The prime minister's office has confirmed WeChat's parent company Tencent has reached out after requests went unanswered for months.
The office had repeatedly tried to contact the company since July 2021 - including the CEO - after Mr Morrison lost control of his account with the Chinese messaging app.
A Tencent executive reached out to the office on 24 January, after the story went public with the account's blocking drawing accusations of foreign interference.
"The prime minister's office is now in direct discussions with the company about the matter and looks forward to a resolution," a spokesperson for Mr Morrison said.
Mr Morrison's account had been rebranded "New Life for Chinese Australians", and the description changed to "providing living in Australia information for the Chinese community".
Liberal senator James Paterson, who chairs parliament's intelligence and security committee has said the takeover was “very likely” sanctioned by the Chinese government and amounted to "foreign interference".
However, when SBS News Chinese contacted the new operator of the account, he claimed he had acquired it legitimately and knew nothing about the background of its history.
for Australian politicians to consider boycotting WeChat after Mr Morrison appeared to have been blocked from using the platform.
WeChat has become an increasingly important campaign tool for Australian politicians to connect with Chinese- speaking community members.
But Independent researcher Alex Joske last week told SBS News the risks posed by the social media platform meant WeChat should no longer be relied on given national security concerns.
“Politicians in especially electorates with large Chinese speaking communities have started to view WeChat as an indispensable part of their campaigning,” he said.
“[But] political parties and the government shouldn’t be letting the serious risk of political interference and surveillance through WeChat continue.”
In a significant move, Hong Kong-born Liberal MP Gladys Liu - whose Victorian seat of Chisholm includes a high proportion of Chinese Australians - announced last week she would no longer use WeChat in her campaigning.
WeChat official accounts, which are similar to official pages on Facebook, allow public figures, media companies and businesses to connect to more than 1.2 billion active users, who mainly reside in mainland China.
When Mr Morrison opened an official account in 2019, the social media platform required the owner to either supply the ID of a Chinese national or tie their account to a business registered in China.
The prime minister's office had used a Chinese agency to register the account using funds from the Liberal party.
It’s understood the option of having the account in Mr Morrison's name was not made available by Tencent, despite being asked by the company to provide proof in 2020 it was being managed on behalf of the prime minister.
With AAP
