Annual advertising campaign from Meat and Livestock Australia launches with SBS newsreader and sport stars including Stephen Moore and Mitchell Johnson

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Popular SBS newsreader Lee Lin Chin has starred in this year’s Australia Day-themed lamb commercial, vowing to rescue stranded Aussies from lambless days around the world.

The annual advertising campaign from Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) has for more than a decade pushed lamb as the traditional meal for Australians celebrating on 26 January.

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In the latest iteration Chin, traumatised by her memory of a cold 1996 Australia Day in Warsaw, leads “Operation Boomerang”, extracting “stranded” Australians from overseas locations to bring them home for Australia Day.

Among those rescue is Wallabies captain Stephen Moore, who sits slumped in the change rooms at Twickenham, three months after the end of the Rugby World Cup. An unnamed princess is airlifted from “definitely not Copenhagen”.

Retired cricketer Mitchell Johnson, relaxing by a pool in Bali is told “no one retires from backyard cricket”.

It’s the first year with Chin in the campaign’s “lambassador” role, following the late Richie Benaud. Original lambassador, Sam Kekovich, returns as the lead helicopter pilot.

Chin has presented news for SBS since the early 90s, but in recent years built up her cult following with comedic appearances on SBS 2’s The Feed, and her Twitter account.

The 2016 Australia Day commercial forms part of the MLA campaign to ensure “you never lamb alone”. It was released online on Sunday and will be on televisions Monday.

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Being an ad for the meat industry, there is also a joke at the expense of vegans. The first commercial, a fast-spoken rant by Sam Kekovich, said “exotic, foreign, often vegetarian cuisine” on Australia Day was “an absolute disgrace” and vegetarians could “get stuffed”.

“And people ask why we need capital punishment,” said Kekovich. The ad prompted complaints to the Advertising Standards Bureau.