While The Age was publishing bitter scare pieces about Daniel Andrews' trade mission to China, Australia’s largest Chinese language newspaper was praising the trip.
The newspaper, Australian Chinese Daily, wrote glowingly about the improving relationship between Australia and China, and the constructive nature of the trade mission's meetings, while The Age was taking a much darker route, alluding to sinister CCP motives and fixating on Premier Andrews not inviting their journalists on the trip.
This all occurred in the week of the Aston by-election. Significantly, Chinese Australians make up 14.1% of Aston's population, the largest non-Anglo demographic in the seat.
It was a group that Peter Dutton desperately needed to win back. Chinese Australian voters had deserted the Liberal Party at the 2022 federal election, thanks in no small part to Dutton's poisonous anti-China rhetoric as defence minister.
In the lead-up to the federal election, Dutton had broken long-standing bipartisan policy and declared that Australia would join America in militarily defending Taiwan from any Chinese invasion. This provocative dog whistle was emblematic of the ways that Dutton became increasingly extreme as the election neared.
His anti-China rhetoric worsened when he declared that the Chinese Communist Party was backing Albanese and Labor in the election. The statement was so toxic that it provoked an unprecedented public warning from ASIO's chief, Mike Burgess.
On Anzac Day, Dutton said that Australia should prepare for war. This was a new low in Dutton's anti-China campaign.
As polling day neared, Dutton flew to Perth and held a press conference to declare that a Chinese spy ship in international waters far off Western Australia was “an aggressive act.”
In reality, Dutton's anti-China statements were the clear acts of aggression. Chinese Australian voters returned the sentiment at the federal election. Seats with a high concentration of Chinese Australians delivered swings against the Liberal Party that were almost double the swing in other seats. The Liberal Party's election review called the loss of Chinese Australian votes a significant factor in the federal election defeat.
With Aston reduced to a slim 2.8% margin, the Liberal Party needed to recapture Chinese Australian votes at the by-election, and above all else, avoid losing more of them.
The Age and the Victorian Liberal Party didn't get the memo. In the week of the by-election, Chinese Australians opening The Age read alarmist stories about the trip that Victoria's Labor premier was taking to China. Days later in the same paper, they read about the Victorian Liberal Party announcing an upper house inquiry into the trip.
They also read the most melodramatic story of all, from no less than the state political editor, which claimed that Daniel Andrews' trip was the most secretive by a politician since Henry Kissinger went to China in 1971. This laughable claim ignored the facts that Andrews' trip was announced, an itinerary was released, and he answered questions from the media about it. It also ignored Scott Morrison's secret trip to Hawaii, which wasn’t announced to the media or the public, and was then denied for days while the Prime Minister was secretly out of Australia, on a tropical holiday, as large swathes of the country burned.
The Age's statement was demonstrably wrong and summed up Nine's anti-China hostility perfectly. The claim wouldn't have been made about a trip to New Zealand or, say, a secret family history side-trip in England at the height of the pandemic. But, with Daniel Andrews announcing a trip to China, publishing an itinerary, and then going without The Age's journalists, it was apparently the most secretive trip by any politician in the world since 1971. Really?
The Age has become increasingly pro-Liberal Party since Nine and its chairman Peter Costello took control of the newspaper, but this was a new low, albeit in a long series of new lows.
Only weeks before Daniel Andrews' trip to China, The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald came under fire for a hawkish series of front page articles titled 'Red Alert'. This series created the illusion of an imminent Chinese military threat to Australia, replete with an illustration of fighter planes leaving China en route to Australia. Paul Keating called it the most egregious and provocative news presentation in over 50 years.
The Age's deeply suspicious tone about Daniel Andrews’ trade mission to China came hot on the heels of the anti-China sentiment in the 'Red Alert’ series.
To Chinese Australians, these stories - all undercut with implications of a lurking Chinese threat - could fit neatly into the long history of anti-Chinese hostility in Australia.
It's not a long bow to connect the 'Yellow Peril' of the gold rush era, the shameful racism of the White Australia policy, and the current media posturing against a supposed Chinese threat. These voices are convinced that China's forces are massing, just over the horizon, but coming as soon as we relax.
White Australians might be sceptical about these recent stories fitting into a longer historical narrative. Ask Chinese Australians who suffered racist abuse during Morrison's trade war. Ask Chinese Australians who suffered daily racism during the early months of the pandemic.
This is the tense climate that greeted Chinese Australians during the week of the Aston by-election. They read about Labor's Daniel Andrews going to China to develop stronger business ties and Labor Prime Minister Albanese supporting the trade mission. They read about the Victorian Liberal Party announcing an alarmist inquiry into the trip. They read multiple articles in The Age about the trade mission's supposedly sinister undertones. Here's one shameful example:
These ugly claims echoed Peter Dutton's toxic 'Labor and the CCP’ rhetoric before the 2022 election.
In the week of the Aston by-election, The Age readers didn't find quotes from Dutton supporting Daniel Andrews’ trip. They did read about Dutton being absent from parliament when the Voice referendum bill was introduced, just as he was absent during the Apology to the Stolen Generations in 2008.
Dog whistling is not quickly forgotten by its victims. Dutton's stream of thuggish anti-China provocations before the 2022 election were brought back to the surface in the week of the Aston by-election. Chinese Australians were left in no doubt about which side of politics was trying to mend ties and which side of politics was still hostile.
Dutton’s Liberal Party went on to suffer a historic loss at the Aston by-election, attracting a further six per cent swing against the party. Evidently for Dutton, too many people had been reading the news.
I am enjoying your work and I am sharing it widely. Wish I was in a position to support you with dollars, but alas! I am not.
Excellent article, many thanks. Yes I am mostly remembering to share your articulate articles.