AN Australian Workers’ Union viral video advertisement likening Tony Abbott, member for Indi Sophie Mirabella and other members of the opposition front bench to characters in the 1960s television program The Addams Family has been dismissed as “another Labor Party stunt”.
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Mrs Mirabella said yesterday she had seen the video, posted on YouTube on Sunday night, but was not offended by her comparison to the Addams’ daughter Wednesday.
“Like the Labor Party staffer who dressed in red Speedos and chased Tony Abbott on Sunday, this is another Labor Party stunt,” she said.
“It shows where union resources are going ... and that not a lot results.
“The Labor Party will do anything to win this election and it was the unions who executed a first-term prime minister, Kevin Rudd.
“They will say and will do whatever it takes to smear the opposition and get the Labor Party elected.”
The YouTube video was deleted this afternoon.
The Australian Workers’ Union said its advertisement, which has received almost 12,000 hits on YouTube since Sunday, explains its opinion — that Mr Abbott and his political colleagues belong in a museum — as throwbacks to the early 1960s.
“Just like in the 60s television series, this wealthy clan just don’t understand how bizarre and frightening their policies are — and how badly they would hurt the working families which my union represents,” the union’s national secretary, Paul Howes, said.
The union has superimposed the faces of the Coalition’s frontbench on the characters, including Mr Abbott as Gomez Adams; Julie Bishop as Morticia; Joe Hockey as son Pugsley; Barnaby Joyce as Uncle Fester and Bronwyn Bishop as Grandmama.
Backed by the show’s theme music, it reworks the lyrics to include “They’re tricky.. They’re sneaky. And they’re all together freaky. They’re the Abbott Family..”, and “Crony ... phoney ... Tony. He’ll unfairly dismiss you and lie when he tells you, they’ll bring back Work Choices, the Abbott family”.
While Mr Howes told media the concept was dreamt up by union officers, a similar parody appeared in print in December when The Age journalist Misha Schubert compared Mr Abbott to Gomez Adams in an opinion piece following a Coalition cabinet reshuffle.
In that piece, Mrs Mirabella was also likened to Wednesday for her “deadpan wit and killer instincts”, with Julie Bishop as Morticia and Bronwyn Bishop as Grandmama.
The differences were Senator Eric Abetz as Uncle Fester; Kevin Andrews as Pugsley; Philip Ruddock as The Thing; and Barnaby Joyce as Lurch.
