Turnbull’s “fake tradie” takes a world tour

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Cross-posted from the ABC:

The tradesman featured in a new Liberal Party advertisement who garnered the hashtag #faketradie on social media is anything but a fake, according to a party spokesman.

The television advertisement, which went to air yesterday, features a man dressed in a high-visibility vest on a work site urging people to “stick with the current mob”.

“Let me get this right,” he says in the ad. “Mr Shorten wants to go to war with my bank, he wants to go to war with miners.

“Bill Shorten even wants to go to war with someone like me, who wants to get ahead with an investment property.

“Well, I’ll tell you what happens when you get a war going on the economy — people like me lose their jobs.

“So I reckon we should just see it through and stick with the current mob for a while.”

Twitter users were quick to question whether the man was a real tradesperson, referencing his gold watch, bracelet and clean hands.

However, a Liberal Party spokesman told ABC News the man was not an actor.

“We are very pleased that people are talking about this ad, which highlights the risks of Bill Shorten’s war on business,” the spokesman said.

“The tradie is real, unlike Mr Shorten’s claims about Medicare.”

Last night the Twittersphere erupted over the 30-second advertisement, with the hashtag #faketradietrending for most of Sunday night.

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He’s certain to be a real estate agent.
About the author
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.