It was only a matter of time before an election campaign ad was hit with accusations of using actors, not real people -- the amazing thing is that it has taken six weeks to happen.
You may have seen, or already laughed at, the Liberal Party's new ad featuring a tradesman at a work site, inexplicably sipping from a sparkling dishwasher-clean mug, laying scorn on Labor for going "to war" with regular people and the economy.
The problem is, social media quickly tore the ad apart, claiming the man was not a tradesman but a paid actor, and spawning laughter from amateur theatre critics at levels not seen since the hilariously unconvincing of Johnny Depp in his apology for bringing his dogs to Australia.
"Bill Shorten even wants to go to war with someone like me, who just wants to get ahead through an investment property," our tradesman says.
"Well, I tell you what happens when you get a war going on the economy: people like me lose their jobs. I reckon we should just see it through and stick with the current mob for a while".
The ad abruptly ends on that hardly glowing endorsement for the Liberal Party. The ad, its questionable acting and even the attire of our tradesman came in for japes, with the mug, the shiny bracelet, the expensive watch and even the fluoro vest -- some said it was a night-time reflective vest, not one for daytime use -- coming in for attention.
It spawned the #FakeTradie hashtag, and of course, it wasn't long before a few parody accounts popped up on Twitter -- at time of writing, at least four:
A disclaimer at end of the ad states it was "spoken by by A. MacRae". Some amateur sleuths found an Australian actor by the name of Andrew MacRae, who bore a resemblance to the tradesman in the ad -- but MacRae himself soon tweeted that he was not involved. Despite the claims of #FakeTradie, the Liberals have said the man was in fact a real tradesman and not an actor.