A furor of xenophobia has raged through Chinese social media since the historical Labor victory within the Australian parliament and the passing of the Medivac Bill. This outrage has been kept alive by major Wechat public accounts each releasing their new account of it every few days.
The articles released by major Wechat public accounts such as ‘Australian Red Scarf’ have been incredibly sensationalised. Their article quoted heavily from the Daily Mail while also cherry picking crimes committed by people of middle- eastern descent, refugee or not. For example, the story of the 2016 Minto stabbing attack was used as an example of dangerous refugees, despite the fact that the perpetrator, Ihsas Khan, was born in Australia.
Other publications such as MLife used headlines such as “Right now! Boatloads of refugees are preparing to come to Australia，with already 14000 already lined up! This time it’s for real…”
Melbourne WeLife went even further, as they made a fake Bill Shorten quote and plastered on a photo of him. The quote reads “Green cards for all refugees! Let them share in our prosperity!”
- Then they went even further by making the claim that “this basically means, if Labor is elected, more than 10000 refugees will be able to instantly claim Australian permanent residency without any further testing!”
This was then further compounded by Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, releasing a personal letter to the Chinese community. The letter attacked Labor for putting political victories above national security and how that the Liberal party have a plan prepared to steer the country to safety if elected.
The first half of the Prime Minister’s letter to the Chinese Community heralded with Lunar New Year well wishes.
The Chinese response has in turn been very negative for the left leaning parties.
Definitely not voting for Greens or Labor.
Labor trash, always looking for trouble
Even though the other party is just as rotten, I’m still not voting Labor
What more, the editor of Australian Red Scarf then doused the spreading fire with more oil.
In response to this comment:
What’s the point of studying to get a permanent residency, can the editor please tell me how I can get refugee status, haha.
The editor replied with this:
The editor wants to know how to get refugee status too!!!
News like this certainly will affect the upcoming Federal elections, especially in seats such as Chisholm. The Chinese heavy seat is currently contested by two Chinese candidates, with Jennifer Yang for Labor and Gladys Liu for Liberal. It will be interesting to see what developments happen in the future and how long this outrage will last or if more stories will be sensationalised.
