From Labor’s rebranded ‘Dan Andrews’ to the Coalition’s grainy black and white attack ads (streaked red with the blood of cage fighters) and a truly bizarre independent’s anthem in praise of tradies, Victoria’s election videos are a mixed bunch to say the least

The Victorian election campaign hasn’t exactly been a titanic struggle of competing visions.



It has mostly consisted of small targets, narrowly scripted doggerel and a flurry of funding promises aimed at marginal seats. Our very own Gay Alcorn may well have summed it up best by calling the election “somehow shrivelled up, a long list of set piece promises, many tiny, without a larger story.”

The political advertising that has accompanied this campaign has largely been risible and with the media-buying escalating as we approach Saturday’s poll, it is largely inescapable if you are minded to watch commercial TV.

But there is a clutch of standout ads that have grabbed the attention, for comical reasons or for their sheer awfulness.

At first, it’s hard to see what Jeff Bartram, independent candidate for the upper house, is trying to get at in this epic four-minute music video.

We see Bartram emerge, in his underwear, from a box, leading a continuous chant of “goin’ to uni” as shorts and high-vis vests fly onto the bodies of the tradies who are seemingly being deified over slovenly, befuddled university graduates.

One useless uni grad is shown wallowing in a paddling pool gorging on watermelon fed to him by a woman but things take a darker turn when – rather controversially – he attempts suicide in the bath. A completely mind-boggling ad that will have the words “tradesman’s entrance” whirring around your election-hating mind.

Whatever your political allegiance, you’d have to feel a tad sorry for Greens candidates in rural areas. Dismissed as latte-guzzling inner city types, Greens don’t do well convincing farmers to vote for them.

This effort by Carl Sudholz surely won’t do any harm. To the tune of Johnny Comes Marching Home, Sudholz is shown gyrating around the rural seat of Lowan, in eastern Victoria, simply urging people to “vote for someone else.”

Depressingly, the vast majority of Victorian election ads are the negative attack kinds, overwhelmingly aimed at either Liberal or Labor. Premier Denis Napthine’s face has been shown to meld awkwardly with that of Tony Abbott, while Labor leader Daniel Andrews’ links with the CFMEU have been endlessly aired.

This Liberal ad continues the CMFEU theme, but comes with a twist. “What kind of Victoria do you want?” asks a voiceover before, astonishingly, showing a bloodied, screaming man inside a cage.

“Daniel Andrews wants to turn Victoria into the cage fighting state,” the voiceover explains. “Is this what you want?” it asks, zooming in on the fighter’s mangled visage. Clearly there are some vital swinging anti-cage fighting voters out there. Somewhere.

Who is Daniel Andrews? Yes, it’s a struggle, I know. What about Dan Andrews instead? Bingo.

Early in the campaign, Labor attempted to soften its leader’s image while also increasing his profile. Thus Daniel became Dan and we were treated to this ad of Andrews smiling serenely beside the Yarra. “Hi, I’m Dan Andrews,” he says, in a kind of see-I’m-a-good-bloke-lets-have-a-nice-tea-and-biscuit-together kind of way.

“My daughter Grace asks me why I’m in politics when there are nasty ads about me on TV,” Dan tells us, as he walks around a park with his children, pushing them on swings until they are sick of it. “It’s like school, sometimes kids say things about you to take attention away from themselves.”

It’s not hard to see the kind of negative advertising that Dan Andrews is peeved at. Pictures of the Labor leader in black and white, sweating and looking rather dim are not only on TV but billboards, newspapers and online.

The Liberals have campaigned hard against Labor’s spending promises, claiming that $32bn has been pledged without any explanation of how it will be paid for.



To highlight this, the Liberals have devised a fun (OK, not really that fun) game where you can try to control a picture of Andrews, with helicopter blades on his head, to stop him making his crazy spending promises. This game hasn’t exactly gone viral.

