The Population Has Shifted. The Power Has Not.

In March 2023, Daniel Mookhey took his oath as New South Wales treasurer on the Bhagavad Gita, the first person of Indian origin to run the budget of an Australian state. Three years on, it still stands out. That is the problem. A first like that should read as unremarkable by now. It does not.

The demographic argument is over. In April 2026 the Australian Bureau of Statistics confirmed that India-born residents, at 971,020, are now the largest overseas-born community in the country, ahead of the England-born for the first time on record. Close to one in three Australians was born overseas. This is a young, highly skilled community, and it pays tax near the centre of the economy.

The leadership has not kept pace. Four of the 226 members of federal parliament trace their roots to India. Against the India-born share of the population, that figure would sit closer to eight. The boardroom is worse. The 2026 Board Diversity Index found 93.5 per cent of ASX 300 directors come from Anglo-Celtic backgrounds, and cultural diversity there is going backwards. In television newsrooms, people of non-European background are still a low single-digit share of the faces on air.

Representation is not a courtesy. Decisions about migration, aged care, international education and the relationship with India are made in rooms where the community has few voices of its own. When the ABS milestone landed, senior politicians spoke warmly about the community. None of them were drawn from it.

None of this is a mystery. Parties can preselect Indian-origin candidates in winnable seats. Boards can treat cultural background as a governance asset worth measuring. Newsrooms can hire from the communities they cover. The census has recorded the arrival. The institutions now have to look like the country they serve, before the next generation is left knocking.

Images in this article are AI-generated illustrations.