Talk about a whopping mistake! In the spirit of Australia Day supermarket giant Woolworths attempted to get in on the action by releasing some Australia Day merchandise. The only thing is, our fine country has an extra piece of land underneath Victoria – Tasmania – which Woolies didn’t include.
Woolies apparently though forgot about one of our seven states and territories, proceeding to print the mainland on to the merchandise, but promptly left off Tasmania.
Consumers noticed the absence of part of our country and took to Woolies’ Facebook page to make sure the chain knew exactly how they felt.
A Woolworths spokesperson said the merch has been removed. “Woolworths is aware of the issue and in the process of withdrawing the product from our supermarket shelves.”
Woolies has been in similar hot water over its ‘Fresh in our Memories’ ANZAC Day campaign. The campaign caused such outrage there were reports the ad agency behind it had gone into hiding. However, the agency denied ever going into hiding, despite the barrage of backlash both they and Woolworths received.
However, Woolies isn’t the first retail chain to go a bit foggy headed when it comes to Australia Day. While yes, some celebrate the day with barbies and beers, the day is not a happy memory for many Indigenous Australians. The day is often referred to as Invasion Day, in recognition of when white settlement first came to Australia.
However, two years ago ALDI didn’t seem to take this into consideration and released a line of T-shirts with the words ‘Australia: EST 1788’.
Predictably this caused a rather major stink, with many labelling the shirts “racist” and culturally insensitive.
However, Fairfax Media claims the shirts had been approved by the Federal Government.
The shirts were soon removed from shelves.
Big W though didn’t seem to see all the hype though and put out a line of similar tees, which drew similar condemnation. Again, the chain withdrew the shirts.
Lead image credit: 9News
