The Prime Minister’s WeChat account was taken over and rebranded as ‘Australian Chinese new life’ earlier this month, according to the Daily Telegraph.
WeChat is China’s most popular messaging app with a monthly user base of over 1 billion and 1.5 million in Australia.
Liberal MP and former diplomat Dave Sharma said it was likely the account hack was sanctioned by the Chinese government.
He added that while the Prime Minister was right to have a WeChat account to try to connect with Australia’s Chinese diaspora, the platform was ultimately controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.
“It is more likely than not that he was sanctioned by the state, and that shows the attitude towards freedom of speech and free speech that comes out of Beijing,” he said Monday. at Sky News.
The Liberal chairman of a parliamentary intelligence and security committee, James Paterson, said the action was deeply concerning, with Morrison the only known target of him.
Senator Paterson called on all Australian politicians to boycott the platform.
“What the Chinese government has done by closing an Australian account is foreign interference in Australian democracy in an election year,” he said.
“No politician should be on WeChat legitimizing their censorship.”
Senator Paterson said it also concerned 1.2 million Chinese Australians who use the service could not access Prime Minister news but could still see government criticism on Opposition Leader Anthony’s platform Albanian.
Apparently Morrison’s WeChat account has been plagued with issues for at least six months, with the problems starting around the time he attended the G7 meetings in the UK.
The Prime Minister took a list of 14 requests given by the Chinese embassy to an Australian G7 journalist to warn world leaders of the dangers of giving China too much clout.
“It wouldn’t be at all surprising if these two events were linked,” Paterson said.
Government demands for WeChat to restore access to Morrison’s account fell on deaf ears.
“The government has directly appealed to WeChat to restore access and there has been no response, which seems pretty clear. WeChat has no intention of allowing the Prime Minister to continue posting,” a- he declared.
