Ad about military campaign bringing ‘stranded’ Australians home for an Australia Day lamb meal insensitive for a day of anger and mourning for many

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

The Australia Day-themed lamb commercial starring Lee Lin Chin has come under fire for depicting a military campaign called “Operation Boomerang” on what is considered a day of anger and mourning for many Indigenous people.

Lee Lin Chin promises to rescue expats from lambless Australia Day in new ad Read more

The ad also attracted more than 50 complaints about a scene making fun of vegans.

The commercial for Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA), released online on Sunday, features SBS newsreader Chin leading a military operation to extract “stranded” Australians from around the world, bringing them home for an Australia Day lamb meal.

It features famous Australians including the former “lambassador”, Sam Kekovich, the Wallabies captain, Stephen Moore, and the retired cricketer, Mitchell Johnson.

The ad has been criticised for a number of reasons including the depiction of Australians militarily invading foreign countries and the appropriation of the Indigenous word “boomerang” to celebrate the arrival of European settlers.

Australia Day, also referred to as Invasion Day or Survival Day, routinely attracts protests against celebrating the arrival of the first fleet – the beginning of Indigenous dispossession, colonisation and massacres.

It’s time to forge a national day to unite original and new Australians | Paul Daley Read more

Celeste Liddle, a trade unionist and social commentator on Indigenous and feminist issues, said while “boomerang” is a very commonly known word, it is still an Aboriginal term, and its use felt like misappropriation ahead of planned national protests by Indigenous groups and their supporters on Australia Day.

“We’re still very much trying to struggle for our rights and once again we’re being assimilated into a concept, this proud Australiana concept that a lot of us aren’t remotely comfortable with,” Liddle said.

“If we don’t like this proud Australiana sort of thing it ends up being our issue, rather than about the fact that [the boomerang] is our weaponry and a lot of us maintain a very different position on the settlement of Australia and what it means to us as a people.

“We don’t really appreciate being ignored while our images are being used.”

Ruby Hamad, a writer on race and feminist issues, said “[the ad] probably wouldn’t be so bad if not for the ‘boomerang’ ”.

“The issue with the ad is that it appropriates a specific aspect of a culture that is often derided and mocked in order to promote a supposed shared cultural celebration [Australia Day], which also happens to be one that many Aboriginal people feel largely excluded from because it has come at the expense of their own culture and history.”

Hamad said a lack of diversity in the Australian media industry led to incidents like this.

“If there had been someone at the table who could have raised that issue and said, ‘Wait a minute. Look at what we’re actually doing here,’” she said.

“We’ve come to a place in our discussions on issues of racism where a lot of it’s not deliberate hatred and antagonism, it’s just blindly going through and not even thinking about how this affects people from different groups.”

The commercial, which will be screened on Australian television on Monday, also made a joke at the expense of vegans, attracting more than 50 complaints in 24 hours to the Advertising Standards Bureau, Mumbrella reported.

The complaints were primarily about the violence displayed when a man’s table is torched with a flame-thrower.

The ASB was fast-tracking its hearings for the complaints, given the short run for the ad.

The group marketing manager for the MLA, Andrew Howie, said it was natural for a brand or produce to have a competitor. “For us, it’s non meat-eaters,” he said. “Last year we had a light-hearted jibe at the gluten-intolerant ... The year before there was a vegetarian gag.

“It’s a light-hearted joke.”

Howie said the ad had been well-received and resonated with a lot of Australians who had spent extended periods overseas and been homesick on certain days and dates.

Howie said he had been unaware of criticism from Indigenous people and when making the ad did not consider using the word boomerang would be controversial.

“We’re a brand that’s for a long time celebrated what it is to be Australian and bringing people together,” he said. “The notion of boomerang is just something that returns and it seemed suitable given we were setting out to return Australians home.

“The thing with a campaign as high-profile as Australia Day is we set out to appeal to as many people as possible, but it’s impossible to appeal to everyone. That’s always a very tough balancing act.

“The higher the profile the greater risk you have with criticism, but it’s really important to note that every year what we set out to do is always in good will and ultimately in good humour.”

Australia Day is too political for it to be just a celebration, said Luke Pearson, founder of the IndigenousX Twitter account on which guest posters share their stories and opinions to increase awareness and education on Indigenous life and history.

Pearson In The Wind (@LukeLPearson) That Australia Day ad is funny; Australia invading all those countries... It's so good I think we should all call it #InvasionDay instead.

“That Australia Day ad is funny; Australia invading all those countries … It’s so good I think we should all call it #InvasionDay instead,” he tweeted on Sunday.

“I just thought it was odd that on a day many of us call Invasion Day there’s an ad about Australia invading other countries to bring all those white guys ‘home’,” he said.

“I did notice Sam Kekovich saying he wanted to avoid politics and just celebrate a day where we can all come together as one though, and that is an awesome idea, and I’d love to have a day where we could do that to promote healing and harmony between all of the many peoples who now call these lands their home. It just can’t be on Invasion Day. It’s not a date which epitomises ‘bringing people together’. It is a date that celebrates invasion and colonialism.”