Priya writes

I didn’t leave India lightly.

It was home. It was where I grew up, where my family still lives, where I knew how things worked—even when they didn’t work well. But in the last few years, something shifted. The rise of hate, of hardline politics, of intolerance toward minorities—it stopped being background noise. It started becoming law, policy, and everyday life.

I watched the news with unease. I heard the rhetoric change in the streets, in Parliament, in school WhatsApp groups. It stopped being a place I could imagine my daughter growing up in, at least not safely—not freely.

So I made a choice. A hard one. I packed up our lives and moved across oceans to Australia. I came here not just for myself, but for her. For a future I hoped would be better. More open. More just. More kind.

And for a while, that felt true.

Australia welcomed us in ways I’ll never forget. The local librarian remembered my name. One of my daughter’s childcare educators knelt down to tie her shoelace and said, “You’ve got such a bright little spark in you.”

It was a small thing. But after everything we’d left behind, it meant the world.

We found pockets of community, of kindness, of real belonging. I started to believe we had made the right decision.

But over the past year, I felt something familiar and unsettling return.

Immigration, once talked about in terms of nation-building, began sounding more like a problem to be managed. I heard the same words I thought I’d left behind: “burden,” “flood,” “crackdown.” And every time someone said, “cut migration,” I quietly asked myself—do they mean me?

Do they mean my daughter?

It’s a strange thing, to feel grateful and unwanted at the same time.

I work hard. I pay taxes. I show up. I try to be a good neighbour, a kind parent, a thoughtful colleague. But sometimes, it still feels like I’m being asked to prove that I belong. Again and again.

I didn’t expect perfection. But I did hope for fairness.

And now, with the Labor Party re-elected, I find myself in an unfamiliar position: cautiously hopeful.

Because in a world where far-right parties are rising, where Trumpism is no longer an American exception but a global template, Australia has made a different choice—for now. It chose steady over spectacle. Competence over chaos. A party that, for all its imperfections, still believes in policy over populism.

It matters. It matters for people like me—immigrants who’ve built lives here. Who want stability. Who want a future for our children that isn’t shaped by fear.

But it also matters globally. In Canada, Mark Carney’s rise signals a renewed appetite for progressive leadership rooted in competence and compassion—an antidote to the chaos and cynicism that’s gripped much of the world. Meanwhile, the U.S. barrels toward a deeply polarising world with Trump—or at least Trumpism—looming large again. Its slide towards authoritarianism is something we should all be worried about. Trade wars, culture wars, and anti-immigrant sentiment are sharpening on all sides. Across Europe, far-right parties continue to gain traction, and migration remains the scapegoat of choice in times of fear and economic uncertainty.

Australia could have gone the same way. It still might.

But this result—this quiet, decent vote for the center-left—offers a pause. A breath. A chance to remember that countries don’t have to turn inwards to move forward.

Still, I won’t pretend this changes everything.

Labor’s victory doesn’t erase the challenges immigrants face. Processing backlogs, housing pressure, shrinking pathways to permanency, the everyday stress of “temporary” life—those remain. And the rhetoric of resentment hasn’t vanished; it’s just out of power for now.

So while I can’t vote, I care deeply about what happens next. I care because I know how fragile hope can be. And how quickly it can be taken away.

I want to believe this win isn’t just about politics, but about possibility. That Australia might hold the line against the tide of division sweeping the world. That my daughter might grow up not just safe, but seen. Not just allowed to stay, but encouraged to thrive.

I still believe in this country. I see the good in its people every day. And I want to believe there’s space here for stories like mine. For families like ours. For the hope that brought us across oceans in the first place.

Because Australia, despite everything, is still worth believing in.