The lamb industry has pulled off an “un-Australian” U-turn after years of ads pushing the meat as the quintessential Aussie feed.
Meat and Livestock Australia’s latest famous summer ad featuring Sam Kekovich pokes fun at dobbers, boasters, speed cameras and parking inspectors.
But its real target is something that seems to be everywhere: an insatiable appetite to label things “un-Australian”.
It’s a bit of a departure from previous campaigns that drew complaints for lambasting vegans and particularly the original ad 15 years ago, a stump speech slamming the “creeping tide of un-Australianism eroding our great traditions”.
Using a “cheat stick” to play pool? Un-Australian.
Eating a meat pie with cutlery? Un-Australian.
Charging $1 for sauce to put on said pie? Un-Australian.
Not knowing the words to the Cold Chisel classic Khe Sanh? Un-Australian.
As noted by the ad’s star — not Kekovich but a woman of colour pulling beers at the pub — “it’s getting a little out of hand”.
“There’ll be no one left soon,” she says.
In this alternate world, “Un-Australian” is not just “the worst thing you can ever call an Australian”, but enough to make you disappear entirely.
“Where do they go?” a punter asks Ruby the bartender.
“Oh just an infinite cultural exile from which they can never return,” she replies, seconds before disappearing herself after accidentally switching the TV to a film with “un-Australian” subtitles.
It’s dusty, hot and rapidly filling up with banished Aussies.
Even Kekovich, the very symbol of Aussie summer barbecues, is there.
“All I said was ‘bon appetit’,” the “lambassador” complains.
But the media figure has brought one important thing with him.
Cut back to Australia, where the struggling remains of humanity find out there’s “a lamb barbecue happening in exile”, and all it takes to get an invite is professing love for the All Blacks, declaring beetroot has no place on a burger or some other “un-Australian” sin.
“Looks like we’re all a bit un-Australian,” one exile says, teeing up a final chance to hammer home the main message.
“Guess that’s what makes us Australian.”
The ad debuted last night after research Meat and Livestock Australia said revealed 53 per cent of Australians believed the term “Un-Australian” had become overused to the point of confusion.
Despite, or perhaps because of, this, 45 per cent of survey respondents said they’d been hit with the label and 52 per cent said they’d used it to describe something.
MLA domestic market manager Graeme Yardy said use of the term was “out of control”.
“Everything from how you eat your pie to having a wedding on grand final day is on the chopping block,” he said, in a press release.
“Chances are you’ll be viewed as ‘un-Australian’ by someone.”
