280 million people, and may become the fifth largest economy in the world by the end of this decade. It has newly become a member of the BRICS and rightly seeks a greater global role in line with its growing weight. In the Pacific Islands region, Australia seeks “strategic denial” – in other words, to prevent a hostile power from obtaining any security foothold. Even in the Pacific, this is a daily struggle. Aspiring to exert the same influence in maritime Southeast Asia is delusional.

Relations have been so stable that Australia may have grown complacent.

This means that the only policy lever available to Australia when it comes to influencing Indonesian foreign policy is … the bilateral relationship with Indonesia. And contrary to the claims of some over-heated commentary, Australia’s relations with Indonesia are in pretty good shape. Compared to past ups and downs – with disputes about the death penalty, live cattle exports, people smuggling and spying turning the relationship into a rollercoaster ride – ties with Indonesia have been stable in recent years, and new dialogue mechanisms exist which provide the two partners with opportunities to exchange perspectives on strategic issues.

In fact, relations have been so stable that Australia may have grown complacent. Both Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition leader Peter Dutton have said they value the Indonesia relationship. But in different ways, each has missed opportunities to invest. Albanese skipped Prabowo’s inauguration last October, breaking with a long-running tradition that Australian prime ministers since John Howard have attended. He hasn’t visited since, either. Likewise, Dutton’s statement that he would make his first bilateral overseas visit to Washington, rather than Jakarta, suggests he judged that – compared with the urgency of engaging the Trump administration – Indonesia could wait. Both political judgements are particularly inopportune, as Prabowo is a more active, but less predictable foreign policy leader than his predecessor. Prabowo also appears to delegate little power to his foreign or defence ministers, and the foreign ministry has been sidelined, making leader-level contact even more important.

Closer defence ties between Russia and Indonesia are an unpalatable prospect for Australia, especially in view of the new and unprecedented level of cooperation between Moscow and Beijing. But ultimately Australia’s diplomatic relationship with Indonesia is the only tool at its disposal to mitigate against the risk of further strategic surprise. Canberra should urge Indonesia to consult its neighbours and consider the impact of a Russian presence in the archipelago on broader regional dynamics. And it will doubtless be prepared to respond to the obvious rejoinders: that Australia itself hosts foreign forces from the United States on an ongoing rotational basis and that the United States and Australia seek greater rights to access, basing and overflight elsewhere in the Indo-Pacific.

If, like me, you’ve had the (mis)fortune of attending a few too many dinner parties in Sydney, then you’d be well-acquainted with Australians’ preoccupation with home ownership.

Older Australians are obsessed with accumulating investments. Younger Australians, meanwhile, are fixated on simply entering the property market in the first place.

It’s a profound source of intergenerational inequality in Australia – one that successive governments have found too politically inconvenient to address meaningfully. But one dimension of the problem remains under-examined: what it means for Australia’s influence in the world.

Writing in The Interpreter last month, Grant Wyeth discussed the rental side of the ledger for how the housing crisis affects Australia’s international standing. But when the “Australian dream” of every family owning their own home becomes increasingly difficult to realise, this also has international implications.

An old rentier class pitted against a frustrated youth demographic holds very little discursive power to attract migration or boost Australia’s credentials as an enviable economic model.

The data is striking. Measured in terms of multiples of median household income needed to buy a median-priced house, three of Australia’s capital cities – Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide – are in the top ten least affordable cities globally. Brisbane and Perth are in top 20.

Paul Schroder, CEO of AustralianSuper – the nation’s largest retirement savings fund – diagnosed the economic and social consequences of Australia’s housing affordability problem speaking at last month’s AFR Business Summit. It’s worth quoting him at length:

“If you can’t find safe and secure housing, you cannot be optimistic, positive and energetic.

“In the [US], the total housing is $US50 trillion ($81 trillion) against an economy of $US29 trillion. In Australia, because we have ploughed so much into our houses ... it is worth $11 trillion versus GDP of $3 trillion.

“We have poured all this money into houses – all very well and terrific, we’ve painted the front fence and sold it on – which has deprived the economy of heaps and heaps of productive capital. We have all this money in our domestic houses, and we’re not backing businesses.

“We are not creating new things, and we are not driving productivity.”

This is a stark warning, only made more ominous by the fact it comes from such a senior figure in Australia’s financial establishment.

There’s also a lot to unpack from Schroder’s words about Australia’s place in the world.

The first point is about Australian identity. Much that makes Australia attractive and influential centres on the country’s high quality of life, its relatively low inequality, and a belief in the “fair go” – a ubiquitous aphorism implying that simply by working hard and following the rules, then a high degree of financial security is accessible to everyone, regardless of their background.

The way Australia has long defined this trajectory of financial security and familial success has been through the attainment of home ownership and, more recently, through the further accumulation of investment properties.

But as home ownership becomes increasingly inaccessible to young people and those without a wealthy family, a dissonance has festered between the national promise and expectation of home ownership and the reality of intergenerational inequality and near-permanent renter status for even middle-class Australians.

Unless fixed, this means that the stories Australians tell themselves and, by extension, the rest of the world about their country will increasingly ring hollow. An alternate narrative – an old rentier class pitted against a frustrated youth demographic – holds very little discursive power to attract migration or boost Australia’s credentials as an enviable economic model.

There are also more tangible financial implications for Australia’s international influence stemming from the housing crisis.

As Schroder indicates, property has become the default investment because it has been highly profitable and low risk for so long. Any government intent to restrain property prices has suffered ruthless political pushback.

Concentrating capital in property creates an opportunity cost for other more productive but riskier investments. Every dollar put into a Sydney property portfolio could otherwise be put into a new small business, invested into an Australian unicorn that expands overseas, or sent to foreign shores to support regional growth. In short, Australia’s massive pools of capital are being disproportionately invested in fixed assets that produce marginal value to the broader economy and do nothing to support the country’s international influence. This is at odds with the push for greater Australian investment in the Indo-Pacific as an element of economic statecraft.

The centrality of home ownership to Australians’ sense of self but, at the same time, its increasing inaccessibility also imposes a significant individual burden, especially on young people.

To afford a house and then service an inflated mortgage, Australians are less likely to take risks – whether moving jobs, starting their own business, moving abroad, or investing overseas. Instead, home ownership becomes a professional prison demanding the certainty and stability of stable, one-track careers. Again, this diminishes Australia’s innovativeness and productivity.

The cognitive opportunity cost is important too. As Schroder says, “If you can’t find safe and secure housing, you cannot be optimistic, positive and energetic.” When climbing the property ladder is so important but also so difficult, then people are more interested in their back fence than international horizons.

There’s little space to be ambitious about your country and its international standing when buying a house or affording the mortgage consumes much of your waking thought, even from a young age.

So, what’s the fix? The policy steps are actually very clear. But a new angle on the problem – encompassing the international implications of the housing crisis – could be a tipping point that galvanises all Australians to push their government to act.

As Australians head to the polls on 3 May, the stakes for foreign policy in the Indo-Pacific are quietly profound. From where I sit in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, the debate in Australia around national security, alliances, and regional engagement is being watched with interest – and, at times, concern.

Much has been made of the current government’s concept of strategic equilibrium – a worldview that seeks to maintain a region where “no country dominates and no country is dominated,” as Foreign Minister Penny Wong described it. This vision resonates deeply with many across Southeast Asia. It signals that Australia understands its place not as an external power, but as an integral part of the regional community. It suggests a sober, measured approach to foreign policy, especially in a time of rising nationalist sentiment and populist rhetoric globally.

Regardless of whether the next government is led by Labor or the Coalition, it is imperative that this spirit of balance endures, by whatever name it may take. Australia does not exist in a vacuum. It is bound, historically and strategically, to the fates and futures of the countries around it. To engage the region not only as an economic partner but as a political and security community is not just wise. It is essential. Australia's choices reverberate far beyond its borders. The region pays attention to not only what Canberra says, but what it does.

The world is entering a period of greater uncertainty, and the Indo-Pacific is its geopolitical epicentre.

Of course, this is easier said than done. Strategic equilibrium demands nuance: it means preserving the alliance with the United States while maintaining credible, independent relationships with key partners in Southeast Asia. It means standing up for democratic values and a rules-based order, without becoming a proxy in great-power rivalry. And it requires Australia to act in a way that reflects regional realities, not domestic political theatrics or ideological swings.

There is a concern in this region that a future government could lean too far into the orbit of an increasingly unilateral Washington, especially under the renewed leadership of Donald Trump. Calls for tighter alignment with the United States may resonate at home, but they could also be seen as undercutting Australia’s autonomy and credibility in the region. A foreign policy that punches above its weight might play well in campaign slogans, but it does not always build trust with neighbours. In Southeast Asia, countries value consistency, consultation, and quiet strength, traits that define strategic maturity, not strategic volume.

From Jakarta’s point of view, a responsible Australia is one that listens, consults, and invests in its regional relationships, not only through defence and diplomacy, but also through education, people-to-people connections, and economic partnerships. Initiatives like the original Colombo Plan or the New Colombo Plan have gone a long way in building this kind of strategic empathy. That spirit should continue, regardless of who wins in May.

The world is entering a period of greater uncertainty, and the Indo-Pacific is its geopolitical epicentre. For Australia, now more than ever, the choice is not simply between the United States and China, but between a reactive, short-term posture and a long-term, balanced strategy. Strategic equilibrium, however framed, should be more than a slogan. It should be the guiding principle for how Australia shows up in the region it calls home.

The Albanese government has hung its hat on improving ties with Australia’s two near regions, the Pacific and Southeast Asia. And while there is clearly a hierarchy of effort, with the Pacific rightly allocated greater resources, Southeast Asia has been a focus for Foreign Minister Penny Wong. She has travelled extensively to Southeast Asian countries (except Myanmar) and driven a major new initiative – the Southeast Asia Economic Strategy – aimed at boosting Australian investment in the region.

So, would these efforts be sustained, either under a second Labor term, or a Coalition government?

Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s recent Lowy Institute speech on foreign policy gives a few clues. In a political address, focused on identifying areas of Labor weakness, Dutton did not identify Southeast Asia as an area of contention. While relations with the Pacific have been politicised in Australia since China’s security deal with Solomon Islands in 2022, with each side seeking to position itself as the better guardian of Australia’s security interests in the region, relations with Southeast Asia have not been caught in the whirlwinds of partisan competition. This suggests some degree of continuity.

Whichever party is elected, there are four issues to watch in Australia’s relationships with Southeast Asia.

First is the basic question of attentiveness and focus. Government-to-government cooperation will continue whichever party is elected. But political-level attention is required to keep Australia on the radar and back up the message that it is a reliable partner for the region. On this score, Dutton’s failure in his Lowy Institute speech to mention Southeast Asia suggests that these relationships would not animate his government’s foreign policy to the extent they have under Labor. Revealingly, Dutton did suggest he would make his first overseas visit to the United States, despite the longstanding tradition of new Australian prime ministers to make Jakarta their first bilateral port of call. But it’s worth pointing out that Albanese, too, broke with a similar convention by failing to attend Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s inauguration in October last year.

Depending on how relations with the United States and China evolve, Australia could find in future that its defence and foreign policies are not well received in the region.

Second is the future of the economic strategy, the signature initiative of the Albanese government. Viewed positively, the strategy takes a long-term view (its full title is “Invested: Australia’s Southeast Asia Economic Strategy to 2040”) and throws real resources at a sticky problem of weak Australian investment and business engagement in Southeast Asia. Southeast Asian officials have good awareness of the strategy, and don’t doubt the Albanese government’s sincerity. Yet, while the strategy has drawn attention to the problem, the jury is still out on whether it will change business behaviour. Labor would certainly retain the approach, but it is unclear whether a Coalition government would be equally sold on the benefits.

Third, Australia’s ties with the region are affected by the broader direction of Australian strategic policy. Australia’s participation in minilateral arrangements such as the Quad or its defence technology partnership under AUKUS haven’t been a barrier to improved bilateral ties, almost across the board. But, depending on how relations with the United States and China evolve, Australia could find in future that its defence and foreign policies are not well received in the region, perhaps except in the Philippines. This sense of strategic divergence could limit enthusiasm from both sides, as it did under the Morrison government post-AUKUS announcement.

The last area is Middle East policy. Reputable regional surveys show huge damage to US standing in Muslim majority Southeast Asian countries due to Washington’s support for Israel’s war on Hamas since 7 October 2023. The middle ground position that the Albanese government has tried to stake out has helped insulate Australia’s regional relationships from the politics of the Middle East. Regional relationships will remain a secondary consideration in determining Australia’s Middle East policy settings. Still, it shouldn’t be forgotten that Indonesia and Malaysia reacted negatively to the Morrison government’s announcement, following a decision by the first Trump administration to relocate the US embassy, that Australia would recognise “West Jerusalem” as Israel’s capital.

Ultimately, a Coalition government, if elected, might not share Labor’s zeal for Southeast Asia. But at a time of great uncertainty about Australia’s outlook, it’s likely that it too would ultimately come to prioritise the one constant: Australia’s immediate geographic neighbourhood.

Governments worldwide are scrambling to make sense of a volatile new world where the only certainty is uncertainty. And Australia is no exception. Last week’s federal budget brought forward defence spending while reprioritising development funding in response to recent USAID cuts. The release of the unclassified 2024 Independent Intelligence Review the week before also underscored the scale of the challenges ahead, with more than $44 million allocated to updating Australia’s intelligence community.

Yet for all these announcements, a fairly crucial element remains missing: a broader strategy to actually navigate this shifting world order. Granted, last month the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade released the Australia in the World – 2025 Snapshot, acknowledging the unprecedented changes in the world and providing an overview of Australia’s existing diplomatic and international engagement efforts. However, it fell short of outlining a strategic vision.

Australia’s last foreign policy white paper was in 2017 during Donald Trump’s first administration – the equivalent of four decades ago in foreign policy years. Australia’s since gone from friend to enemy to frenemy with China and the experience of economic coercion, launched AUKUS, and now faces the need to reassess its relationship with America. Meanwhile, the global order isn’t just transforming but is being rewritten. There’s a return to great power politics where might makes right. Strategic competition is intensifying, international institutions are cracking. The world no longer divides neatly into allies and adversaries. Despite sovereignty being the word of the hour, hybrid war and foreign interference are on the rise. Meanwhile, the world faces global catastrophic risks from emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and the urgent existential threat of climate change.

Against this backdrop, Australia’s relative power is diminishing. The dynamics of the global order are no longer in Australia’s favour. Many of the core assumptions that once underpinned Australia’s foreign policy no longer hold true. It’s going to become harder to protect and uphold Australia’s interests in the years ahead.

Australia needs a new foreign policy framework. As Australia hurtles towards a federal election, the next government – Labor or Coalition – must commit to commissioning a new Foreign Policy White Paper.

Beyond strategy, white papers also serve an unsexy but important bureaucratic function. They provide the all-important policy authority that government functions on.

White papers are major undertakings and are – quite legitimately – often criticised as costly, slow and outdated by the time they’re published. It could be argued that policymakers should already be thinking strategically, internal classified assessments already inform government decision-making, and the rapid pace of global change makes long-term planning challenging. Yet the world has clearly changed in ways that demand Australia take stock and consider how it may continue to change in the years ahead.

A white paper provides the opportunity to think about Australia’s strategy from first principles. Strategy is not something Australia does well. There are fundamental differences between international engagement, the art of diplomacy, foreign policy, and strategy – yet Australia too often conflates them, or leaves it to Defence.

A white paper would also offer a crucial opportunity to think about how Australia navigates the world. In an increasingly contested and transactional ecosystem, where Australia wields less influence and struggles to protect its interests, how can Australia be more strategic, creative, and agile? How and where can it build influence? Where does Australia have – or can it create – leverage? The very volatility of the international environment presents opportunities – if Australia is prepared to seize them. Australia must also become far more sophisticated in how it frames its interests and positions, and competes in the global battle of ideas – whether with regional partners, global institutions, or even domestic audiences. Why does Australia matter, and why should others want to work with us?

Not doing this strategic thinking and planning will lead to miscalculations in foreign and security policy, missed opportunities, and diminished diplomatic leverage in the future – none of which Australia can afford.

Beyond strategy, white papers also serve an unsexy but important bureaucratic function. They provide the all-important policy authority that government functions on. A white paper – endorsed by Cabinet – would set overarching policy and enable updates to existing frameworks, remits, and institutional structures. It would also provide coherence between Australia’s defence strategy and the proliferation of other international engagement documents. Governments often talk about using all elements of national power to advance Australia’s interests – a white paper provides the mechanism to deliver on that.

It’s also an opportunity to ensure Australia’s foreign policy architecture is fit for purpose. Australia’s foreign policy and diplomatic structures were built for a world that no longer exists. DFAT is underfunded, understaffed and constrained by outdated arrangements. Are funding levels aligned with strategic realities? Does the internal culture truly value outside-the-box thinking? A white paper could take stock of these shortcomings and provide the policy levers for necessary reforms. This is no easy task. Australia cannot control global events but it can – and must – control how it prepares for them by ensuring its institutions and processes are fit and ready for the challenges ahead.

The next government – Labor or Coalition – will inherit a world more unstable than at any point in Australia’s modern history. The question is not whether we need a new foreign policy white paper – it’s why we haven’t already started drafting one.

Australia’s election campaign formally kicked off today, with a vote to be held on 3 May. Labor, under Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, presently holds a narrow majority in parliament, with Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s Liberal-Nationals Coalition aiming to make it the first government since the 1930s to lose after a single term. But a swathe of independents could also push Australia towards the unusual, although not unprecedented, position of minority rule.

A tense international scene forms the backdrop to this campaign. US President Donald Trump’s tariffs will be one debating point, especially if Australia’s pharmaceutical benefits scheme is targeted. But I wouldn’t expect anything as extraordinary as Canada’s overnight declaration from new Prime Minister Mark Carney, also in the midst of an election campaign, that “the relationship Canada had with the United States … is over.”

Foreign diplomats in Canberra will be scrambling over the coming five weeks to chart the contours of the campaign and report to their home countries. While they don’t get a vote, they will have preferences about which party they prefer to govern Australia.

So, let’s start with the United States. The White House is unlikely to offer any signal as clear as the time George W Bush effectively endorsed conservative PM John Howard over Labor’s Mark Latham. Trump has shown a penchant for flattering Australia’s leaders. He called Albanese a “fine man” in February. But Trump also once described his “fantastic relationship” with former Coalition prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, a “tough negotiator”, only to now belittle him as “a weak and ineffective leader”. Scott Morrison still has Trump’s ear after his time as PM, but with Trump, who can really say? He likes winners.

Then prime minister John Howard’s triumph in 2003 of having a US president and China’s president address parliament on consecutive days now seems a quaint memory.

Trump might make up his mind based on a country’s trade deficit or surplus with the United States, or pledges made about defence spending, even as the target moves ever upwards. It could be that Elon Musk has influence over the presidential preference, having picked a fight in Australia before. With both sides of politics rhetorically welded to the US alliance, as well as the AUKUS nuclear-powered subs deal, this might be an election that Trump feels he wins no matter the outcome.

Japan is carefully neutral and works with either side, but would probably prefer a Coalition win. Japan’s former ambassador to Australia has made plain his annoyance at Labor’s policies. Shingo Yamagami last year described Albanese as “weak and meek” on China, and while this can be dismissed as the disgruntled complaint of an individual, especially given Foreign Minister Penny Wong evidently thought Yamagami a troublemaker, Japan had wider gripes with Labor. It was highly critical of the Albanese government’s energy policy, and there is a sense Japan has never forgiven Labor, way back under Kevin Rudd in 2008, for having visited Beijing ahead of Tokyo.

China? With the relationship “stabilisation” mantra under Albanese, it would be easy to assume Beijing would prefer more of the same. Dutton has promised “the relationship with China will be much stronger than it is under the Albanese government.” Stronger is one of those words open to interpretation. Dutton has a more hawkish reputation, having said in his earlier job as defence minister it was “inconceivable” that Australia would not join the United States in war over Taiwan.

But China must also know that despite gushing about Albanese as a “handsome boy”, both sides of politics in Australia are suspicious about Beijing’s intentions. Then prime minister John Howard’s triumph in 2003, of having a US president and China’s president address parliament on consecutive days, now seems a quaint memory. And why else dispatch a “show of force” flotilla of warships to circle Australia in the weeks before the election if not as a warning to both sides of politics.

Pragmatism rules and any foreign country will work with the government of the day.

Israel clearly favours the approach set out by the Coalition on the conflict in Gaza, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu having lambasted “the extreme anti-Israeli position of the Labor government in Australia” and described its voting record in the United Nations as “scandalous”. A return to the Coalition’s recognition of “West Jerusalem” as Israel’s capital (although Israel wasn’t entirely satisfied when this policy was first floated in 2018) would be welcomed.

India has been more inclined to the Coalition, at least under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Albanese might have ridden a chariot at the cricket and lavished praise on Modi as “the boss”, but India was suspicious of Labor’s return to office in 2022, still wrongly blaming Rudd for abandoning the first iteration of the Quad, and with memories of Labor’s decision, later reversed, to ban yellowcake uranium sales to India.

True, Labor has made significant efforts across this term to build ties. The recently revealed “nest of spies” allegations against India in Australia dated to the time under a Coalition government, and Modi’s complaints while standing alongside Albanese about local vandalism directed at Hindu temples seemed as much about Indian domestic politics as issues here. But ideologically, Modi’s India would prefer the message of former Coalition prime minister Tony Abbott, that “the answer to almost every question about China is India”.

Indonesia appears typically more comfortable with Labor’s historical emphasis on ties with Asia. The confrontation over asylum seeker boats was at its sharpest under the Coalition. Indonesian elites are said to harbour lingering resentment about Australia’s role in Timor-Leste’s independence, which also occurred under Coalition rule. Albanese skipping Prabowo Subianto’s inauguration in October last year might have been short-sighted, but is less likely to be remembered than Dutton’s announcement last week that, should he win, he won’t visit Asia on his first overseas trip as prime minister. Dutton’s preference for Washington is bound to revive the motif of Australia as America’s “deputy sheriff” in Southeast Asia.

Long memories also leave Dutton floundering with the preferences of Pacific nations. It was ten years ago that Dutton was caught on a hot mic, joking about rising seas leaving “water lapping at your door”. Yet such moments do tend to shape stubbornly held views, as Morrison also found with the Pacific after his stunt of burnishing a lump of coal in the Australian parliament. Labor’s climate change credentials might still be questioned in the region, but they are better regarded than those of the Coalition.

Pragmatism rules and any foreign country will work with the government of the day. Overt – or covert – interference in Australia’s campaign from abroad is just as likely to backfire. But that doesn’t mean countries won’t be quietly barracking.