Penny Wong is often mentioned, with varying degrees of seriousness, as an alternate prime minister.



Intelligent and unflappable, Wong is among Labor’s most savage performers on the floor of parliament. She's immensely popular among the Australian political left, and serves as an inspiration for thousands of women, migrants, and LGBT Australians.

Why then does her party not turn to her, to lead Labor back into government?

For Wong, sitting across from BuzzFeed News, coffee in hand, the answer is personal.

“When I was touted for preselection, how many people who were a, female, b, Asian and c, gay, were being pre-selected for a party of government?” she asks, counting the three things off on her fingers. (The answers: roughly 27%, none, and none.)



“It would have been inconceivable for me that I could have run for the house.”



But the simplest way of putting it is that she wouldn’t expose her family to the blinding, toxic elements of the national electorate.

“There’s too much sexism and homophobia and racism in our society for me to want to expose myself to that, and my family.”

