Politics

Dick Smith spends $1M on extreme scare campaign

Aug 14, 2017

"Smith will be handing out toy pitchforks to symbolise the violent "revolution" he believes will happen if nothing is done."

Dick Smith is well-known for his negative stance on immigration, but his latest stunt has people scratching their heads.

The millionaire businessman is launching a $1 million ad campaign to put the pressure on the government to reduce immigration and and increase taxes for the super rich.

He hired actor John Stanton to voice the disturbing scare campaign ad, who you may remember from the terrifying Grim Reaper AIDs campaign in the 1980s, which goes to show just how concerned he is about the cause.

The Daily Telegraph reported that Smith will be taking the rather extreme measure of handing out toy pitchforks to symbolise the violent “revolution” he believes will happen if nothing is done.

“I am doing this for my grandchildren because you cannot have endless growth and endless greed,” he said.

“It is so disturbing people in my office said they did not want their children to see it, but it is what we see on the news every night.”

The “Fair Go” campaign aims to get the government to slash the number of people arriving by immigration by more than half each year, and compares Australia to a cake, suggesting that by allowing more people in, everyone else’s share is getting smaller.

“It’s the same-sized cake,” he said.

“If there are more people then the amount everyone gets to share is smaller.”

He’s vowed to pour some of his wealth into the political parties that have an immigration plan next election.

“Next election I will put $2 million into marginal seats supporting the party that has a population plan.

“This has nothing to do with party politics. As a nation we need a population plan like every Australian family already has, it’s just common sense.”

He also aims to get the wealthiest one-per-cent paying more tax, to the level of the 45 cents in the dollar of the 1970s when he made his fortune. Smith said that as a member of that exclusive one-per-cent club himself “we can certainly afford to pay more tax.”