Update: Jiale Wang Suspended from Campaigning

Ellie Stephenson and Vina Zhou report.

Jiale (Wayne) Wang has been suspended from campaigning for 4 days after Pulp revealed yesterday that he had offered his faction, Panda, his stipend against the USU regulations.The Returning Officer, James Hoare, ruled to suspend Wang’s campaign from 10pm Wednesday 13 May until 12:01am Monday 18 May. The timing is intended to allow Wang to participate in tonight’s USU Election Soapbox. During the suspension period, Wang and his team will not be permitted to campaign. 

Jiale’s explanation of the messages to the RO, which he also provided to Pulp, was that he made the statement before he was nominated as a candidate, on 11 March. He claimed he had been made aware that the messages were inappropriate and deleted them soon afterwards. He said, “I am 100% sure that after I was nominated and sign the declaration, I read the constitution and did everything to obey the rule [sic]”. 

However, this statement does not explain why he added “please don’t leak this to the outside as this does not comply with the regulation”, which indicates he knew the offer wasn’t allowed. 

Wang also provided Pulp with screenshots of someone threatening to release the screenshots of his messages to someone unless he dropped out of the USU Election within 36 hours. Then, after he did not respond and Pulp published the story, the person threatened to send it to the Education Editor at the Sydney Morning Herald. The person said they would “prefer not to” leak the screenshots because they didn’t want to “humiliate Chinese international students as well”. They also complained that Wang needed to “reconsider what [his] real goal is”, making a number of vague criticisms about his conduct. They also appear to have sent Wang screenshots of the false declaration section of the Oaths Act.

It is unclear what exactly motivated these threats, but it seems related to the promises of funding Wang made to Panda.

The full translation of the screenshots is: 

1. Hi Wayne. If you withdraw from the election within 36 hours, these screenshots won’t be sent to anyone, I don’t want this to humiliate Chinese international  students as well.

2. Wayne, if you commit wrong, acknowledge it; if people criticise you, accept it. Withdraw now and I can see limited negative impact over you as everyone will be focusing on the other candidates. But if you obstinately cling to the wrong path, it would only bring you more trouble. Nobody wants to give you so much pressure, especially you are representing a whole party. USU is holding a democratic election, no one is guaranteed a seat, including Panda. You should reconsider what your real goal is, and whether this position is worth the price

3..I could email an education editor from SMH tomorrow morning, then the whole nation will realise what happened. However, I would prefer not to do this, as I am Chinese as well, and I don’t want us to be looked down for this.