Anti-Labor WeChat election scare campaign targets Chinese-Australians | ABC News

Описание: 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.

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

Read more here: https://ab.co/2LowN2H

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?"

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.

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.

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.