Let’s WeChat: Shorten in direct pitch to Chinese

Bill Shorten has tried to win back support from Chinese-Australian voters following the disastrous NSW election defeat.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten in Melbourne yesterday. Picture: AAP

Bill Shorten has made a dramatic move to win back support from Chinese-Australian voters following last week’s disastrous NSW election defeat, declaring Labor is not a racist party and that he welcomes the rise of China as a global power.

In a group chat with nearly 500 Chinese-speaking voters on the WeChat Live social media service — the first by an Australian ­political leader — Mr Shorten said yesterday that Labor would make it easier for ­immigrant families to get visas for ageing ­parents, and highlighted the governme­nt’s past attempt to ­introduce a university-level ­lang­uage test for would-be ­citizens.

Days after intervening to blast out Michael Daley as NSW Labor leader following his damaging anti-Asian comments, the Opposition Leader told Chinese-­Australian voters that “racism from anyone is unacceptable”.

Mr Shorten — who is eyeing off the swing seats of Chisholm, Banks, Reid, Bennelong and Deakin­, which boast influential local Chinese-Australian communities — will use scandals involving One Nation and Fraser Anning to press home Labor’s cred­entials as a pro-multicultural party ahead of the May election.

The Labor leader told WeChat users he was “pro-immigrant”, and pledged Labor would make it easier to bring their parents to Australia on a new temporary sponsored visa, which the government had promised but not yet ­delivered, and would limit to one set of parents per household.

“Labor wants to make sure you never have to pick which parents you want to bring to Australia,” he said on the Chinese social media platform.

With Chinese voters looming as key constituents in a raft of seats at the upcoming election, Mr Shorten said Labor was not afraid of the rise of China.

“America will always be importan­t to the security for Australia, but if I am prime minister I welcome the rise of China in the world,’’ he said. “I don’t see … China as a strategic threat. I see it as a strategic opportunity. What I want to see is greater mutual understanding ­between all of us.”

 

Mr Shorten opened the WeChat Live session with a repudiation of Mr Daley’s claims that “Asians with PhDs” were taking jobs from “our kids”, which he made last September but which emerged late in the NSW election campaign, sinking Labor’s chances of victory. “Hi, we’re getting a lot of questions about Michael Daley, the former NSW Labor leader, and his wrong comments,” Mr Shorten said.

“I just want to make clear as the leader of the federal Labor Party I don’t agree with what he said and the comments should not have been made.”

Mr Shorten joined the session with Labor’s Chinese-Australian candidate for Chisholm, Jennifer Yang, after an earlier visit to the Melbourne seat where one in five voters speaks either Mandarin or Cantonese at home.

The day before, he visited the Sydney seat of Reid, where retiring Liberal member Craig Laundy had built strong connections with the Chinese community. Mr Shorten­ also gave interviews to ­Chinese-language media in Victor­ia and NSW this week.

Scott Morrison also targeted the Chinese vote yesterday in the Sydney seat of Banks, held by ­Immigration Minister David Coleman.

Asked during the WeChat ­session about racism, Mr Shorten hammered the Prime Minister for refusing to commit to putting One Nation and “other extreme right-wing parties” last on how-to-vote cards. “Mr Morrison won’t do that because he can’t convince his own party to do it,” he said.

Mr Shorten also highlighted Liberal attempts to overturn ­section 18C of the Racial ­Discrimination Act, which makes it unlawful to “offend, ­insult, ­humiliate or intimidate” a person on the basis of race.

Mr Shorten said this amounted to an attempt to “allow more hate speech”, and raised the ­government’s past attempt to introduced tougher language require­ments for citizens.

“We stopped Morrison and Dutton from making it harder for Chinese Australians to ­become citizens,” he said.

“They had a plan to introduce (a) university-level English test. Labor stopped it. I believe everyone in Australia should be learning conversational English.

“A university-level test is a standard that the government put up to make it difficult for some people to become Australians.”

Mr Shorten came under fire after the session from ­Chinese-Australian property ­developers who were concerned about Labor’s negative gearing policy.

One said: “My concerns is that the residential property market (is) already under pressure from internal and external conditions. It not only impact(s) our industry (property development), but also for retail, finance and etc …”

Mr Morrison has also used WeChat, though not WeChat Live, using the platform to talk about the Coalition’s support for a “diverse and harmonious ­society” following comments by Nationals senator Barry O’Sullivan over “some bloody old China­man”.