Australian elections have many proud traditions: democracy sausages, Akubra hats, and of course, salt of the earth “tradies” in campaign ads.
The tradition continues down in Victoria, where a young man in an orange hi-vis vest, complete with a hard hat, makes an appearance in a campaign video for the former Liberal MP Tim Wilson. He also appears to be part of Wilson’s campaign to regain the seat of Goldstein, won by the teal independent Zoe Daniel in 2022.
In the paid ad, which is running on Instagram and Facebook, Wilson talks about his goal of “fighting for home ownership”. The clip shows the pair in conversation outside a construction site.
The man’s resemblance to a member of the Liberal Goldstein campaign, Frazer Hurst, has been remarked on social media.
He appears in several videos and photos on Wilson’s social media pages, and his Instagram account is tagged in one clip where he can be seen door-knocking by the candidate’s side and handing out pamphlets.
Asked whether the tradie was in fact a campaign worker, Wilson referred all questions to the Coalition’s campaign headquarters, which did not respond. Hurst’s LinkedIn account says he is a student, and is involved with the Liberal party in Victoria.
Guardian Australia showed Hurst a screen grab of the ad where Wilson and the man in hi-vis walk side-by-side, and asked whether it was him. Hurst replied that “any media enquiries need to go through Liberal party headquarters”.
The Wilson campaign has paid up to $800 for the video as well as a shorter version to be promoted online, according to Meta’s ad library.
The hi-vis cameo recalls the “fake tradie” discourse over the appearance of Sydney metalworker Andrew MacRae in a 2016 Liberal party election campaign advertisement.
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MacRae told the Sydney Morning Herald at the time that he ended up in the clip because he had “done tradesman work at the advertising agency” which put the project together. “They said ‘hey, would you like to do an ad’ and I said ‘why not’,” he said.
In 2022, clips promoting Victorian Liberal David Southwick also featured voters who in fact turned out to work for the MP.
Wilson won Liberal preselection for the bayside seat against two female challengers, and will face off for the second time against “teal” independent Zoe Daniel.
A Facebook account under the name Frazer Hurst has previously waded into the comments on the page of Wilson’s rival. “Independence has failed Goldstein,” it said in now-deleted comments in response to a post on Daniel’s page. “Crime is rampant, antisemitism is out of control, our community is divided and fractured. The blue tsunami is coming, Zoe.”
Wilson held Goldstein between 2016 and 2022, and was one of six Liberal MPs who lost once-safe Liberal seats to a wave of progressive independents last election.
Daniel, a former ABC journalist, now holds Goldstein on a slim margin. She won in 2022 with a primary vote of 34.5%, while Wilson’s primary vote slipped by more than 12%.
Source: www.theguardian.com