It’s just as well that Bisma Asif is fluent in Hindi, Urdu and English in addition to her native tongue, Punjabi, because the Labor candidate for the northern Brisbane seat of Sandgate used all four languages door-knocking her way to become the first Muslim elected to Queensland parliament last Saturday.
The 28-year-old, who was born in Lahore, says that multilingualism gave her an edge in connecting with voters in her adopted home of Brisbane’s northern bayside suburbs.
“Being able to speak to some of the voters in their own language – I definitely saw a shift in how they reacted,” Asif says.
For families of recent immigrants, the presence of a young, brown, overseas-born woman on the hustings offered a glimpse of what, she says, the future might hold for their own.
“Ultimately, anything anyone wants is for their children to have a better life than they did,” Asif says. “And I think that is what a lot of people saw when I came to their door.”
Asif’s story belongs to that timeless tradition of a family overcoming adversity to enjoy hard-earned opportunities in a new land. When she arrived in Australia at the age of eight, Asif didn’t speak the language she would later use to ask most of her Sandgate constituents to vote for her: English.
“I remember being very confused,” she says.
Neither did her mum or her little sister, who was five at the time. Asif recalls “being this protective older sister going to school”.
“From what I remember it wasn’t easy – but we got there.”
Language wasn’t the only barrier Asif overcame. As an economics undergraduate at the University of Queensland, she juggled three jobs – at a kebab shop, a pizza joint and a call centre – to “help keep a roof” over her family’s heads. She says she was the victim of wage theft.
“Then I fell quite sick, and was reliant on our Medicare system.”
Asif was diagnosed with cysts on her ovaries that needed removing. There were a lot of scans, she says, some covered by Medicare, others not.
These experiences in the workforce and medical system led Asif to join the union movement and Labor party. In 2016 she campaigned for the former treasurer and future ALP president Wayne Swan, and would go on to work as a policy adviser for the current aged care and sport minister, Anika Wells, his successor in the federal seat of Lilley, which encompasses much of the state seat of Sandgate.
Asif is part of Labor’s factional right and a member of the Australian Workers’ Union and Transport Workers’ Union. She was a Young Labor president. While her father works for Queensland Rail, it was a ritual morning cold brew, her Toyota Corolla and her own two feet that powered Asif around her bayside electorate over recent months.
Some of Sandgate’s constituents would have seen themselves reflected in Asif not through language, skin colour or culture, but age. Asif and her husband, Mitchell, moved to Sandgate after getting married about three years ago and searching for a place they could afford to settle down in – and one day, she says, to raise a family in.
“We are incredibly representative of parts of Sandgate where there are a lot of young families moving in, a lot of young couples with children or couples like us, planning to have children.”
And it is “incredibly important” to her, Asif says, that she let her constituents know that the reason she got involved in politics was to try to make positive change in their lives, regardless of their faith.
So would she describe herself as devout, practising or culturally Muslim?
“I would describe myself as Muslim,” Asif says. “My religion is important to me, but ultimately, it is a relationship that I have with myself.
“That is very personal.”
And what of Senator Fatima Payman who, in July, crossed the floor to vote with the Greens on a bill on recognising Palestinian statehood and then quit the party amid the rancorous fallout?
Asif describes Payman’s actions as “disappointing” – pointing out that she was not elected by the “people in her community” but as the third spot on a Labor Senate ticket.
“I think what she has actually done is harmed diversity in parliament,” Asif says.
“Ultimately, it is about making sure that we can be seen as people that live in a society with everyone else – and I can tell you, as someone who has only just entered politics, who has been a Muslim woman living in Australia [most of] the rest of her entire life, a lot of the issues that I have need to be dealt like any other young person’s issues.”
On the weekends, Asif likes to head to the beach – “like any other young person living in Brisbane”. She has just reread Normal People, a novel by 33-year-old Irish author Sally Rooney, dubbed the voice of her generation, that Asif describes as “very devastating but very relatable for young people”.
Asif likes to bring family and friends together with food. Her favourite dish is goat karahi – though she makes allowances.
“My favourite curry, as you can imagine, is not butter chicken,” Asif says. “But that is something I specialise in, because it’s a crowd favourite.”
Not that Asif’s culinary repertoire is confined to the continent of her birth. “I do a really good Greek slow-cooked chicken,” she says. “And Mexican. They are my three top go-tos.”
Such is the juxtaposing journey of Queensland’s first Muslim parliamentarian. On the campaign trail, she says she spoke to people who told her their daughters had seen her sign and were inspired because for the first time, in Asif, they saw themselves.
“I think that has immense power,” she says. “I am also really excited to see what this will mean to other people, who have very similar stories, migrant stories, as myself.”
Ultimately, though, Asif says that in a nation built upon immigration, her story is just one of countless.
“It is very spectacular but ordinary, in a way,” she says of her election. “Because we represent modern Australia.”
