The following ad, provided by a professional, top-tier advertising agency to the ABC for The Gruen Transfer, as a pro-Greens spot, must be truly bittersweet for the party:
Bittersweet, because it’s exactly the message they should be sending – but which they simply don’t have the resources to commission or broadcast. It’s both positive and meaningful – it highlights real issues on which the Greens present a genuine difference, in an engaging, memorable way. It’s what they’re trying to say, if only they had the media savvy and money to do it professionally.
If only there were some way for the Greens to get this portrayal of their message out there, prominently, over the next nine days. Sadly, I suspect there isn’t.
Although we can do our part online.
ELSEWHERE: The “Family” First party presents this terrifying spot, complete with blood spatters and police sirens – inconsistently selling an “anti-violence” message with unnecessarily violent imagery. Why won’t anyone think of the children who would be scarred by this ad?
UPDATE: As I suspected, the Greens won’t be allowed to use the ad, because it was produced for the ABC and the copyright was transferred to the public broadcaster.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that Greens supporters can’t link the hell out of it.
Moved On 
The Family First video on YouTube has comments disabled. Why are they so scared of feedback?
Everyone I watched The Gruen Transfer with last night instantly exclaimed “God yes!” or similar. Funnily enough, the same instant I opened this page, the woman on ABC radio reported that the Greens have been refused permission to use it.
Of course FF are scared of feedback. Their campaign is not exactly one that responds well to questioning.
Citrus – I’ve updated the post with a link to the ABC story confirming that.
Consider it Facebooked. Unfortunately, none of my friends take my opinions seriously ;p
Whenever I watch fundamentalist Christian YouTube videos, I find most of them have comments turned off. They seemed to be afraid to subject their views to criticism.
If the Greens could actually think they would have thought of the ad themselves. In fact it took an outsider to realise that the key to getting people to vote Green is to appeal to their intellectual snobbery! Truly the Greens are the party of the intelligentsia!
Obviously they can think, which is why the ad rings true. They’re just not professional advertising executives.
The ad is clearly designed to appeal to the smug intellectual elite. A more realistic version would be “If you wank, vote the Greens”. The ad is a brilliant piece of marketing in that it appeals to the vanity that so characterises intellectual elite.
“If you wank, vote the Greens”
@ splatterbottom: if only everyone who wanked voted greens, they’d be a political powerhouse!
“If you wank, vote the Greens”.
When I first encountered your miserable bile on the internet some years ago, SB, I remember quite distinctly being struck by the remarkable contradiction that despite your professed adoration of people like Thatcher and your embrace of mad Rightist conspiracy theories, you were a Greens voter. Perhaps your conversion to the One True Faith is responsible for your change of heart. Sweet camouflaged poison and all that. I do hope your faith has also been of assistance in your struggle against the abominable vice of Onan.
Is it vanity, smugness, or intelligence that you so despise, SB? I have a sneaking feeling it might be the latter. The intellectual elite is so irritating because it reminds the rest of us that we’re not as clever as we would like to be. They’re a bit like fit, healthy, attractive young people reminding us of how gross and fat and ugly and old we are.
You’ve certainly hit the nail on the head there l2ts!
Not voting green this time, bloods – that sad old commo Lee Rhiannon is beneath contempt. Still can’t bring myself to vote for the majors, but LDP is looking good.
Most of the advertisements in that competition segment are better than any of the real ones.
Which is both interesting and disturbing – it means the people at the top of the political parties think they’re better at advertising than the professionals…
“LDP is looking good”
A much better fit – a lot sillier, more ideologically rigid, and far more Thatcher-friendly. Not sure if George Cardinal Pell would approve of that candidate they had once, Ivan Milat’s sister-in-law or something, who advocated the abolition of gun laws, but I’m confident you and GCP could sort that out. As long as it’s nothing to do with sex and reproduction George would be cool with it.
“who advocated the abolition of gun laws”
Wrong – the LDP wants gun laws similar to New Zealand, or Canada, or France. But then people hardly ever want to argue the facts when smear will suffice.
Also, George Pell probably hates us – we’d abolish tax exemptions for religions, for starters. We don’t oppose same-sex marriage or homosexuality or divorce or contraception or abortion or stem-cell research.
A useful way to think of the Liberal Democrats is as the opposite of the Christian Democrats.