On Sunday night, Australia's Liberal party released a new TV ad starring a tradie, drinking a cup of coffee on a worksite. Old mate is angry at opposition Labor leader Bill Shorten, who "wants to go to war with someone like me, who just wants to get ahead with an investment property."
The quick 30 second advertisement ends with a call to action, less than two weeks from the election, on why you should vote for the Liberal party.
Australia's political journalists were a little bit bewildered by the final line and its *inspiring* call to action.
Conservative commentators were quite literally like, "WTF".
The new LIBERAL ad is bloody awful! https://t.co/fbjdv4nviF https://t.co/Su3f0iHflq
And some of the major unions, who actually represent tradies, immediately took the piss.
he just wants a fair go dinki di VB cricket shannon noll BBQ crack at negatively gearing his 5th home #faketradie
The Australian Council of Trade Unions said the man in the ad is this guy, Andrew MacRae (who is an actor, not a tradie).
Others mentioned details of the building site that didn't quite fit.
Also, why is his saw-stool set up in a lane outside the fencing? And who has a ceramic cup on a building site?
Then the hashtag #faketradie was born.
Here's #faketradie hard at work building a BBQ...
#FakeTradie
Ha, how many takes? Grip on the cup changes at the cut at 0.10 #faketradie
It didn't take too long for there to be multiple parody accounts for the "fake tradie" because of course.
And there were wonderful memes for everyone.
Oo ees zis fack trédie
Except the ~inspiring~ tagline of the tradie really bothered some people and probably summed up this entire election.
Due to the popularity of #FakeTradie Malcolm should consider a redesign of his team's logo
UPDATE - 2pm AEDT Monday
A Coalition campaign spokesman says #faketradie is in fact a #realtradie.
"We are very pleased that people are talking about this ad which highlights the risks of Bill Shorten’s war on business. The tradie is real, unlike Mr Shorten’s claims about Medicare."
Andrew MacRae has also spoken out to say it isn't him in the ad, despite being named in the credits.
Dear all, It's not me. I'm not in the ad. I didn't voice the ad. I had nothing to do with the ad. #faketradie