The Asian giant is the source of significant numbers of migrants and its burgeoning economy offers opportunities for investment.
One million Australians – around one in 25 – have Indian heritage. But in the federal seat of Parramatta, the number is much higher, at one in five. Nearly a quarter of all new arrivals into Australia between 2016 and 2021 were from India, making it the fastest-growing ethnic group; many have chosen to live around Sydney’s alternative CBD in the city’s west., by Andrew Charlton, who is the federal member for Parramatta, politically savvy.
His contacts with the Indian community have clearly been solidified during this project and the acknowledgment section of the book sets out dozens of Indian names, including senior members of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s economic team, along with foreign policy experts in the Australian government.
After independence, the Indian economy remained incompatible with Australia’s, largely due to the development strategy it chose: it adopted principles of non-alignment combined with a strong sense of nationalism, which resulted in an inward growth path. This was the hangover from a “profound fear of ever again being dominated by another country”.
Australia and India “remained culturally, strategically and diplomatically distant”, until Whitlam visited in 1973, the first by an Australian prime minister since 1959. But his momentum fell away as Labor was embroiled in domestic distractions. It was a similar story for Liberal prime minister Malcolm Fraser: plenty of rhetoric, not enough action.
More recently, under Modi, India has put more reliance on the United States, in part as a counterbalance to China in the region, which is working to Australia’s advantages, as the Quad alliance shows.But the lessons of history show that India, driven by self-reliance and sovereignty, will put its eggs into a range of baskets. For example, it is a member of the Beijing-led Shanghai Co-operation Organisation.
“This is what will switch our interactions from transactional to mutual and elevate our relationship from friendship to partnership,” he writes. “When one country invests in another, it gives each a stake in the other’s future.”