Premier Daniel Andrews made a quiet appearance at the temple recently without media in tow. The visit was significant since the government promised $10 million for Indian community projects, including a new community centre in the west
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The Sri Durga Temple in Melbourne’s west, Australia’s largest Hindu temple, has had some high-profile visitors in the past few weeks, reported the age. Premier Daniel Andrews made a quiet appearance at the temple recently without media in tow. The visit was significant since the government promised $10 million for Indian community projects, including a new community centre in the west.
Three weeks earlier, Liberal leader Mathew Guy stood in front of a crowd of thousands at the temple during Dussehra. He promised to seal the temple car park if he won the November 26 election and give an annual $150,000 grant for the festival.
The temple is within the marginal seat of Melton, where both Labour MP Steve McGhie and Liberal candidate Graham Watt have courted the Indian vote.
There have been photo ops at festivals, leafleting outside Indian businesses, the organising of social cricket matches and in-language messaging on their Facebook pages during cultural holidays.
Both Labor and Liberals are keen to get the support of the Indian community for demographic reasons, according to former Labour strategist and political consultant Kos Samaras.
In this seat, which is held by Labour on a 5 per cent margin, voters of Indian heritage could be a determining factor. “Melton can be won by Labour, if there has been enough migration to offset the losses that they experience – but it is their only hope,” said Samaras.
“The federal Liberal party’s decision during the pandemic to ban travel to and from India put them at a disadvantage at the state level, but the opposition could pick up momentum if Labor did not turn around the perception of neglect in Melton before new residents became cynical.”
— Kos Samaras, former Labour strategist and political consultant
The population of the seat has climbed by nearly 20,000 people between 2016 and 2021 to 82,786, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The number of Indian Australians in the seat climbed to well over 8000 in the same period, according to ABS data analysed by RedBridge Group. Incidentally, Punjabi is also the most commonly spoken language other than English in the City of Melton.
In the once-safe Labour seat, support for the party has slipped in the past two elections, even as the state on average, moved further toward Labour. But in 2018, polling booths in areas of the seat popular with Indian Australians performed best for Labour, according to Samaras.
Since Indian Australians overtook Chinese Australians as the biggest non-British migrant group in the country, political parties have been awake to the need to appeal to a group that is, on the whole, well-educated, politically engaged and aspirational, according to Andrew Jakubowicz, an expert on ethnic communities at the University of Technology Sydney. Jakubowicz said the community played a critical role in western Sydney electorates such as Parramatta at the federal election in May.
Samaras said the federal Liberal party’s decision during the pandemic to ban travel to and from India put them at a disadvantage at the state level, but the opposition could pick up momentum if Labor did not turn around the perception of neglect in Melton before new residents became cynical.
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