Senator Andrew Bartlett
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
 
Australia Day Message from the meat industry – is eating lamb for meatheads?
A fun new advertisement put together by the Meat industry featuring Sam Kekovich got a bit of coverage in the mainstream media and on some blogs a few days ago. With his usual lashings of heavy irony, Kekovich bags people who don't eat lamb chops on Australia Day as unAustralian. Some people got a bit irate about it, suggesting it was insulting to vegetarians – in particular his line about ‘soap avoiding, pot smoking, hippie vegetarians’ and perhaps also his reference to ‘long-haired dole-bludging types indulging their pierced taste buds’.

When I had a look at the advert, it seemed to me that it’s core message was that if you ate lamb chops it was a fair bet you were a beer guzzling, thong wearing, brain dead yobbo who thinks being racist is funny – a sort of “be a real meathead - eat meat” type of campaign. I guess it shows how perception is in the eye of the beholder.

The label of ‘unAustralian’ is used by pretty much everyone these days – I saw a poster from an animal welfare group called Australians Against Cruelty who’ve used it with a picture of mulesing.

I think I score about 50% on the Kekovich stereotype list. As most readers on this site would know, I am a strong advocate of vegetarianism and a teetotaler. But as I mentioned a few days ago, I’ve never been a pot smoker. You will just have to take my word for it that I’m also not a soap avoider or a hippie. I used to be on the dole and used to have long hair (and wouldn’t mind having it again) and have lots of piercings in my ears but wouldn’t pierce my tongue if you paid me.

If you haven’t seen the advert and want to form your own opinion, it can be viewed by clicking here. While you’re viewing videos about sheep, you may want to look at the footage on this page of what sheep that are part of Australia’s live export trade have to endure (warning: some of the footage is very graphic and should not be viewed by children).

Industries that rely on sheep have come under a lot of criticism about animal cruelty lately, so maybe the meat industry thought that laughter might be a better form of defence. It’s certainly a better approach than that of Australian Wool Innovation, which launched court action aimed at stopping people campaigning against cruelty in the wool industry. (although this silencing tactic wasn’t supported by the Australian Wool Growers Association)

The longstanding and growing community concern about the live export trade and the newer but significant campaign against mulesing will undoubtedly continue. The basic fact that there is significant cruelty involved is hard to deny, regardless of the spin and selective truths some in the industry wish to persist with.

To paraphrase a quote from another Sam Kekovich rave, "I love truth, and the way they still use it occasionally to keep us guessing."

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Wednesday, January 26, 2005 Permalink
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