New TVCs will be launched Australia-wide on Sunday that pin the deaths of children in road accidents on the Coalition’s policy. The ads are funded by the Transport Workers Union and pertain to the government’s opposition to paying higher rates to truck drivers, according to AFR.

The ad shows two young children in the back seat of a car, before flashing to a tired truck driver being instructed, “We’re under pressure here, you need to deliver tonight”.

The screen goes black and a loud crash sound can be heard, implying a collision between the car and truck, while the message that 2548 Australians have died in truck accidents over the last decade.

The final point stressed by the campaign urges viewers to “put the Liberals last”.

Ahead of calling the election, the Coalition scrapped the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, claiming the Transport Workers Union was calling for unaffordable demands. But TWU national secretary Tony Sheldon has defended the grim ads, per AFR.

Sheldon said the community needed to “fight back against politicians who are going to stand by and see more of our loved ones killed”.

“The tribunal will not be dead unless people decide they are happy to see slaughter on our roads, and we’re not,” he told The Australian Financial Review.

“‘The details of how it’s best formulated within legislation is something al of the parties should be having a conversation about, but the fundamental thing is that there needs to be a tribunal that holds clients accountable and that deals with the issue of remuneration and safety.”

Hitting back at the agrressive tactics, employment minister Michaelia Cash called the campaign “deliberately misleading and utterly disgraceful”, per AFR.

“The TWU knows that the tribunal was never about safety and all about union power. Even former TWU employees admitted this.”

“Tony Sheldon and the TWU should be ashamed of themselves for this rank politicisation of road fatalities and I call on Bill Shorten to denounce this advertisement.”