![]() Opposition leader Bill Shorten had already taken to WeChat by May 2017, while Chris Bowen was the first federal Labor politician to own a subscription account. Kevin Rudd claimed that honour nearly six years ago. ![]() But he wasn’t the first Australian prime minister to open a WeChat account. Prime Minister Scott Morrison opened his official WeChat account in early February in anticipation of the forthcoming federal election. Mainstream Australian politicians have long used social platforms like Twitter and Facebook to engage voters, but their use of WeChat is a relatively recent phenomenon. A large majority of these Mandarin speakers prefer WeChat as their social media platform. Around 510,000 of these voters were born in China, and 597,000 speak Mandarin in the home. The 2016 Census counted approximately 1.2 million people of Chinese ancestry in Australia. It’s likely WeChat also played a role in Labor’s disastrous loss in the 2016 federal election, when the Liberal Party successfully harnessed the platform in the key marginal seat of Chisholm in Victoria.įocusing more attention on the platform is a smart strategy for politicians. Yung says this helped him secure an 8.4% swing in the primary vote in the seat of Kogarah held by Labor candidate Chris Minns. His defeat also offered a taste of the crucial role the Chinese social networking platform WeChat could play in the forthcoming federal election.Īfter Daley’s comments were publicised, Liberal candidate and Chinese-Australian Scott Yung reportedly published articles on WeChat accusing Daley of being a “racist”. ![]() NSW Labor leader Michael Daley’s “ young Asians with PhDs taking our jobs” blunder cost him dearly in the recent NSW state election. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |