Ali El Kheir runs a cafe and gym in western Sydney. He says economic conditions have eased – but he has few expectations of local politicians and none of the media
- This is the first of a series in the lead-up to the federal election, in which ordinary people around the nation tell us about their life and what influences their vote
Ali El Kheir is a busy man. Between running his popular cafe, managing his wrestling gym down the road and keeping up with his family, he barely has a moment to himself. As he swings between grinding, extracting and pouring the coffees for his customers at Morning Owl, he says his life hasn’t got better or worse since the last election – just busier.
His gym (Sydney Wrestling Academy) and cafe are in Regents Park, a small slice of suburban and industrial western Sydney, and he is entirely dedicated to their success.
Morning Owl is a bustling place despite the relative quiet of the factories surrounding it. Families flow in and out of the seating area, kitchen staff shout at each other, all while an eclectic playlist of Adele, French hip-hop and 90s R&B blares over the speakers.
The area sits in the seat of Blaxland, which Labor has held since its inception. The current MP, the education minister, Jason Clare, has never had much competition, but at this election he faces a new challenge from community-based independents.
Kheir isn’t a political guy. He says he considers himself a “community man”, in that he builds and maintains community spaces and services for the people around him.
Questions of politics, parties, leaders or seats are met with a shrug, seemingly galaxies away from the cacophony of voices and sounds at Morning Owl. He’s clear on what would cut through for him and for his customers – but unsure he is seeing what he wants to see from Australian political leaders.
I work to a pretty clear, regimented timetable. From 7am to 3pm I am here, working the cafe. Then I pick up my kids and spend time with them until 5.30pm, before I head to the gym. There I coach from 5.30pm to 9.30pm.
That’s every day, except for weekends, where I take my break and spend time with my family.
My wife, kids and I live with my parents, here in this area. My parents bought their house a while ago, in the late 80s, and it’s a big home, meant for my four brothers and I. But now that my brothers are all out, I wanted to stay and remain close to my parents. It gives them a lot of happiness to be around my kids.
My parents also don’t get involved, so it gives us some space. And it obviously helps financially as well, especially during Covid, where I was maintaining two businesses that weren’t making money.
The plan is to buy somewhere, but to keep it as an investment while we stay with my parents. But it’s a difficult market at the moment, so we are waiting for things to improve.
International affairs, what is happening to my Muslim brothers and sisters overseas, that is was stresses me the most. Obviously, I also stress about the economic situation here in Australia and we feel any downturn here and at the gym. Conditions have eased out here, and we are doing OK right now, especially compared [with] the pandemic years.
But mostly, especially in the past 18 months, we’ve been focused on what is happening in Gaza, in Lebanon, where I have family, in Yemen and in Sudan. These things, they weigh heavy on me and the community here.
Things have been getting worse, definitely. It is now impossibly hard to buy a house in our area, around the places we grew up and around our families. Everything is more expensive, everything feels more difficult.
And then we talk about what we see immediately in front of us, here in western Sydney, we see so much more shootings, killings, drug dealing. It’s much worse, and I don’t see it getting better.
I don’t trust any news. I get a brief overview of what is going on via Channel Nine or Seven, but I don’t trust them at all. And it comes from the fact that they are often misreporting things that are happening around me, and I know their reporting is false or misleading. Sometimes, they will say something that is completely different to what I know happened. So how can I trust them? It’s just a lot of fake news.
To be able to provide for my family and to continue being able to service my community. I am worried about our living standards, or standards of education, of health services, I am worried it is all going downhill. For me, I just hope we can stop the slide backwards.
I have always voted for Labor and I will likely vote for Labor again, but I don’t really care. I don’t think any of the politicians truly represent us, or are genuine about representing our interests.
Politics is a business, and they are businessmen. And you can never truly trust them – how can you know they will deliver on what they promise? I just don’t see any change, don’t see any action.
What would sway me would be economic or housing policies that I can see would work. Something that would drop prices, would support people. But from where I sit, no matter who wins, the outcome is the same for us. On the local level, things rarely change.