Stating the bleeping obvious

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Community advocacy organisation Getup looks set to make some waves with an irreverent TV ad.

The parody advertisement targets the Government’s Fuelwatch proposal, and contains repeated bleeped expletives.

It depicts FuelWatch Headquarters filled with civil servants manning high-tech binoculars and reporting on tomorrow’s petrol prices today.

Getup emailed the ad around Australia on Thursday morning, asking for donations online and by the end of the day had more than the 50,000 needed to buy a television spot, and was on the way to hitting the $70,000 that would extend the spot to an extra million viewers.

“The spoof humorously demonstrates how the Government knows exactly where fuel prices are going – through the roof. If Mr. Rudd and Dr. Nelson are truly committed to helping average Australians, they should look beyond the bowser wowsers and their short-term petrol populism, towards long-term transport solutions,” GetUp campaigns coordinator Ed Coper says.

“FuelWatch, or tinkering with the excise, is like rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic when Australia needs to invest billions towards better public transport and mandatory fuel efficiency standards.”

“The ad cuts right though the oil slick onto the larger problem at hand -- petrol prices will keep going up regardless of what our Government does. So let us take this opportunity to invest in real solutions that address both the transport and the climate crises,” Mr Coper says.

GetUp is a not-for-profit and receives no money from any political party or the government.