A new Labor Party campaign ad is coming under fire for using stock footage from overseas, as well as having actor Russell Crowe – who was born in New Zealand – narrate the minute-long video.
The commercial was unveiled as part of the official election campaign launch for Labor leader Anthony Albanese.
Two of the stock videos used in the section about aged care did not originate in Australia, with one coming from a supplier site in the US.
Crowe, known for his Oscar winning role in Gladiator, narrates the piece, telling voters that “we can do better” around such issues as rising house prices affecting first-home buyers, healthcare restrictions in regional Australia and “a broken aged care system".
Entertainment report Peter Ford said on Twitter: "Getting @russellcrowe to do the voiceover is a great coup! It’s a superb voice. But isn’t there an irony if he’s not actually an Australian citizen and unable to vote?"
Writer and producer Ben Jenkins noticed the similarity in one of the shots of the ad to Crowe’s iconic 2000 film Gladiator.
The Liberal Party’s latest ad is a one-minute spot in the guise of a mock trailer for a movie called The Amateurs, a take-off of superhero movies that one YouTube user said was "so cringeworthy, it’ll make every moderate Liberal voter swing Labor".
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