Why Not Me ? Young Chinese Australians taking part in the political game [ AI Ad : ( English / Chinese - ish )]

sbs.com.au · Feb 27, 2026 · Collected from GDELT

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How do you run a campaign as a young Chinese Australian with no political background? Can you convince people - especially those from your very own community - to vote for you? Does our Chinese-Australian identity help us to survive in the political game?My mom was like, 'What are you saying? You want to run for local government? I think you better not.' But my husband was very supportive. He was like, ‘look, the opportunity doesn't arise every day. This is a great opportunity, and you might not even get it. Just run for the experience.Michelle ChuangChinese-ish is a series about what it is like to be young and Chinese in today’s Australia, hosted by and for young Chinese Australians. Credits:Host: Wing Kuang and Bertin HuynhProducer: Dennis FangArt: Joanna HuSBS Team: Joel Supple and Max GosfordFollow Chinese-ish on your favourite podcast platform, or download the SBS audio app.TranscriptWing Kuang This podcast was recorded on the land of the Camaraygal people and Wurrendjeri people. We'd like to pay our respects to Elders past and present, and recognise their continuous connection to Country. Welcome to Chinese-ish, an SBS podcast about what it's like to be young and Chinese in Australia today. My name is Wing, and I'm a former Chinese international student.Bertin Huynh And I'm Bertin. I'm a second-generation Vietnamese Chinese Australian. Wing, if one day you're not going to be a journalist, what job are you going to do?Wing Kuang I did a story about the by-election of Epping in the New South Wales State election. And that was the first time I realised it's actually very easy to run for a state election, so probably I may go to politics.Bertin Huynh Oh, really. Please explain.Wing Kuang Firstly, you need to register, declaring if you get a political donation, etc, you also need to be nominated. So you will need at least 25 people who are eligible to vote for you to nominate you. Once the Electoral Commission confirms your candidacy, you are basically in the game.Bertin Huynh It's not ever something I've ever thought about doing, nor have my parents ever encouraged it. And to be honest, not many of my friends even talk about politics.Wing Kuang Exactly, and that's why today, we have two special guests to talk about their experience of running for the local government election last year. We know the council election is the lowest level of elections in Australia, so let's start from the basic and understand how the system works.Bertin Huynh Hopefully, this episode could inspire one of our listeners to run for Australia's Prime Minister in the future, maybe the first Chinese-Australian Prime Minister. Joining us is Michelle Chuang, who is a senior manager at a medical centre in Sydney, but also a newly elected councilor at the Willoughby Council.Michelle Chuang Hi everyone.Wing Kuang And we also have Solomon Lin, a civil engineer and digital educator who ran for the Monash Council in Melbourne last year.Solomon Lin Hello, everyone.Bertin Huynh Both of you, Solomon and Michelle, by the time you are running for politics, you are in stable jobs, and probably jobs that a lot of parent generation would consider good jobs and good salaries in industries that are quite respectable. What made you suddenly want to, you know, jump ship and go for politics?Michelle Chuang Well, it all started from last year in about March. I participate a lot in PNC in the school. In 2023 Willoughby council had a after school care that they ran. But end of 2023 they canceled it. It was really difficult for me as a working parent, and it was really difficult for a lot of other parents as well. So they did a petition to the council. They had 200 wet signatures. However, it didn't change the decisions of the council. They'd asked me to do the petition again last March, I said, look, let's try again, and that's how it all began.Wing Kuang Solomon, take us back to the day that you tell your boss that you are running for council. What was it like, and what were their reaction?Solomon Lin They were actually very supportive. I gave them a promise. This is something that I want to do for my community. I want to contribute my technical experience, and they supported my decision, as long as it doesn't affect my work, I couldn't take any leave because I had very hard deadlines for two projects at a time. So I did all my works just after hours and on weekends. Basically there was no West for me for two months.Bertin Huynh Not to rub salt into an old wound. But in the end, you didn't win. So how does that feel, that you put all those hours in?Solomon Lin It was actually a very rewarding experience. I treated it as a learning experience in the beginning, because there was no guarantee in elections. I set my expectation in the beginning to okay, this is an experience that I want to try. I want to give back to the community, and I stick to it, and that's pretty much how it all went. And even I didn't win, I gained a lot of experience and connections through the campaign, and it was very valuable, even just talking to the residents in my ward to learn their problems, to help them with the listing that can change their life. It was very rewarding.Wing Kuang So to both of you, what were your family's reaction?Michelle Chuang Well, for me, my mom was like, 'What are you saying? You want to run for a local government? I think you better not.' But my husband was very supportive. He was like, 'look, the opportunity doesn't rise every single day. This is a great opportunity, and you might not even get it. Just run for the experience.'Solomon Lin My family, they let me do my own thing, they let me make my own decision. But my partner was very supportive. She was the one who would keep me back on track when I say, Oh, what if. I this, what if I don't do this to say, 'hey, you had your principle. Just stick to it and be what you want to do.' And that's all.Wing Kuang Why do you think, Michelle, particularly, your parents will have that reaction to you about going into politics?Michelle Chuang I think it's how they grew up and how they were educated abroad. So in Asian families, in particularly when there comes power, position, title, usually comes a danger. And that's what it is in Netflix nowadays too.Wing Kuang Solomon, you are those classic 1.5 generation Chinese Australian, which means you actually came here for high school, and then you spend your adolescence here. And that would mean that your parents still have a quite strong connection to where they are from, rather than the Australian democratic system. Why do you think they would be so supportive.Solomon Lin My parents came from mainland China and the political landscape there - as everyone knows - people are very conservative, and for me to make this step, it actually took some time for them to digest. And seeing my past performance with the decision that I've made, and that got me where I am now. They were confident that I could make sound decision. So that's why they let me do this campaign.Bertin Huynh We say that being politically active in our community is not common. Where did you get the idea to run for politics in the first place? How did you make that connection between this thing was wrong? How can I fix it and going for politics?Michelle Chuang A lot of my courage comes from the parents of the families in my daughter's school. It also comes from the community. So one of the person who supported me, she won the citizenship of Willoughby city, and she has always ran for local government. She hasn't been successful, but I think it's her perseverance that made me think, if there're so many people needing me to voice and it looks like they are all having the same goal to push me up, then I should give it a try. I shouldn't stay at the back. I should step up a little bit more and think, okay, this is not just the politics. This is about making changes for our community. That's when I decided, okay, I'm gonna give it a try, whether I win or not.Wing Kuang And how about you? Solomon?Solomon Lin Espeically Chinese community, we don't talk about politics, even within the family, we rarely talk about politics. And for me, to make the step and it's just something that quite unimaginable by others, friends and family, and for me, I was just focusing on what I can give back to the community. And I feel like more people should do this, especially Chinese Australian, we should make the change in our generation, not to wait for future to come to you know, oh, it can just randomly happen. I'm the type of person who believes in actions, and this is something that I will take to make it happen.Bertin Huynh Both of you run in some of the most Chinese electorates in your respective states. Willoughby Council having Chatswood, which is high concentration of Chinese people, and Monash as well. Did being Chinese yourselves, do you feel like that helped your campaign or hindered it?Michelle Chuang To be honest, Willoughby city is quite big. When you look at Chatswood. Yes, we do have a lot of Asian background. We have Korean, we have Malaysian, we have Indonesian, we have Chinese, we have Taiwanese, we have people coming from Hong Kong. But that is misleading, because Willoughby city is so big, it's actually only about 26.5% of the population who are Asian, and out of the 26.5% not everyone can vote. The reason being Chatswood being such a high density of Asians is because of their school and people come from overseas, want to live in the area, to go to the school, but they aren't actually, you know, citizens. There might be a lot of them who are permanent resident also, because a lot of countries don't allow having dual passports. So if you decide one passport, then you have to give up another one. So a lot of people are permanent residents without voting rights. So I think that was misleading for me, because I thought the same, I was like, wow, I'm gonna get all this. But it wasn't the reality. It kind of gave me a l