Three decades after the somewhat chilling Grim Reaper AIDS ads first aired, businessman Dick Smith has launched a new version of the ad, but with a slightly different message.
Using the same voice-over from the 30-year-old ad, the impassioned TV spot launched at a media conference with Smith at the Hilton Hotel in Sydney this morning. However, Smith says he's angry that he has to spend $1 million on an ad that should be going to charities like St Vincent de Paul and the Salvos, but instead “is being sent to wealthy TV station and newsprint owners”.
See: Singo will probably get a kickback': an irreverent Q&A with Dick Smith
Entrepreneur Smith, who founded Dick Smith Electronics in 1968 before it was sold to Woolworths Ltd in 1982 - and was subsequently acquired by Kogan.com last year - believes because of the growing rift between the wealthy and the poor that we are changing the egalitarian country that we once knew.
“Endless growth will destroy Australia as we know it today,” Smith says.
“Aussie families can have up to 20 kids during their lifetime, but none do. They decide on a number they can give a good life to. But our major political parties have no similar plan for Australia.
“It is simply endless growth and endless greed – meaning the finite wealth has to be divided between more people, and that means less for most.”
The ad features snippets of Prime Minster Malcom Turnbull, opposition Leader Bill Shorten along with Julie Bishop, Kevin Rudd, Joe Hockey, Wayne Swan, Penny Wong, Alex Hawke, Mathias Cormann, Bruce Billson and Scott Morrison.
He says Australia’s wealthiest 1% own more than the bottom 70% - which is 17 million Aussies.
Smith says eight out of 10 Australians he talks to want a proper population plan, but no major political party reflects this – adding they are “so obsessed” with pleasing the 1% who have all the money that the greed overruns all.
The the voice over in the ad says: “Our growth-addicted economic system will see our children living in a world of eleven billion people, consuming and polluting more than our finite planet can withstand. It’s a path to either more and more inequality, or famine, disaster, war and collapse. Are we that stupid?”
The Grim Reaper commercial was a 1987 Australian TV ad aimed at raising public awareness on the dangers of AIDS. Check out the old ad here:
Smith, who also runs the Dicksmithfairgo website, will go to Canberra this Wednesday to meet with politicians at Parliament House.
On his website he says: "Surely our grand-kids should have as good a life as we have had? That is a fundamental belief of our group. The prime aim will be to find ways to stabilise our population and to share the wealth better.”
64 pgs, 18 charts, crammed with practical, sensible information. Download the PDF or contact us to order one free: https://t.co/we6GwGAUf5 pic.twitter.com/2tUPX4gPns
— Dick Smith (@DickSmithFairGo) August 10, 2017
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