Election 2025: Labor targets Chinese voters with ‘Morrison memo’

Chinese-language signs tie Peter Dutton and the Liberal candidate for Tangney to Scott Morrison, who had a fractious relationship with China and parts of the Chinese community.

A Chinese-language Labor corflute outside the prepoll booth in the Perth seat of Tangney. Picture: Supplied

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Labor has invoked Scott Morrison in Chinese-language corflutes installed across a crucial multicultural seat it must hold if it wants to return to majority government.

Labor-authorised signs in Mandarin installed outside the prepoll centre in Tangney, a former blue-ribbon seat in Perth’s southern riverside suburbs, have since last week linked Peter Dutton and Liberal candidate for Tangney Howard Ong to the former prime minister, who had a fractious relationship with China and parts of the Chinese community during his time in office.

According to Google Translate, the signs read: “Morrison disappointed you. Dutton will only get worse. Supporting Howard Ong is to support Dutton.”

It implores voters to support incumbent Labor MP Sam Lim “for the future of Australia” and to “prevent Dutton from becoming prime minister”.

Tangney is the most marginal Labor-held seat in Western Australia, with Mr Lim – a Malaysian-born one-time dolphin trainer and former police officer – delivering a shock win for Labor in 2022 when he defeated incumbent Liberal Ben Morton.

Mr Lim holds the seat on a margin of 2.8 per cent.

He has shown himself to be gaffe-prone during his first term but is considered a strong grassroots campaigner with deep ties to Tangney’s large multicultural community.

He found himself enveloped in controversy last year after a WhatsApp message in his name attributed false comments to Anthony Albanese in the wake of a firebomb attack on a Melbourne synagogue.

Mr Lim initially tried to blame the message – which attributed the firebombing to “a few despondent radicals who had had enough of the continued aerial bombing of thousands of innocent children and women in Gaza by (Israel’s) single-minded troops” – to a hack of his WhatsApp account.

In March, Mr Lim invited a Chinese-born businessman previously linked to the Chinese Communist Party’s arm of foreign influence to the federal budget speech. The invitation came to light after Mr Lim’s office accidentally sent a reply-all email to parliament detailing the invitation.

Labor MP Sam Lim in Shanghai as a member of an Australian parliamentary delegation.

Despite the narrow margin, betting agencies have Labor well ahead in the battle for Tangney.

Mr Ong, a Singapore-born IT consultant, was the Liberals’ second choice for the seat after the man initially preselected, former SAS soldier and reality television star Mark Wales, dropped out.

Mr Wales had attracted some controversy after he wrote a novel set in a future Australia that had been invaded by the Chinese Communist Party.

A Liberal source said the messaging of the Chinese-targeted material showed the government did not have anything of its own to point to in Tangney. “Clearly they are too embarrassed to campaign on the record of the Prime Minister of the local MP,” they said.

Tangney has the largest ethnic Chinese population for any seat in WA. Some 16.5 per cent of people in the electorate have Chinese ancestry, compared to WA’s average of 4.4 per cent.