Federal election 2019: Anti-Labor scare campaign targets Chinese-Australians

Updated

Chinese-Australian voters are being targeted by a scare campaign that claims more than a million refugees could come to Australia over a 10-year period if a Labor government was elected.

Key points: Crucial marginal seats may be decided by their large Chinese populations

There are numerous posts being made from different WeChat accounts taking aim at Labor's refugee policy

It is unclear who is generating the anti-Labor campaign and the Liberal Party has denied any knowledge of the unauthorised posts

The campaign, from unidentified sources, is spreading on social media platform WeChat.

A Labor spokesperson described the WeChat posts as part of a "desperate scare campaign with no evidence to back it up".

One statement, which is not authorised by any party or individual, claims each refugee granted a visa under Labor would be able to bring five or six relatives with them, increasing the intake to 150,000 refugees a year. Such policies, it claims, would cost taxpayers $10 billion a year.

The message says: "Australia should consider human rights, but enough is enough. Can you afford to vote Labor? … Can our schools afford this? Can our hospitals afford this?"

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Translation:

"Labor announced they will take 32,000 refugees every year. 320,000 in 10 years. Every refugee can bring 5-6 relatives to Australia. In 10 years, that bring us at least 1.5 million. Australia should consider human rights. But enough is enough. Can you afford to vote Labor? Don't you worry you will regret it? Each refugee will cost taxpayers 70 to 100 thousand dollars. New arrivals will cost three billion dollars in total each year, we also need to include their relatives, so is 10 billion dollars a year enough? Can our schools afford this? Can our hospitals afford this?

"Labor announced they will take 32,000 refugees every year. 320,000 in 10 years. Every refugee can bring 5-6 relatives to Australia. In 10 years, that bring us at least 1.5 million. Australia should consider human rights. But enough is enough. Can you afford to vote Labor? Don't you worry you will regret it? Each refugee will cost taxpayers 70 to 100 thousand dollars. New arrivals will cost three billion dollars in total each year, we also need to include their relatives, so is 10 billion dollars a year enough? Can our schools afford this? Can our hospitals afford this?

It is unclear how many times this post has been shared or where it originally came from, but it is part of a series of political statements systematically distributed on WeChat which target Labor's policies in a way that could influence critical marginal seats away from the scrutiny of the main campaign.

Another WeChat post claims that under Labor refugees would be given three- or four-bedroom luxury homes with water views, swimming pools and gymnasiums when they arrive in Australia

This post has been viewed over 30,000 times.

It is not just fake news flourishing on WeChat, but fake newspapers.

One public account, registered misleadingly under the name of respected newspaper The Australian Financial Review calls for "reducing the input of refugees … and zero tolerance for refugees with specific beliefs" otherwise "calls for the next Hitler will only become louder and louder".

The WeChat account pretending to be the Australian Financial Review Translation:

"The refugee issue is getting more and more intense. Should we carefully address it or wait for the next Hitler to arrive." "The refugee issue is getting more and more intense. Should we carefully address it or wait for the next Hitler to arrive."

For any political scare campaign to work it needs to tap into genuine fears in the community.

While last year more than 9,000 Chinese citizens applied for refugee status onshore in Australia, the second highest of any nation, there are fears within the Chinese-Australian community that Labor would let too many refugees in.

Labor does intend to significantly increase the refugee intake. If elected a Shorten government plans to lift the refugee quota to 32,000 by 2026.

In contrast, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced this week a Coalition government would cap refugee numbers at 18,750 per year.

Tapping into the Chinese-Australian vote has become critical at this election. Reid, Banks and Chisholm are all key marginal seats with around 12-15 per cent of the electorate made up of Chinese Australian voters.

An aggressive WeChat campaign in 2016 around the issues of Safe Schools and same-sex marriage was credited with helping to win Chisholm for the Liberals against the national trend.

'This is an ad': Labor candidate

Outside a pre-polling station at Concord in Sydney's inner west, there was friendly banter between volunteers who were handing out how to vote cards.

Sam Crosby, Labor's candidate for Reid and the former Liberal member for this seat, Craig Laundy, were exchanging pleasantries.

In that marginal seat around 15 per cent of the electorate are either born in China or Hong Kong or have a parent from there.

The ABC showed Labor's candidate a version of one of the anti-refugee attack posts circulating on WeChat. He was not impressed.

"I think this should be authorised, I think this is an ad," Mr Crosby said.

"I think if you are going to advertise to people then you should put your name on it, you should authorise it, and you should be proud to stand behind it.

"If you are not prepared to do those things you shouldn't put it out there."

Mr Laundy was also shown the post and said it was not from the team trying to get the Liberal candidate Fiona Martin elected.

"I can definitely say it doesn't come from the Liberal side of the fence in Reid," he said.

"I've been a passionate supporter of our refugee intake policy. I've been very pleased to see it increase from 13,750 in 2013 to 18,750."

"We have a lot of refugees resettle in my electorate and I see the amazing thankfulness and that real sense of joy of being given a second chance for them and their families."

Both Mr Crosby and Mr Laundy have used WeChat to connect with Chinese-Australian voters and have found it a fruitful way of communicating with members of the electorate who are otherwise isolated by language differences.

WeChat vulnerable to misinformation campaigns

WeChat says it has about a million active users in Australia.

The platform allows political parties and their supporters to target Chinese-Australian voters like no other form of social media. Messages are framed for and filtered directly to the Chinese community, focusing on policies that resonate with that part of the electorate.

Wanning Sun, a professor of Media and Communications at UTS, said WeChat groups were a growing source of influence on Chinese-Australian voters.

"I think it's influential to the Chinese language-speaking people whose English is not so good, who cannot rely on mainstream English language media for information and material, so they pretty much read up on what's posted on WeChat," she said.

A study of Chinese-Australians conducted by Professor Sun and UTS found 26 per cent of those surveyed said postings by friends on WeChat's "Moments" feature was one of their primary sources of political information.

Professor Sun said WeChat was vulnerable to misinformation campaigns.

"I'm not sure whether they are circulating it by the parties themselves or whether they are circulating it by the supporters of the party. It is quite open to misinformation," she said.

Liberals say they are not behind anti-Labor campaign

Jason Yat-sen Li is third on Labor's Senate ticket in NSW and has been on WeChat for six years. He said susceptible voters were open to scare campaigns.

"WeChat is mostly comments made between friends — it's not broadcast, and it's not searchable," he said.

"The Liberals use this ambiguity to anonymously spread misinformation."

"The problem is that because it's difficult to see where a post originally came from — particularly if it's a forwarded graphic — it's almost impossible to trace the source."

The ABC has not seen evidence that the Liberal Party is behind any of the inaccurate posts relating to Labor's refugee policy.

Scott Yung, who ran for the Liberals in the seat of Kogarah in the NSW election and is helping with his party's federal campaign on WeChat, said they were not behind the misinformation campaign.

"The messaging on WeChat would officially come from MPs, candidates or head office themselves," he said.

"It needs to be authorised at the bottom … it's obviously easy for anyone to put out any content, you can't rule that out, its often not a clean game. I don't know anyone on the Liberal side doing it and I definitely wouldn't."

'Who should pay for these people?'

Back on the streets of Sydney, Reid constituent Daniel Liu echoed the views that are being targeted as part of the unauthorised WeChat campaign.

"If [too many] refugees come, unemployment will become a problem. It will take them some time to fit into society. Then who should pay for these people? It might bring an extra burden to society. It doesn't sound like a good idea to me," he said.

Frank Xiao, a Chinese-Australian who has lived in Australia for 40 years, is also concerned about Labor's policy.

"You see news every day they are not real refugees; they are the rich people who paid to come inside as refugees," he said.

Whether the scare campaign on WeChat is shifting votes or simply reinforcing views that are already held remains to be seen.

In the meantime, Labor candidates are resigned to the fact they are powerless to stop the spread of misinformation on WeChat's influential closed groups.



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Topics: federal-government, government-and-politics, federal-elections, elections, social-media, internet-culture, australia, sydney-2000, canberra-2600, perth-6000, melbourne-3000, hobart-7000, adelaide-5000, brisbane-4000, darwin-0800

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