An advertisement encouraging people to eat lamb on Australia Day criticised for inciting hatred towards vegans has been given the all-clear.
The ad from Meat and Livestock Australia, starring popular SBS newsreader Lee Lin Chin and long-time lamb consumption advocate Sam Kekovich, was cleared by the Advertising Standards Bureau during an ‘extraordinary meeting’.
The bureau said in a statement that a scene depicting a blow torch being applied to vegan food was an ‘exaggerated and humorous’ response to alternatives to lamb and did not discriminate against vegans.
Where was the ‘hatred’? More hyperbole from a beleaguered minority. It was just a not very good attempt at humour.
This is just another harmful stereotypical representation of Australia that keeps reminding the rest of the world that we think Australia is a better place to be than anywhere else. I for one, do not support the notion of ‘Australia Day’. What nonsense! I just don’t get it. Let’s get rid of Australia day and do something positive like turn it into ‘Let’s all recognise we are humans on planet Earth and save the F**ing Planet…now Day!
I am an Australian, but being proud to eat Lamb and have a barby on the beach..well, is it really something to shout to the world about? Come on Australia. Grow up! We have a lot more culture to offer the world (and our stomachs) than that. Is this really the image you want to sell to usAustralians and the rest of the world?
As for the vegan bit…well…yes, badly placed humour. I think it does smack of a bit of discrimination and again, it points to the’ dumbing down’ of our image by being so blunt and brazen. Time to let go of redneck attitudes and stereotyping Australia and Australians and join the world stage as grown ups.
The flesh eating industry is worried, and rightly so. Go Veg.