The Muslim vote. The Chinese vote. After decades of multicultural policy and with the recent historically high immigration intake, the emerging phenomenon of federal electorates that are ethnically or religiously specific is reshaping our politics.

Seats with large diasporic communities are deciding elections. Last year, voters of Chinese origin, offended by Scott Morrison’s regular verbal aggression towards China, helped hand power to the Labor Party. Three Liberal-held seats with big Chinese communities – Chisholm, Bennelong, and Reid – swung hard to Labor, which won office with just a two-seat margin.

Australian society is becoming increasingly more complex and diverse.Credit: Dionne Gain

Now, we’re seeing the potential electoral power of the Muslim vote being asserted over the Israel-Hamas conflict. This time, the diasporic vote presents some difficulties for the ALP.

It’s true that in times past, religious and cultural ties have played outsized roles in important Australian political debates. The Catholic Church and Irish Australians heavily influenced the outcomes of two highly controversial issues in the 20th century: the conscription question during World War One, and the presence of communists in the labour movement in the 1950s. Both debates caused the Labor Party to split.

But what’s happening now looks different because of the high concentrations of new and recent entrants from other countries in specific seats.

Australian society is becoming increasingly more complex and diverse. The 2021 census found that 27.6 per cent of all Australians were born overseas and 48.2 per cent of us have an overseas-born parent. More than 25 per cent of us use a language other than English at home. In the four years preceding the census, one million people had emigrated here, and the high migration trend is accelerating, with Australia on track to accept more than half a million new entrants this year alone.

This will make it ever more difficult for both major parties to manage the politics of combustible and highly contested international issues. As we’re seeing with the conflict in Israel and Gaza, the needle cannot be threaded, with Palestinian and Jewish groups respectively demanding that the government adopt their positions in toto. Anything less invites denunciation.

The week began with foreign minister Penny Wong being condemned by leading Australian Jewish groups for making the unremarkable statement, “We need steps towards a ceasefire. It cannot be one-sided.” By Wednesday, seven government MPs were targeted by pro-Palestinian supporters who dumped fake dead bodies outside their offices.