Politics is definitely not a “clean” game, as different sides run negative campaigns against each other and mud sling claims, accusations etc. But when it sends out misinformation and fake news and is racist, that is considered dirty and pretty much disgusting, and this situation we will discuss here definitely is that. We only published yesterday about Independent candidate for Fowler Dai Le and the dirty tactics from some who cut into her election posters and wrote in Vietnamese calling her “evil” and a “communist”.
Now it has been reported by ABC News that there are Chinese Australian Liberal members falsely accusing other Chinese Australians who are more pro Labor or those who are critical of the Morrison Government as being under investigation by Australian intelligence agencies for election interference. In summary here is what has been found:
- ABC investigation found a scare campaign being waged on Chinese social media app WeChat, which claims that 4 Chinese Australians and 4 Chinese language news sites were being paid to make up fake news ahead of the federal election;
- Those who were attacked in this scare campaign are known critics of the Liberal Government;
- Melbourne businessman and Liberal Party member Bill Ma is one of those who are considered as prolific posters on this scare campaign and slanderous messages. His son, Tom is working on the election campaign of assistant treasurer Michael Sukkar;
- The scare campaign messages claim that the “Australian Intelligence Bureau” is monitoring these people – there is no such thing as the “Australian Intelligence Bureau”;
- The ABC have found no evidence that there is any official investigation into the named individuals;
Yang Han, who is a pro-Labor poster on WeChat, who is a former Chinese diplomat and been in Australia for 20 years has said that the Coalition Government is exploiting the issues around the China relationship (via ABC News):
“I write a lot in English-language newspapers and my views are clearly pro-Labor [and] that’s made a lot of Chinese-speaking Liberal supporters very angry.
“They assumed that, because I support Labor and I oppose the conservative government, I must be a Chinese spy.”
“They only use this Chinese agent angle as a way to attack Labor being soft on China, so that’s their ultimate goal in the end.”
AND now on the other side of politics on the Labor side, a Facebook page managed by the president of a local Labor branch in Queensland (from the electorate of Wright) has made a meme called Coalition MP and member for Chisholm Gladys Liu calling her a “Chinese spy” and using casual racist terms like saying she has “little eyes” for “spying”. The Facebook page has 850 followers and created in 2013 and co-run by the president of the ALP’s Boonah branch, Julie Jackson.
The post has since been removed with a change of name to “Labor for Wright Supporters — Boonah Branch“. An ALP spokesperson has released a statement saying:
“is not an official or authorised page, and we do not endorse its content”.
“Facebook is responsible for applying its terms and conditions to unauthorised pages,”
Jackson who co-ran that page told ABC News that someone from the ALP had told her to take down and remove the posts, which she did.
Quite problematic in our opinion to see racist stuff like this turn up. Whether you support Gladys Liu or not, this shit is not on, as is the shit coming out on WeChat from the Liberal Party.