Ignored warnings, predictable fallout: Lessons for the Liberal Party

The guy got trounced. I’m talking about Zahid Safi, the same man who attempted to enter the Australian Parliament under false pretenses. He allegedly faked his MA degree, misled people about his business record, and has a troubling history of hostility toward the Hazara community. Most recently, he tried to win support from Bruce through fear and intimidation. But the residents saw through the facade and rejected him, sending a clear message: he is dangerous and unfit for public office.

Earlier, I unintentionally predicted the outcome of the election in the Division of Bruce in one of my blog posts titled “Fake it to break it,” referring to a candidate whose credibility was questionable due to a pattern of deception.

The Liberal Party's decision to endorse him was flawed from the beginning. Now, some within the party are calling for a “serious review” of what went wrong. But the core issue is already clear: you didn’t listen to the people.

Members of the Hazara community in Bruce raised serious concerns about Zahid Safi’s candidacy, concerns that were brought directly to party leadership. Those warnings were ignored.

So what went wrong? The answer is obvious: a failure to hear and respect the voices of those most affected.

Reflecting on missteps isn’t dwelling on the past, it’s a necessary step toward doing better. Both the Liberal and Labor parties should take note.

Here’s how you move forward and do better in the future:

1) Conduct thorough background checks on candidates. That includes verifying academic credentials, investigating business dealings, and uncovering any history of illegal or unethical behavior.
2) Understand a candidate’s ties to the community. Know their ethnic background and how they relate to the broader diaspora in the area. 
3) Consult with community leaders and organizers. Learn what other ethnic or immigrant communities live in the division, and ask for their perspective on the candidate. Their input is essential to making informed decisions.

If parties want to represent multicultural Australia with integrity and responsibility, they must start by listening, especially when communities speak out in good faith and with genuine concern.

The echoes of Hazara persecution in Australia

In my previous post, when I wrote that Afghans brought the persecution of the Hazaras to Australia, there was a reason. Clear signs of this persecution have emerged. Just yesterday, The Guardian Australia reported that Zahid Safi's campaign team has escalated their tactics. According to journalist Henry Belot, the team is now pressuring members of the Hazara diaspora, claiming that voting for anyone other than the Liberal Party constitutes a betrayal of Abdur Rahman Khan, often referred to as "Afghanistan's Hitler." Zahid campaign volunteers, mostly made up of Pashtuns, have told the Hazaras that we have to resurrect Abdur Rahman Khan. 

Labor alleges the volunteer told people that a vote for anyone other than the Liberals would betray Khan, and called for him to be “brought back”. Khan is linked to the Hazara genocide in the late 1800s.

“I am concerned that the reason Liberal volunteers are invoking Abdur Rahman Khan’s name is to harass and intimidate members of the local Hazara community,” said the letter to the commission from Jett Fogarty, an Australian Labor party official.

This is deeply concerning. For members of the Hazara community in Australia, such rhetoric must be profoundly distressing and potentially retraumatizing. It raises serious questions about what protective mechanisms are in place to support targeted communities in situations like this. The political parties and representatives have a responsibility to address and counteract this kind of vicious rhetoric and to ensure Hazaras feel safe. 

You can’t fake your way into parliament

Afghans, and more precisely, in this case, a small number of Pashtuns residents of Bruce, are now rallying to support Zahid Safi. His campaign has already taken a hit: the manager has stepped down following backlash over offensive online remarks, and notably, there’s no Australian presence within Safi's team. In Bruce, the Safi clan, a large network of families sharing the same last names, has stepped in. Wearing matching blue, round-necked T-shirts and covering their paunches with bold “SAFI” lettering, they pose with forced smiles for the cameras.

It may look like a campaign gaining momentum, but beyond appearances, what’s missing is substance, brain power, integrity, and a genuine understanding of basic responsibilities, such as not lying, not discriminating against people based on their ethnicity or race. Someone should tell this guy to go to the community and apologize for your blatant racism and take down the submission. Learn some decency. Someone needs to say it plainly: dude, you can't fake your way into parliament. This isn't Afghanistan. Your fakery for all sorts of glorification is obsolete here. 

Fake it to break it: The Zahid Safi Liberal Candidate Debacle

In my previous post, I wrote: “The rotten stench is rising from the corpse of the Australian Liberal Party’s pitch for the division of Bruce in the upcoming federal election.” There was a reason for that choice of words.

The Liberal candidate, Zahid Safi, has now been revealed as a university dropout. It reminds me of George Santos, who successfully made his debut in the US Congress for a brief period but was recently sentenced to seven years in a New York federal court for a slew of deceptions.

So how did someone like Zahid slip into the ranks of the Liberal Party? The answer is clear: fake it to make it but now, it ironically translates as fake it to break it. The candidate has become a laughingstock. Touted as a wildly successful businessman, Safi’s record tells a very different story: businesses that were de-registered because of being unable to pay the fees, listed under a fake address, peppered with phony reviews, and littered with stock images.

The most successful part in his life, I would say, is his ability to successfully beguile the liberal party leadership. "It's not that difficult. You say a bunch of impressive lies and they believe you since they don't know about your background," a friend told me, who we both wondered about that simple question mentioned earlier.

But here’s the most damning development: as Australia approaches the election on May 3rd, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has already distanced himself from Zahid Safi. It shows that he is clearly wary of further damage to the party’s credibility, and he should be. As Ronald Mizen reports in The Australian Financial Review:

 "When Coalition sources outlined the seats that Dutton would visit in the final week of the campaign in his 28-seat blitz, Bruce was absent. This could be because it was impractical to list all 28, or it could be because standing up next to Safi and peppered with questions about his past is not the kind of television the Liberals want in the final week of the campaign."

In a Facebook Reel video, journalists from The Age confront Zahid Safi with questions, but he flees the scene. He is caught shortly after, as he gets into a car sitting on the driver's side and attempts to close the door to prevent journalists from asking him questions. When pressed, he struggles to answer even the most basic questions. His response to nearly every question, regardless of the topic, is simply: “the cost of living.” When asked about the fake reviews and false address tied to his and his wife’s business, his answer is still: “the cost of living.”

The revelation that Senator Jana Stewart has submitted a letter to the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) regulatory agency, calling for a formal investigation, is a strong and necessary step toward accountability.

The Business of Deception: Zahid Safi and the Liberal Party's Rotten Pitch

The rotten stench is rising from the corpse of the Australian Liberal Party’s pitch for the division of Bruce for the upcoming federal election. In a recent exposé for The Age, journalist Charlotte Grieve uncovers a disturbing truth: Zahi Safi, the man being paraded as a "successful businessman" by the party, is little more than a fraud. Many of Safi’s businesses appear to exist only on paper, at best.

Take Willow Support Services, an NDIS provider supposedly owned by Safi. When Grieve visited its listed address, she found not an office or facility, but a private residence. It gets worse: multiple Safi-affiliated businesses have been deregistered since March for failing to pay basic fees. His websites are padded with fake reviews, featuring photos recycled across countless unrelated pages. The so-called reviewers? Their LinkedIn profiles list them as being overseas and spread across hundreds of pages on the web.

Faced with this mountain of fakery, Grieve wonders the obvious: "My detailed questions included whether the Liberal Party was satisfied that Safi’s businesses were legitimate, why stock images, fake reviews, and outdated addresses had been used, and whether this raised any concerns for the party."

The appalling part is the response from the party's spokesperson in response to Charlotte Grieve's concerns:

“The Liberal Party is very proud to support a candidate whose family fled the violent conflict in Afghanistan and chose to make Australia his home. Like many people in the electorate of Bruce, Zahid runs his own small business while raising a family. Like many small business owners, Zahid acknowledges that his administrative paperwork isn’t always up to date and has taken steps with his accountant to rectify.”

It appears the Liberal Party is willfully ignoring both the glaring evidence of fraud surrounding its candidate, Zahid Safi, and the growing outrage from members of the Hazara community in Bruce. Community organizers and members have repeatedly called on the party to disendorse Safi, citing his 2021 parliamentary submission, in which he openly vilified Hazara Australians in a display many have condemned as racist.