Cameron Maclean becomes Parramatta’s youngest lord mayor at age 28

The “myth of a monoculture” in Australia’s past is damaging western Sydney, he says. “It’s not something we can ‘retreat’ to. The changes are permanent, and, beyond that, the changes are good. They’ve enhanced our society, and those people from diverse backgrounds, they are radically Australian.”

His eloquence is, at least in part, due to the fact he has albinism, a rare genetic condition that whitens his skin and hair and significantly impairs his eyesight. It meant he went through school exams with a scribe. Richard Edwards, who taught Maclean commerce at Epping Boys High School and mentored him in year 12, says he witnessed him develop an excellent memory. “He had to plan it all in his head and sit back and structure it all in his head,” Edwards says. “He didn’t even really jot down notes.”

The practice continued as Maclean began bachelor of business with economics and applied finance at Western Sydney University (he was in the first cohort of students to study at the university’s Parramatta Square campus). “I have a much more formal and verbose way of talking [because] I had been writing six-page economics essays with my voice,” Maclean says. “I speak the way I write and I write the way I speak.

“I have no qualms about having albinism,” he says, adding that bullying online about his appearance “comes from nothing more than spitefulness on their part and a lack of understanding”. “If anything, it makes me terribly recognisable. Find me a person in public life who doesn’t want to be recognised.”

Being in any leadership position is hard. Being the lord mayor of a major city at 28 is something else. “You are undeniably fresh,” Issa, the Liberal, told Maclean on Monday. But David Borger, who for decades had held the title of being Parramatta’s youngest mayor at 30, says community members shouldn’t discount a leader because of their age.

“People were scratching their heads when I was elected, wondering, ‘What’s this guy actually going to do, and what do you know about life?’ But equally, I think people are a bit open-minded.