Dick Smith launches $1 million TV ad campaign to slash immigration, increase taxes for super rich

MILLIONAIRE businessman Dick Smith is launching a $1 million television ad campaign tomorrow to pressure politicians to cut immigration and increase taxes on the super-wealthy.

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MILLIONAIRE businessman Dick Smith is launching a $1 million television ad campaign tomorrow to pressure politicians to cut immigration and increase taxes on the super-wealthy.

And he will be handing out toy pitchforks to warn of the violent “revolution” to come if nothing is done.

“I am doing this for my grandchildren because you cannot have endless growth and endless greed,” he said.

Mr Smith has hired actor John Stanton from the 1980s Grim Reaper AIDS campaign to voice the disturbing ad, which warns of violence on the streets if population growth goes on unchecked.

Smith in the anti-immigration ad.

Dick Smith holding his pitchfork — a prop he intends to use to warn pollies of the “revolution” brewing. Picture: Ross Swanborough

“It is so disturbing people in my office said they did not want their children to see it, but it is what we see on the news every night,” he said.

A shot from the Dick Smith Fair Go campaign.

Mr Smith has started the Dick Smith Fair Go campaign to encourage politicians to develop an immigration plan that more than halves the current number of people arriving in Australia every year.

“It’s the same-sized cake. If there are more people then the amount everyone gets to share is smaller,” he said.

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He has put the major political parties on notice. “Next election I will put $2 million into marginal seats supporting the party that has a population plan,” Mr Smith said.

“This has nothing to do with party politics. As a nation we need a population plan like every Australian family already has, it’s just common sense.”

Dick Smith’s grim view of the future.

The ad calls for a downturn of immigrants, before it is too late.

Mr Smith’s campaign is also calling for a greater tax on the super-rich. “Australia’s wealthiest 1 per cent own more than the bottom 70 per cent, that’s 17 million Aussies. I am a member of that 1 per cent club and we can certainly afford to pay more tax,” he said.

But instead of increasing tax on billionaires, Mr Smith said they were getting another tax cut.

He called for taxes for the very rich to be bumped up to the 45 cents in the dollar levels of the 1970s, which was the going rate when he made his fortune.

The advertising campaign will be launched by Mr Smith and radio host Alan Jones at The Hilton Hotel tomorrow morning before it is aired on the networks.