Federal Labor has pulled down a social media post that re-purposes a racist slogan to promote its support for Medicare in an embarrassing misstep that raises questions about the party’s vetting processes on the eve of the election.
The post from the ALP’s primary Facebook account, which was removed after questions from this masthead on Monday, shows a man wearing a T-shirt that states: “This is Australia. We eat meat, we drink beer and we love Medicare”.
A Labor campaign meme (right) was deleted after questions about whether it referenced a racist T-shirt (left).Credit:
But the shirt and slogan bear a striking resemblance to a shirt and a slogan used by white supremacists to express racist sentiment.
The original T-shirt, which has circulated in Australia for more than a decade, reads: “This is Australia. We eat meat, we drink beer and we speak f—in’ English”.
White supremacist Michael Harcrow, a Neo-Nazi who once left a pig’s head outside a mosque in Queensland and who has a swastika tattoo, has posted pictures of himself on social media wearing the T-shirt, according to a report in the Courier-Mail in 2019.
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Museums Victoria, which has a similar shirt in its collection as an artifact of Australian racism, describes it as exhibiting one of a series of slogans that “are racist and seek to define Australian identity by excluding ‘the other’ and by excluding anyone who dares to voice criticism”.
“The slogans ‘If You Don’t Love It, Leave!’ and ‘Support it or F*!k Off’ are indicative of the latter sentiment. The slogan ‘This Is Australia we eat meat, we drink beer and we speak f#ckin’ English’ is aimed at Muslims in particular who have customs which ban alcohol and non-halal meat,” the Museums Victoria website states.
A Labor spokesman said the party is “seeking to reach everyone with our message that Australians value Medicare, and we’ll do everything we can to protect it from Peter Dutton’s cuts”.
