Australian MP’s #WrongAsian gaffe deals fresh blow to Liberals days before election
- A Liberal MP who mixed up two Asian candidates, then refused to own up to her mistake, has been ridiculed on social media as the ruling coalition trails in opinion polls
- Australians say the racial myopia has worsened over the years as the Morrison government ramps up anti-China election tactics
On May 11, Liberal MP Fiona Martin attacked her Labor rival Sally Sitou’s commitment to the seat of Reid in Sydney in a heated radio interview, suggesting she was only there after having been “kicked out” of the Fowler electorate.
Martin had mistaken Sitou for another Asian politician, Vietnamese-Australian lawyer Tu Le, who lost her bid to represent Fowler – home to one of the country’s biggest Vietnamese communities – after Labor last September gave the safe seat to a “star” candidate, Kristina Keneally.
“Kristina Keneally kicked you out of Fowler,” Martin told Sitou, whose subsequent look of shock and confusion quickly went viral on social media with the hashtag #WrongAsian.
Refusing to apologise after Sitou called her out for confusing two different Asian-Australians, Martin doubled down on her blunder while Prime Minister Scott Morrison backed the inaccurate claim the next day. In 2019, Morrison had himself made a faux pas on the campaign trail after he greeted a voter in Mandarin, only for her to respond: “I’m Korean.”
