'Brett' on the left

The Australian government needs wife-beaters, terrorists, drunks and drug addicts. When it comes to a Public Awareness Campaign, someone has to represent Australia’s worst nightmares as an example of what not to do. Oscar Dawson is one of those people.

Sadly lesser known as the guitarist of Melbourne new wave-rockers Dukes Of Windsor, Dawson was one of the sullen faces of domestic abuse in the Howard government’s Violence Against Women - Australia Says No campaign. It ran for four long years, then was suspended when the Rudd government took over.

Violence Against Women - Australia Says No

This scruffy, wiry loveable guy in front of me was cast to be a woman-basher. In fact, he was a clean-cut, 18-year-old with doe eyes and a neat mop of hair when the campaign was shot. He looked like the worst he could subject his partner to would be a solid hour of sulking, brooding and the silent treatment, punctuating by the occasional huff. And therein lies the point of the campaign: any man could be an abuser.

The campaign cost Australian taxpayers $20 million. Of course, it’s hard to discern the efficacy of these kinds of campaigns when what you’re going for is “awareness”. Kate Gilmore of Amnesty International was pretty skeptical about the effort. Also, the “Australia Says No” tagline was a little too close to Little Britain’s “Computer says no” catchcall to avoid the requisite office gags. And The Chaser even had a specific crack at men like Oscar who appear in the ads.

Dawson’s no actor, just laterally connected to the industry in that his father was a copywriter on the campaign. In any case, he chuckles “after that campaign, nobody would want me.” He acknowledges that those running the campaign wanted the people to look “normal” (despite his own prettiness), not “actor-y”. He knows the actor who played the “typical bong-smoking dude” in the Howard government’s $30 million anti-drug campaign and notes, “It’s not the type of role a conventional actor would want to take anyway.”

His fellow “wife-beaters” were mostly drawn from acquaintances within the advertising industry. They were all very well informed about how their images would be used, but more interesting is that it was hugely lucrative for those involved. It was a massive campaign, across TV, billboards, cinema ads and pamphlets that were sent to every home in the country. That’s a lot of collateral to get paid for and they’d get remuneration for each of the four years the campaign was renewed, as long as they wanted to sign on again.

Tea-drinker, scarf-wearer, and wife-beater?

Apart from the bucks, didn’t Dawson want to do it because it’s a good cause? “I did…” he squirms, “But I’d be lying if I said I did it solely for the betterment of humankind. I definitely think it’s a good cause, but I did it for the cash.”

So for his troubles Dawson’s face was plastered around the country indentifying him as the kind of guy who slapped his girlfriend because “she deserved it”. He shrugs, “Dunnies were a big one, you’d go to the urinal to take a piss and there it was.” During a show in Tasmania, his bandmate urged him to check out the toilets and “right there I was. It was fuckin’ bizarre.” His bandmates were eager to take the piss but no one in the crowd seemed to notice.

“Your friends give you schtick about everything,” he chuckles, “You definitely become ‘The Wife Beater’.” Since he dropped himself in it, he admits, “You don’t expect any less.” Dawson did have a girlfriend at the time, but not for much longer. “Too much bashing,” he jokes.

And yes, he was identified by strangers as ‘that domestic violence guy’. Crammed into the crowd at a music festival in its more lubricated hour, a slurring girl swam through the bodies and fronted up with “You’re that bloody guy, aren’t ya?” He laughs, “I was just like ‘You gotta be fucking joking!’ In a crowd, how would you notice and then push through to get to me? Then she turned around and went back again.”

Mostly it was acquaintances needling him about it, but there were another couple of random glares from strangers. Of course, there’s a logical fault here, as much as the “Have you stopped beating your wife?” conundrum. As we sat down Dawson joked about the job being part of his parole but if he actually was bashing his girlfriend, why on earth would he advertise the fact? “That was my mode of thinking,” he avers.

It might get a bit tricky if some people can’t separate fact from fiction and take his new girlfriend aside to warn her off him. He’s been with his current girlfriend for years, but when they initially met, he laughs, “I made her aware of [the involvement] pretty soon” to be careful, “I think that she understood.”

Looking shiftier in yellow pants and a hoodie.

So has the experience sworn him off acting in general? Hell no! He auditioned as a pill-popper for a TAC advertisement about drug-driving. The Violence Against Women campaign merely featured photos of him, but this time he was instructed to perform like he was peaking and coming down off goofballs. He giggles, “I’m embarrassed to think that I’d even be able to act like that.”

Sadly, he didn’t get the gig, but admits, “That would’ve just added salt to the wound. Not only would I be a wife-beater but I’d be a drug-taking wifebeater.” And a manslaughtering, drug-taking wifebeater, we laugh, what’s worse than that? “It’ll be a water-wasting ad! I could have a running hose out the window of the car as well!”