With early voting underway, the political campaigning has ramped up. With a particular group of voters getting extra attention. There has been a rise in activity on Chinese social media apps, as candidates look to connect with communities in critical multicultural electorates, which saw a backlash against the Liberals in 2022.
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00:00Vivian Chen and Yan Zhong are best friends and workmates.
00:08They design clothes for a local business to sell, but today it's their turn to shop.
00:17Living in the marginal Western Sydney seat of Reid, the Burwood residents have different
00:21ideas about the election issues that matter to them.
00:25More support for the education.
00:31But they stay informed the same way, through Chinese social media apps.
00:36Normally I do all the news every day.
00:38WeChat and RedNote are popular in the Australian Chinese community.
00:42Reid MP Sally Situ says they're useful tools to connect with her multicultural electorate.
00:48You wouldn't expect to be speaking to young people through the Australian newspaper.
00:53You would be speaking to them through the social media channels that they use, like Instagram
00:58and TikTok.
00:59And so the same can be said for the Chinese community.
01:02The Liberal candidate eyeing her seat includes links to the apps on his campaign posters.
01:07We're a very diverse electorate.
01:09So I need to reach out to particularly, say, the Chinese community through the social media
01:13that they use.
01:14And we're going through all available channels in that regard.
01:17Justin Zhang is one of the voters they're hoping to attract.
01:21He's glad to see more Australian MPs and candidates embracing Chinese platforms.
01:26It's good that they are exploring the new social media for new migrants like me.
01:31Because we're using both of the social medias a lot.
01:34The ReCAPTCHA research team monitors the apps for political campaigning and advertising
01:39and has recorded a surge in content in recent weeks.
01:42Some of those content, they're tailored to Chinese migrant communities.
01:47For example, content via Australian politicians going to Chinese restaurants, drinking bubble teas.
01:54The researchers say it appears one party is campaigning particularly heavily here.
01:59We've seen a higher number of political advertisement by the Liberal Party members.
02:06Since January, ReCAPTCHA has found around 220 authorised Liberal ads on Chinese platforms
02:13and around 35 promoting the Labor Party.
02:16Most of the action features candidates targeting marginal multicultural seats.
02:21The Liberals are trying to win back an important cohort of voters.
02:25In 2022, the party lost a number of key seats and barely held on to others
02:31in areas with large Chinese-Australian communities.
02:34An internal review found it was driven by backlash
02:37against the Morrison government's tough stance on China.
02:41In the Brisbane seat of Morton, Peter Dutton sat down for yum cha.
02:46In the Victorian seat of Menzies, the PM had dumplings and tea.
02:50The real-life appeal is rolling on alongside the battle on WeChat and RedKnight.
02:55How are you going?
02:56Because FaceTime is important too.
02:58The Royal-life appeal was on the sea-yo-san feature back-to-day.
03:04Our social dialogue is not free to open up a few people's inboxes.
03:06We're not free to open up their assets.
03:07Because we have a Canadian community member,
03:09We have a network of people who are being ill,
03:12and we are not free to open up our doors to the table.
03:13So we're not free to open up our doors.
03:14We're not free to open up our doors after our entire government.
03:16In 2022, the UK has been funded by a network of local operators.
03:18We're not free to open up the world.
03:20We're not free to open up your minds if we want to open up our 겁니다.
03:21We'll have a network of people who are in the middle of the world to open it.
03:22So we're not free to open up our notebook.
03:23We have a network of people who have a network of people who are to outdoorsogen