Will Australia ever have a Mamdani moment?

Australia probably won’t have a Mamdani moment any time soon – but there’s still lessons for our politicians.

Love him or not, Zohran Mamdani’s astounding rise to the mayorship of New York City was the result of one of the most remarkable political campaigns in living memory.
But whilst much will be made of Mamdani’s campaign in the weeks to come, I’ve been stuck wondering whether a Mamdani-esque campaign that generates the same kind of enthusiasm and impact is possible in Australia? After all, a common annoyance I often hear is why Australian politics is so… boring? Not to be a buzzkill, but I think Australia’s Mamdani moment is unlikely to occur any time soon for a few reasons.

First, compulsory voting in Australia means that grassroots campaigns typically have less leverage to sweep to power. More than that, Australia’s process for selecting candidates is very different to the US in both structure and scale. Unlike Australia where candidates are typically chosen through pre-selections by members of the party’s local electorate branches, the US system allows registered voters affiliated with a party to vote in the primaries. It means many more members of the public (and not just party members) are able to vote to endorse who the party’s candidate will be in the main election. With that process being both more public and larger in scale – an election within an election – it is possible for outside candidates to galvanise the public’s attention and defeat establishment candidates like Andrew Cuomo.

But more than just differences in political structure, Mamdani’s movement is meeting a moment specific to New York’s political landscape. In part, Mamdani’s rise feeds of the disillusionment that progressives felt with the Democratic elite’s methods of combating Trump’s unchecked populism. But in part, it’s also a response to New York’s cost of living crisis on steroids. Without the same safety nets that Australia enjoys, the scale and severity of New York’s rent crisis means that some are spending more than half their income in rent costs without any government assistance. In Australia where universal healthcare, social security safety nets, childcare and education support are the norm, the mass impact and frustration of cost-of-living crises here (though still real) are unlikely to reach the same levels as what one witnesses in the Big Apple.

Despite this, Mamdani’s campaign can teach our politicians a lot:

1. The lobbying power of rich donors and mainstream media houses is nothing compared to mass people power: Mamdani’s campaign didn’t seek to appease mainstream media or deep-pocketed donors. It was a mass grassroots effort in organising which identified and fixated on the local issues most important to his constituents.
2. Authenticity is respected. People are tired of spin: I struggled to find a time where Mamdani avoided tricky questions or engaged in obvious spin. Whether it was cost of living, Israel-Gaza or Trump – Mamdani did not obfuscate his position, and he won respect from those who were otherwise disillusioned by politicians as a result.
3. Own your identity, not identity politics: Mamdani didn’t run on being the first

   

   Muslim mayor of New York City. But he used his background, heritage and story to authentically connect with voters, wherever they came from, on the key local issues of feeling unheard, disconnected and priced out of the city in which they lived.

4. Neglect social media at your own peril: There are few Aussie politicians who do social media well. Mamdani’s mastery of millennial and Gen Z engagement should show what a major missed opportunity that is. Zohran Mamdani campaign
   We might not have our Mamdani moment in the same way any time soon, but his rise should be a reminder to us all that “no longer [should] politics be something that is done to us. Now, it is something that we do.”           

Khushaal Vyas is a lawyer, not-for-profit Board Director and social commentator.

READ MORE: Zohran Mamdani’s win: When a generation takes the mic