This toolkit summarises the five main challenges encountered in meaningful political participation and media literacy by Chinese and South Asian origin research participants resident in Australia for at least 2 years. It also presents evidence based recommendations to address these challenges for a range of stakeholders such as political representatives, political party branches in culturally diverse electorates, electoral agencies, migrant community associations, diasporic media outlets, as well as mainstream national media. 

This document is informed by research findings from 192 quantitative survey responses and seven focus groups conducted with participants identifying as having South Asian or Chinese cultural ancestry. Survey findings have been presented in the authors' submission to the ‘Parliament Inquiry into Civics Education, Engagement and Participation in Australia’.

Challenges

1. Culture of origin barrier: migrants face cultural, social, and linguistic barriers hindering their political participation.
2. Country of settlement barriers: race, gender, and immigration status are the compounding structural barriers hindering migrants’ full political engagement.
3. Misinformation and disinformation targeting migrant communities are often overlooked by public monitoring systems, tech companies, and Australian media and authorities.
4. Tokenism in Australian democracy’s representative structures leads to distrust towards Australian institutions among migrants.
5. The lack of effective civic education: migrants are largely reliant on their immediate family and friends for civic education, with gender, social class, and immigration status shaping their political decision-making.