The Fair Go Fallacy: Why Australia's Meritocracy Myth Is Holding Us Back

We need to talk about meritocracy in Australia. And it won't be comfortable.

I'm writing this as someone who's spent nearly two decades in HR and DEI work, as a migrant, as a neurodivergent person with disability. I've sat in rooms where hiring decisions are made, where promotions are discussed, where "merit" is invoked like a sacred principle. And I've watched how that principle operates very differently depending on who you are.

Australia loves to tell itself a story: that we're the land of the "fair go," where anyone can succeed through hard work and talent. It's a comforting narrative. It's also dangerously incomplete.

The Meritocracy We Tell Ourselves About

Here's the version we like to believe: Australia has moved past its discriminatory history. We've removed formal barriers. Now, everyone competes on a level playing field, and the best rise to the top based purely on ability and effort. Success reflects merit; failure reflects its absence.

It sounds fair. It feels fair. And that's precisely the problem.

Because when we believe this story completely, we stop seeing the structural barriers that remain. We stop questioning why certain groups consistently "lack merit." We stop examining the systems that determine who gets to demonstrate capability in the first place.

The belief in meritocracy becomes a barrier to recognizing inequality itself.

What "Merit" Actually Means (And Doesn't)

When Riya joined a large consultancy, her manager praised her technical skills but said she lacked “leadership presence.”

Riya noticed her ideas often landed better when repeated by a louder colleague. She’d been told to “speak with more confidence,” though she’d grown up in a culture where deference was respect, not weakness.

One day she gave a project pitch her way—measured, calm, and precise. The client called it “refreshingly clear.” Her manager called it “lucky.”

That’s when Riya realized “merit” wasn’t just about capability—it was about mirroring the dominant way of leading. In a workplace where loudness equalled confidence, her quiet strength didn’t count as merit at all.        

Let me ask you something: What does merit look like in your workplace?

Is it a confident communication style? The ability to self-promote? A prestigious university degree? The right kind of leadership presence? Fitting seamlessly into the existing culture? Having a network of people who can vouch for you?

Now ask yourself: are these measures of capability, or are they measures of proximity to a specific cultural norm?

Here's what research shows us: merit is not objective. What counts as "merit" in Australian workplaces—communication styles, leadership presence, educational credentials, "culture fit"—are often culturally specific standards that favour dominant groups.

When we say someone "lacks leadership presence," are we measuring their ability to lead? Or are we measuring how closely they match a particular style of leadership that's been normalized—usually white, male, able-bodied, neurotypical, and middle-to-upper class?

When we require "excellent communication skills," are we measuring clarity and effectiveness? Or are we penalizing accents, different communication patterns, neurodivergent processing styles, and cultural norms around directness versus indirectness?

When we value "cultural fit," are we assessing someone's ability to contribute? Or are we just preferring people who remind us of ourselves?

The Starting Line Isn't the Same for Everyone

When Josh from Dubbo got into a Sydney university, he worked nights at a servo to pay rent. His classmates, mostly from private schools, had tutors and weekends free for internships.

Josh graduated with the same degree but no industry experience. When graduate programs asked for “evidence of leadership and professional exposure,” he had none.

A recruiter told him kindly, “Your marks are great, but we’re looking for polish.”

Josh wasn’t less capable. He just started on a track with more hurdles—and no one at the finish line cared how far he’d run to get there. They only saw who crossed first.        

Meritocracy assumes we all start from the same place. But in reality, some people are running a 100-meter sprint on a flat track, while others are running a steeplechase uphill with hurdles, water jumps, and someone occasionally moving the finish line.

Consider these realities:

• Education and class: Australia has one of the most segregated school systems in the developed world. Wealthy families can buy access to better facilities, networks, tutoring, and opportunities. These students dominate university entry, prestigious internships, and ultimately senior roles.

But we don't call this "purchased advantage." We call it "merit."

A student at an elite private school with access to extensive tutoring, connections, and resources isn't inherently more capable than a student at an under-resourced public school. They just had a better launch pad. Yet our systems treat their higher ATAR as pure merit and reward them accordingly.

• Geography: Growing up in regional or remote Australia creates educational and opportunity gaps that meritocracy simply ignores. Access to quality schooling, extracurriculars, tutoring, career mentoring, and professional networks is geographically concentrated in major cities—particularly in wealthy suburbs.
• Family wealth: Many prestigious career paths require unpaid internships or poorly paid early roles. Law. Media. Arts. Politics. Policy. Only people with family wealth can afford to work without income while building "experience."

This isn't discussed as a failure of meritocracy. It's just accepted as "how things work." But it systematically excludes talented people who can't afford to work for free, regardless of their capability.

• Networks and social capital: So much of career progression happens through informal networks—who you know, who can vouch for you, who invites you to opportunities before they're advertised. If your family doesn't have professional networks, if you're the first in your family to work in a corporate environment, if you're from a community that's been historically excluded from these spaces—you're starting with a massive disadvantage that has nothing to do with your merit.

When Intersectionality Meets Meritocracy: Compounding Disadvantage

Leilani, a proud Wiradjuri woman living with chronic pain, worked in the public service. She was told she’d “Benefit from a mentor” before being considered for leadership.

She already was a mentor—to younger First Nations staff, to new graduates navigating bias. But her work wasn’t “strategic,” she was told—it was “community-based.”

When promotion rounds came, the panel praised her empathy but chose someone who “showed more executive presence.”

For Leilani, every barrier wasn’t just doubled—it was compounded. Her calmness read as passivity. Her advocacy read as emotion. Her disability meant she worked from home more, which some saw as “less visible.”        

The system didn’t lack merit. It just refused to see hers.

Here's where it gets even more complex, and where Australia really struggles.

Intersectionality shows us that barriers don't just add up—they compound and create unique forms of disadvantage.

The lived reality: First Nations women in Victorian public sector organizations report low rates of management roles and often much lower salaries than both Indigenous men and non-Indigenous people. Almost 6 in 10 (59%) of First Nations peoples report experiencing discrimination and harassment at work in 2023—up from 50% in 2021.

A First Nations woman with disability doesn't just face the barriers that First Nations people face, plus the barriers that women face, plus the barriers that people with disabilities face. She faces barriers that are uniquely intense and differently configured because of how those identities interact.

But meritocratic thinking treats her outcomes as purely individual. If she doesn't progress, it must be because she lacks merit—not because the system was never designed with someone like her in mind.

Consider how this plays out:

• Women: There's still a significant gender pay gap and women experience higher levels of poverty. Meritocracy doesn't account for unpaid care work, career interruptions, or how "merit" criteria favour masculine-coded behaviours like assertiveness and self-promotion while penalizing "feminine" traits like collaboration and nurturing—even when those traits are valuable.
• CALD communities: "Merit" often means Anglo-Australian communication styles, networking patterns, and cultural norms. Accents get penalized. Names that "sound ethnic" reduce callback rates. Overseas qualifications are systematically devalued. Different approaches to self-promotion are read as lack of confidence rather than cultural difference.
• People with disabilities: Meritocracy assumes a standardized way of working, communicating, and demonstrating capability. Interview processes favour certain communication styles. Workplaces are designed for able-bodied people. "Productivity" is measured in ways that exclude many disabled people before they even get to demonstrate their actual abilities.
• Neurodivergent individuals: "Professional" behaviour, interview performance, and workplace norms are designed for neurotypical people. Eye contact, small talk, open-plan offices, unstructured meetings—these aren't neutral standards. They're neurotypical standards we've universalized.

A neurodivergent CALD woman with disability faces all of these barriers simultaneously and uniquely. But we assess her as an individual and wonder why she doesn't "demonstrate merit" in the same way as someone who faces none of these barriers.

This is only part of the story. The meritocracy myth runs even deeper than what we're willing to see on the surface. There are issues we barely discuss—silent barriers that keep inequality in place while we congratulate ourselves on being fair.

In Part 2, I'll explore the under-discussed issues that perpetuate Australia's meritocracy myth: the class barrier we refuse to name, the "cultural fit" loophole that lets bias hide in plain sight, and why believing in meritocracy actually makes us worse at recognizing inequality. We'll also look at where we've been, where we are now, and most importantly—what needs to shift if we're serious about creating actual equity.

The question isn't whether meritocracy is a myth. It's whether we're brave enough to face what that means.