Here Are My Demands

by Andrew Roff

In a near-future Australia, Maggie Garewal knows that her moment has arrived. Working on policy with a newly installed government, she is desperate to use what leverage she has to secure real change: a redistributive program to help millions, stricken jobless by automation, into a purposeful life.

But progress never comes easily, especially in an augmented reality that blends truth, illusion and misdirection. Navigating manipulative politicians, public shaming, religious fundamentalists and foreign powers, Maggie is confronted with impossible decisions about the kind of future she wants for herself and her society.

Daringly speculative and yet all too recognisable, Here Are My Demands is a story about fighting on in the face of resistance, and the unprecedented hazards of a world our children have already started to inhabit.

322 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2025

About the author

Andrew Roff is a writer living on the unceded Country of the Kaurna people of the Adelaide Plains. His debut short story collection, The Teeth of a Slow Machine, is published by Wakefield Press. His first novel, Pangea, is due to be published later this year.

Reviews

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Andrew Roff's first novel Here Are My Demands is left-wing political fiction at its most forceful.  It's speculative fiction set in a near-future Australia where there is government rule by plebiscite.  Politicians offer policies to the electorate, but those policies are only enacted by a ruling government if passed by popular vote in a plebiscite.

Our democracy isn't working for everyone, but as Winston Churchill once said, "Democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried". So, is there a form of democracy that could be better, that we haven't tried?

Reform is such an appealing idea.  But could Scott Morrison (not my favourite Prime Minister by a long shot) have responded quickly to the pandemic with Jobkeeper and Jobseeker if it had to be submitted to the slow and unwieldy process of a plebiscite? Would Australians ever have abolished capital punishment by popular vote? Will there ever be a popular vote in favour of treating refugees humanely? Alas, in the age of demagoguery where politicians are guided by opinion polls in marginal seats, we have learned to be wary of pseudo-democratic theories. The last Australian plebiscite was widely celebrated, but actually the 60/40 vote for marriage equality was a near thing. It was a terrible shock for some of us to realise that there were 40% of Australians who were against equal rights for the LBGTQI+ community.  40%! We had learned not to be shocked by the time the Voice Referendum failed so comprehensively, but it still hurt. 

Besides, Roff's scenario begs the question: how, exactly, does a democracy, flawed or otherwise, replace itself with another form of government? 

You can see how Roff's book provokes serious thinking.  A perfect book for book groups...

Set in the half-century from the present after there have been major geopolitical changes, Here Are My Demands is the story of a policy adviser called Maggie, who's in an emerging relationship with Kei. This, like all relationships, takes place in a world where virtual reality is embedded in the real world a.k.a. 'meatspace.' People have a 'shroud' implant that enables them to create their own worlds as an overlay or replacement for the real one.  At its (perhaps) most benign, it enables an avatar's attendance at meetings (not unlike Zoom, maybe, though we all soon learned about fake backgrounds and that we and they could all be doing something else when the camera was off.) In intimate relationships, it's problematic:

There was nothing to stop him taking a picture or video, even when they were having sex.  A light on your brow was supposed to glow red when recordings were being made, and it was a crime to tamper with that, but it was easy enough to download a patch.  Kei didn't seem like the type, but what was impossible to know was whether it was always her he was seeing... (p.63)

Almost as an afterthought, Maggie supposed she should just come right out and ask him.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2025/09/27/h...

[Kristin Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is brilliant. I’ve always enjoyed Andrew’s clever short stories, but in this novel he demonstrates the extent of his intelligence, planning, research and editing skills. Here Are My Demands dreams up a highly plausible future Australia.

[Ken Richards · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is a great change to read a near-future SF which does not devolve into end-of-world dystopia.
Instead, this future Australia has neat extrapolations of all the problems and obsessions which currently bedevil us, but has good folk working with passion to find solutions.
There is not enough work, climate challenges continue, as do new and interesting diseases. Augmented reality is a real thing, and most folk interact in the virtual world, using implants known as shrouds. Of course, every servant can be a two-edged sword.

So it is with Maggie Garewal, a policy advisor to Brij Sutton, who marshalls the votes of a lorge cohort of followers in the plebescites which determine which policies of government will receive the approval of the people. Australia has just elected a progressive government after a couple of decades of conservative rule. There is hope for a start to solving the problems of insufficient work and housing, of climatic catastrophes and the threat of pandemics. Maggie's passion is to introduce the Universal Basic Income, and is tasked with the job of influencing the powerbrokers to support her policy and gain the support of governing parties and the voters to implement the policy. The process of making law is ugly. Andrew Roff does not spare us the gory details.

The conclusion is let me say 'open-ended'. As in real life, there are rarely complete wins or absolute losses. We just pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and consider the new options which are presented us.

[Courtney · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a case of too hard on world building and not hard enough on plot.

Also like... I wanted more dystopia and less political thriller?

And unfortunately I just sort of hated the world Roff created. So much thought was put into the political system and some into cultural changes but very little else. I hated a lot of the slang (dults took me out every single time), the cultural changes (not the place name changes but the whole thing about trysts being a team building thing like AND WITH THE SHROUDS?? The sexual harassment and revenge porn of it all, not addressed at all of course), the whole weird, lack of physical touch thing? Like obviously it was a cultural change but it wasn't explained? The vague mention of two more Cold Wars? Who? How? When?

The things that were fascinating were regulated to the background of the political machinations. Whatever the fuck was happening in The Surrender. Maggie's brother's whole deal and descent into radicalism (felt like this was supposed to be a metaphor for something but it was so clumsy). The briefest glimpse we saw of people who refused shrouds and their organisations. The weird indication that there was vulnerabilities in the shroud and yet there was very little attention paid to it until the end.

Too much tedious political nonsense, not enough actual plot.

[Greg Foyster · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this up recently in Adelaide and gulped it down in a few days. It's set in a future Australia where almost everyone has augmented reality (called shrouds), and it's hard to tell what's real from what's not. While so many speculative fiction novels rehash old ideas about dystopias, this one invents a different economy and political system -- the world building is incredible. The main character is a policy advisor trying to get a Universal Basic Income through parliament, and the story follows her mission with the pacing of a political thriller. I especially enjoyed the shifting perspectives (there are sections written from the point of view of her game-addicted brother), the way new technology and language are woven into the story, the invention of a new political class, and the balance between pessimism and hope. There's environmental devastation and inequality, but people are still trying to improve the world and partially succeeding, which is the kind of thoughtful re-imagining we need. Rant over, just read the damn book. It's great.

[Gregory Totman · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was so overhyped by reviewers yet it piqued my interest .
By roff's own admission it was foolish to predict the near future especially in the arena of Australian politics in 2058 .
Well the fool's errand certainly rang true . 300 pages of what is mostly gibberish .
The dialogue was as exciting as the script from Neighbours .
Roff created a lingo all of his own making , changing the name of canberra and melbourne to resemble indigenous titles ! Really .
The glossary appears at the end of the book it should have been in the front of the book . eg :Truvies ,you guessed it the old liberal party which fell apart in 2033 . I hope it's one prediction that comes true . Canberra or nargasomething or other and its bubble of overpaid public servants is the dullest place in australia in 2025 and i suspect it wont be any more exciting in 33 years time .

[H.C. Gildfind · Rating 5 out of 5]

I came across Roff's writing via his excellent short story collection and I'm very glad his debut novel is as good. I enjoyed how this story depicts an ominously recognisable technocratic 'democracy' - and I especially liked how Roff shines a light on this dystopia by contrasting its sterile violence to the lush disorder of the society of exiles living in The Surrender in Northern Australia. (The Surrender demands a novel of its own!) Roff's writing always traverses dark, complex and philosophical themes - yet somehow manages to do this with lightness, compassion and humour. Great writing!

[Clare Rhoden · Rating 4 out of 5]

An intelligent, deft exposé of everything that matters in our actual real world, cunningly disguised as sci-fi, this book deserves a wide readership.
I absolutely loved the invented slang, and the invented world (all to eerily familiar), of Australia in 2058