Queensland election 2017: LNP images likened to 1940s stereotypes

THE LNP has been accused of living in Australia’s wartime past by using “sexist” images to represent a mother and father said to resemble those used in 1945.

The images used by the LNP on their website.

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THE LNP has been accused of living in Australia’s wartime past by using images to represent a mother and father said to resemble those used in 1945.

The images appear on the LNP’s official website www.betterqueensland.org.au along with three other symbols which are supposed to represent a broad section of conservative voters.

A mother is represented by an image of a female holding hands with children while the father is represented by a business tie and what appears to be a document.

The images used by the LNP on their website.

The two images sit alongside a monkey wrench which has been used to symbolise a tradie, a shopfront representing a business owner and a retiree depicted by a rocking chair.

The LNP has made the images available for download for supporters.

Griffith University lecturer Dr Susanna Chamberlain said the images were more representative of Australia in the 1940s.

The School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science academic said images of a mother with her child and a father with the tools of his trade were used on an Australian Peace Stamp in 1945 when WWII ended.

While an image of a tie was used for a father, an image of a woman with children was used for a mother.

“It’s problematic when you are using images from 70 years ago,” she said

Dr Susanna Chamberlain likened the images to an Australian Peace Stamp in 1945.

“It’s sexist, classist and deeply centred in the 1940s and doesn’t show any contemporary images at all.

“It says the father works … but where are the children?

“I thought in the 21st Century there was more equity in child rearing. It’s not representative of how we think today.”

She also took aim at the image of a retiree on a rocking chair which intimated those who no longer work, are no longer active.

“Most retirees have active lives, are they talking about a retiree or a pensioner?” she asked.

The LNP’s campaign director Lincoln Folo hit back at suggestions the images could be viewed as stereotyping.

“This is the type of political correctness that Queenslanders are sick to death of,” he told The Courier-Mail.