At 28, Cameron Maclean is Parramatta’s youngest lord mayor. But he’s an old soul

You have reached your maximum number of saved items.

Remove items from your saved list to add more.

Don’t be deceived by his age. Parramatta’s new lord mayor, Cameron Maclean, 28, is more of an old soul. He likes classical music, old cameras and double-breasted suits. “People stopped wearing suits and ties because people stopped wearing suits and ties,” he laments during a portrait shoot. “Are people really that led by others?”

Maclean’s sartorial tastes are more accidental, he says. He didn’t know the sunglasses he’d picked were the iconic Saratoga frames loved by John F. Kennedy, and it was a fluke that the tie he wore the night he was elected was in the colours of the Newcastle Knights, who’d stormed to the grand finals less than 24 hours prior.

Cameron Maclean, the youngest mayor of the City of Parramatta, on the balcony of the PHIVE library and council chambers in Parramatta Square.James BrickwoodAnd it’s not just his clothes. His entire political career, in many ways, has been forged through a concoction of coincidences. The mayoralty, for one: Maclean was elected leader of the major council on Monday after the shock party defection of Liberal councillor Tanya Raffoul, who ended up voting against the Liberal incumbent to tip the scales by one vote in favour of Maclean.

And being on council in the first place, too. Donna Davis, a Labor councillor and lord mayor who later left to represent the area in state parliament, had asked him while he was at university to be the second on her ticket in 2021.

“The chances of being elected are pretty slim, but it’s a good way of getting exposure to the process,” Davis remembers telling Maclean while he was at university. Then a severe factional battle left the Liberals without any candidates. Maclean was elected cleanly, and voters in the ward of Epping backed him again in 2024.

Maclean inherits one of the most significant jobs in western Sydney, charged with leading the centre of one of the fastest-growing regions in Australia – and its council, which is still reeling after a tumultuous year in which its chief executive was sacked ahead of a lengthy ICAC public inquiry into her and other staff. “There was a tiger behind both walls,” he said on Monday night about the decisions he and his colleagues were facing. He vowed to reform the council’s staff culture, and faced early calls from Liberal councillor Steven Issa to “strengthen [his] resolve”.

Maclean’s life reflects his own city’s growth. He attended Epping Public when it had 350 students – it now has 790. His home suburb has been connected by the north-west metro, and has had a huge amount of development. But most formative was what happened inside his family home. The youngest of three boys, Maclean never had much power in getting to watch television. But the radio was free. As a 10-year-old, he immersed himself in the voices of the ABC’s Mark Colvin, Richard Glover and James Valentine.

Labor’s Donna Davis and Cameron Maclean in December 2021, ahead of the election that got him elected to Parramatta council.Anna Kucera“They would have the premier on, if it was Bob Carr, or whoever it was. And while I really couldn’t have a semblance of what the issues of the day were, it just seemed so very important,” he recalls.

The radio made him civic-minded, encouraging a deep dive into Australian political history that has shaped his politics today.

“[Former prime minister Paul Keating] said it was the role of a leader to protect the country from prejudice. And I agree,” he says in his first interview since becoming lord mayor. “But we’ll change the context and say that I believe a lord mayor needs to stand up for the community and protect the community from prejudice and ill-informed remarks. That’s going to be crucial here in Parramatta.

“Anyone can observe that the tone and tenor of political debate is declining. We are seeing that it is becoming commonplace to target minority groups and to use terms like ‘mass migration’ over and over, essentially targeting multicultural communities. That bothers me immensely, because multiculturalism in Parramatta is a settled question. In fact, it’s not a question at all. From Epping to Toongabbie to the Olympic Peninsula to Parramatta to Harris Park, we all live this, and it’s part of the fabric of our communities.”

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.”

Maclean poses for a photo at the City of Parramatta council chambers with his accidentally JFK-inspired Saratoga sunglasses.James BrickwoodBeing 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.

“Local government often does attract older people. I think, by its very nature, it tends to be people who have put down roots for the long term … young people may move around more,” he says. “But young people bring a completely different perspective on life and who cities are for and what they should do.”

One of the issues giving him constant grief from residents is the state of Epping Pool, which has been closed for two years as the council tries to find money to repair it. “We’re waiting on the dispensation of the funds from the NSW government in order that we can commence works,” Maclean says. Ironically, it was the threat of the pool’s closure a decade ago that first piqued his interest in local politics. A community campaign to save the pool from demolition worked.

He worked in electorate offices for former federal member for Parramatta Julie Owens and the federal member for Bennelong, Jerome Laxale. He has done relief work in Davis’ office since she moved to state politics.

“Cameron has a lot of energy and interests in the area he represents. I find that Cameron has been very keen to learn,” Davis says, adding he has a good understanding of finance.

Part of his interest in finance was borne out of his conversations with Edwards, who has since become deputy principal of the school. “Cameron was always interested in the bigger picture,” he says. “We would have chats about the HSC and all that, but then we’d move on to the Hawke-Keating reforms, and the role of government, and the interplay of market forces and government intervention.

“He’s not what you would say is a political animal. He’s not a scheming sort of fellow … He’s almost too good for politics, really.”