Former AFL footballer and Meat & Livestock "Lambassador" Sam Kekovich has told a Melbourne symposium there was a "great deal of joy" derived from the annual summer lamb campaign.
Mr Kekovich, the face of the annual summer Share the Lamb platform, was speaking at the Victorian Farmers Federation Symposium.
He said even if the day was changed from January 26, the campaign would continue.
"We call it the summer campaign," he said.
"It's just that it's always fallen on Australia Day, that was the pivotal day, way back 20 years ago when we first started.
"Dates don't really worry us, that's for wiser counsel than me, to decide on that."
The campaign had resulted in lamb becoming the "patriotic tool" of the Australian food market.
"It's almost like holding up a lamb cutlet is like holding up the Victoria Cross," he said.
Speaking at the symposium he said humour could transcend social evils like bigotry and prejudice.
He said the campaign succeeded, because he was honest.
"People don't want to be bored," Mr Kekovich said.
"The consumer is a very smart person, they don't take it for granted, they know if you are the genuine article," Mr Kekovich said.
"One of my favourite meals has always been lamb, I eat 21 lamb meals a week, so I am the genuine article
"I don't have to have a facade, or to be a fraud.
"I love every bit of what I do when I get up and promote this great product."
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Mr Kekovich told the symposium the campaign had its genesis in an Australian sports-based talk show television series, in which he sent up "pseudo intellects and minority groups that permeate society and make Victoria the most liveable prison."
The MLA saw the potential in the show, due to the 2005 drought, and its effects on sheep producers.
"They were terrible, terrible times," he said.
"It's been a monumental success and one of the reasons is that I've always maintained one of our greatest assets in this country is our freedom of speech," Mr Kekovich said.
"I find it absolutely abhorrent and deplorable when people compartmentalise us into being racist and homophobic - we wouldn't know what that means in Australia."
He said it was in Australia's DNA to be irreverent, satirical and tongue-in-cheek.
"The only time when you are racist is when you think you are better than someone - it's never in the content, it's always in the tone in which it's delivered," he said.
The campaign was backed by sophisticated research and development, cross breeding and improved feeding of animals.
"It's nice to be a part of something that works for the mutual benefit of the general populace," he said.
"It reaches far and wide and contributes billions of dollars in terms of exports and also the domestic market."
He told the audience he wanted to see a piece of lamb reach $100 in restaurants.
" I know beef has done it, I would like to think somewhere down the line, we could come up with a piece of lamb that is doing to do exactly that," he said.
That mark has been reached in one high-end Sydney butchers.
His final advice to the audience?
"Be chocolate chip, be strawberry fudge, but don't be beige."
Andrew Miller
I'm a general reporter with Stock & Land, with a special interest in irrigation issues. I completed my cadetship, with the Age, in 1980. Over my career, I've worked for ABC radio news (Mt Isa, Qld) and at provincial and suburban newspapers.
I'm a general reporter with Stock & Land, with a special interest in irrigation issues. I completed my cadetship, with the Age, in 1980. Over my career, I've worked for ABC radio news (Mt Isa, Qld) and at provincial and suburban newspapers.
