Unfortunate events: Work Choices

[lederhosen]

Long story short, after introducing some fairly unpopular workplace legislation two years ago, the Howard government is now running a crapload of 'informational' ads to tell us that 'WorkChoices' is a big fluffy kitten that only wants to be the worker's friend. (It is entirely coincidental that there's an election coming up in a few months, and that informational ads are paid for out of public funds rather than the party's election budget.)

One of the ads goes something like this:

CONCERNED DAD: I'm being told employees can just rip off young kids.

COMFORTING VOICE: No they can't. Since you mention it, let me tell you how wonderful the protections for under-18s are. [Sound of cash registers as ad is repeated ad nauseam on prime-time TV from now until election day.]

Unfortunately...

Fresh allegations have emerged that Damien Richardson, an actor who appeared in a Workplace Authority ad, ripped off other workers, including his own son, whom he failed to pay for almost three months' work in 1999... Mr Richardson, a former painter and part-time actor, played a father in an ad designed to reassure young workers they could not be exploited under Work Choices. He now has an appointment with the Workplace Ombudsman in Melbourne today to explain his conduct as an employer.

I can't blame the government for that - it would be ludicrous to expect background checks on everybody appearing in government advertising, especially considering how much of it there is in an election year - but I doubt it's how they wanted this ad to be remembered...

Comments

[waitingman.livejournal.com]

You may enjoy this take on the whole business...

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

I agree with the author that actors are actors... but something like this has a way of taking the punch out of the original campaign. It's not something Joe Hockey or his department could reasonably have avoided, but it's still going to hurt them.

Also, the examples he gives are a bit specious in that most of them don't go directly against what the ad/film/etc is supposed to be saying. For instance, he claims "Those women in the domestic violence advertisements are actors who haven't really been bashed" (not a very safe assumption), but a better parallel here would be if one of those actors actually had a history of violence against her partner. If that happened, I think the ad would end up being pulled.

[ruth-lawrence.livejournal.com]

I'm delighted that everything is going so obviously wrong for the !#$%^&*.