Why 'Ditch the Witch' is back in politics
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This is the Daily Aus.
This is the Daily Aus. This is the Daily Aus. Oh, now it makes sense.
Good morning and welcome to The Daily Oz. It's Thursday the 11th of June. I'm Elliot Laurie.
I'm Billie Fitzsimons. Wait, before we get into the podcast, can I say something?
Oh God, yes.
I think I have the best titbit of all time and I would like everyone to make sure that they stick around for the titbit.
Do you want to just jump ahead to the end?
I wanted to and producer Ola told me I couldn't.
Not allowed.
But it is a very important topic that we are talking about today, so... Alright, put a pin in it.
We're coming back to that later.
Okay.
A billboard truck has been spotted on the streets of Melbourne with the slogan Ditch the Witch next to an image of Victorian Premier Jacinta Allen. The campaign has been condemned across the political spectrum, reviving a slogan that was used against Australia's first female Prime Minister more than 15 years ago.
Ditch the Witch! Ditch the Witch! I think possibly it could read, if we're going to be politically correct, that Julia is Bob Brown's...
On today's podcast, we're breaking down who's behind it, what it means for Victorian politics, and what Julia Gillard had to say about the return of Ditch the Witch. But first, here's a quick word from George from the TDA team.
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So Elliot, we're talking about this slogan, Ditch the Witch. It's a slogan that, like you said in the intro, it was used against Juliet Gillard many, many years ago. And now it's back in the news cycle because of what happened in Melbourne over the weekend. Tell us about it.
Yeah, that's right. So basically, as I said in the intro, people on the streets of the CBD in Melbourne were seeing this truck driving past. It's one of those ones that's like got screens on every side of it. And it had this edited image of Jacinta Allen, who's the current Victorian premier. And she had a witch's hat on. She had a wart on her chin and it said, ditch the witch.
She had a wart on her chin?
Yeah, it was edited to make her look witchy.
What does the 'Ditch the Witch' campaign signify in current politics?
So Allen immediately hit out against this, said it was part of a secret and well-funded political campaign.
And do we know who is behind it?
What we do know from Victorian newspaper The Age, it's probably the biggest newspaper in Melbourne, they found out that Melbourne brothel owner Franco Puleo admitted to helping fund it. He said it was roughly around $100,000 that he put towards this campaign. And he said that it's not sexist. He just said that he basically doesn't like Jacinta Allen.
So it was a brothel owner who at least was partly behind it.
Yes. We don't know who else was behind it. What we do know is that the Liberal and the National Party, who's in opposition in Victoria at the moment, they said they had no involvement with it.
And he's saying that it's not sexist.
Yeah.
But if we look at the context of how this phrase has been used against Julia Gillard in particular before... I mean, it was widely considered sexist. That's not really an opinion. It was seen as very misogynistic how it was used against Julia Gillard.
Yeah, I think to understand it, we kind of got to go back to 2010. Neither you or I were of voting age at that time, and probably most of our audience. So they may not have been as clued in to what was going on in politics at that point in time. But they might remember some of the sentiment around Julia Gillard as a Prime Minister.
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