You've got to understand the Chinese mindset. In China, direct investment by your regular middle class punter is a very very new thing.
China has only very recently gone through it's first and only property correction. Values have fallen in Beijing and Shanghai by as much as 30%.
The harsh reality is that in China, there is nowhere else to really invest your money. The sharemarket is rigged, and a lot of people do not trust it, as they cannot physically hold / touch a share. Chinese people also generally do not like credit cards, most transactions are done in cash.
Property is seen as a safe investment vehicle, or at least it was.
This is why it is easy for unscrupulous investment companies to crank the handle on the old two tiered marketing scam. It's very easy to paint Australia in a good light in terms of investment due to our transparent system and true market economy.
Australia also has other aspects that the Chinese buyer loves. Space, few crowds, relatively no pollution, minimal traffic and cleanliness.
Chinese also like Australia because we have good secondary and tertiary educational institutions. Their mindset around education is very different to ours. The Chinese family will sacrifice everything to give their child a good education, so they will purchase properties in good school zones, to give their kids every possible chance at success.
Filial piety plays a huge role in Chinese culture and the parents see this investment in their kids coming back to them in the form of a very comfortable retirement.
Lastly the culture of face also would play a big part here. If you can own an investment in Australia you would be pretty big time amongst your circle of friends and co-workers. People in china share much more intimate details of their financial state, than we would in western society, such as what they earn per month, how many investments they have, how much money they made last year etc...etc... The ones that do well, or even appear to do well are admired and emulated.
All of these are factors that could be easily exploited by these sorts of companies to sell dodgy units on the gold coast, or in southbank to naive OS investors.