Last week The Australian Financial Review caught us up with the eerie glitz of the latest “Gina Inc” advertising, now available exclusively on Channel 7, for some reason.
For those who haven’t caught it, the TV spot features former Northern Territory chief minister turned Hancock Agriculture CEO Adam Giles alongside Amy Zempilas, wife of Perth Lord Mayor Basil, doing some farm work in their upmarket work wear, presumably enjoying the sprawling, misty green while they can, before their employer helps to consign such things to humanity’s past. Then, via a brief boardroom meeting, the pair walk a red carpet, arm in arm.
At the end of the truly surreal 60 seconds, the logos for Rinehart’s various associated businesses Atlas, Rossi Boots, Driza-Bone, Hancock Prospecting, Kidman Apparel, Roy Hill and more fill the screen.
We have *so many* questions about the internal reality of this ad. Are Giles and Zempilas playing themselves, implying that they occasionally spend a day on a farm together? Or are they playing fictional characters who run a farm but are also business people and minor celebrities? The piece would have Andrei Tarkovsky saying it leaves too much to interpretation.
Anyway, it got us thinking about the various, often faintly unhinged ways that fossil fuel companies try to win the hearts and minds of the people whose futures they are helping to erase.
Celebs!
As the AFR notes, casting two individuals who most normal people would struggle to recognise if they passed them on the street, without so much as a subtitle to introduce them, is an odd choice — especially given Rinehart could presumably afford actual celebrities.
On this front, Australia’s richest person could be thoroughly schooled by Mineral Resources, which snapped up former foreign minister Julie Bishop (seemingly yet to find anything she won’t spruik post-politics) to take people through a “day in the life” piece about the company’s workplace culture. Grey’s Anatomy star Kate Walsh makes an appearance to fight Bishop for a hair straightener, West Coast Eagle Jeremy McGovern coaches some kids (though they may wish to seek a second opinion), veteran 7 News anchor Rick Ardon does his bit for the reputation of WA journalism, and to top it off, Hugh Jackman pops up on a video screen for about eight seconds.
In between we meet several apparently actual employees, who all do a game job of getting into the spirit. The tone of the piece is such that we’re genuinely shocked Bishop never says anything along the lines of “you guys are the real stars”.
Still, it’s not as strange as the time Andrew Forrest’s Fortescue paid Christ-knows-what to use the lead characters in cult cartoon Rick and Morty to spruik green hydrogen — although at least that’s an appropriately hellish reference point.
We love sports
One thing fossil fuel behemoths all have in common? They bloody love sports! Just last week, the Minerals Council of Australia (MCA) put out a “sports edition” of its “30 Things” pamphlet series.
“From the nickel and aluminium in the Olympic torch to the silicon and cesium in precision timekeeping, to the gold, copper and rare earth elements in fitness trackers, it all starts with minerals”, CEO Tania Constable brightly tells us. We prepared ourselves for pictures of smiling athletes at sports centres that rely on donations from MCA members, but it turns out the brochure is literally just page after page listing the minerals necessary for any sport to happen.
Meanwhile, the now pretty quiet Hancock Prospecting YouTube channel is lousy with videos of synchronised swimmers, rowers and netballers (alongside Pauline Hanson wishing us a happy 2021 National Mining Day).
As The Australian‘s Media Diary reported, during the 2021 Olympics Rinehart also bankrolled a series of ads “promoting the financial commitment of her company Hancock Prospecting to Australian Olympic sport, mainly through swimming but also her sponsorships of rowing, volleyball and synchronised swimming”. “We’re told that privately, Rinehart’s philanthropy is doing big things for the finances of Australian swimmers,” The Oz gushed at the time.
Of course, Rinehart asked nothing in return. Nothing at all.
Donations, media and cops
Oh sorry yeah, it’s not all fun and eccentric. Probably the biggest tactic available to the fossil fuel industry is that old classic: state capture! Fossil fuels interests are consistently among the biggest donors to political parties in the country, have a monumental portion of the country’s media helping them out (one way or the other), and can rely on the cops to crack down on protesters, including by sending the counter terrorism squad after anyone using wash-away chalk to criticise them.
Anyway, how about those silly old ads?
