Just when all the attention should be on Scott Morrison’s Budget tonight, it appears Bill Shorten’s copping it instead after the fallout continues from his ‘Australians First’ ad that’s been lambasted for featuring a stack of anglo Aussies.
And it’s members of Shorten’s own party leading the attack. Yesterday afternoon, Labor frontbencher (and potential party leader) Anthony Albanese called the ad a “shocker” that “should never have been produced or shown”.
Check out the offending ad below:
It’s also been reported that Labor insiders are furious over the ad and demanding answers from the marketing department and its agencies.
Today, ACTU secretary Sally McManus continued a chorus of pro-Labor types slamming the ad.
“I think it was a really silly and a wrong ad,’’ McManus told ABC radio. “It didn’t represent what Australia is and I think Bill has apologised for it and withdrawn the ad and that is a good thing.
“I honestly don’t know what they were thinking,” she said.
Former ALP national president Warren Mundine said the ad was the work of Labor “dickheads”.
“This just shows how pathetic politics has become. Shorten’s advisers are complete dickheads and if I was him I’d give them two minutes to get out the door,” Mundine said, his comments reported on The Australian.
Initially, Shorten said it was “rubbish” to call the ad “racist” for having “too many white people” before quickly turning to a more apologetic tone as the rage escalated.
He later tweeted: “Some people have pointed out the lack of diversity in the ALP’s video about local jobs. Fair cop. A bad oversight that won’t happen again.”
Shorten also claimed he hadn’t seen the final version of the ad despite appearing in it which amused Liberal MP Craig Laundy.
“The gall of that man to explain to us that he was in an ad and had no idea of the content of that ad… I’m a Western Sydney MP and in Western Sydney we have a simple phrase: we call bullshit,” Landy was quoted as saying on TV news sites last night.
