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Dick Smith is a legend. Great sense of humour, prioritising philanthropy and buying local. My favourite product of his was the parody of Redhead Matches, a box
by desertraven 5y ago
Dick Smith is a legend. Great sense of humour, prioritising philanthropy and buying local.
My favourite product of his was the parody of Redhead Matches, a box of matches with a woman’s face on it. Dick sold matches called “Dickheads”, with his face on them.
A friend of mine growing up had Dick perform an emergency landing on their property (in his plane). He must still be an avid flyer as we both attended the same aviation event a couple of years ago in a rural Australian town.
- neurotech1 5y agoI had the pleasure of meeting Dick at a Christmas party many years ago. Buying locally made, locally owned is a major priority of his and should be for every Australian.
- desertraven 5y agoWholeheartedly agree. Your comment gives me Aussie vibes, yet it looks like you’re in the US. Did you relocate?
- neurotech1 5y agoYes. In the US now.
- siquick 5y agoIronically the Dick Smiths brand is now owned by Kogan who specialise in importing and selling grey market goods in Australia.
- nikau 5y ago> Ironically the Dick Smiths brand is now owned by Kogan who specialise in importing and selling grey market goods in Australia. Bit ironic to make a fortune importing shit from HK in the 80s, then selling off your name and face as a brand, and then complaining about people not buying Australian.
- siquick 5y agoI’d take 100 Dick Smiths over 1 Harvey Norman
- PickledHotdog 5y agoYeah I'd take 100 Dicks over Gerry Harvey too
- runsonrum 5y agoThis is what I see too! Glad to see that I'm not the only one that does.
- jacquesm 5y agoIt should be everywhere in the world, not just in Australia. But that ship has quite literally sailed and we buy stuff from all over the world for a fraction of what it would cost to produce locally. If you want to reverse that expect to pay a very large multiple of what you are paying today for goods.
- Grimburger 5y ago> locally made, locally owned Why exactly? Can you elucidate on this viewpoint. Australia has a huge proportion of dirty coalfired power so anything energy intensive would be better produced elsewhere, Australian emissions per capita are among the highest in the world, so supporting more workers is again a bad argument, the world needs far less Australians given their rate of consumption. Does it simply just boil down to stonecold nationalism?
- threeseed 5y ago> Dick Smith is a legend He was a legend. For many of us in Australia he is remembered more for his racist, xenophobic views and efforts in advising the One Nation party.
- nsajko 5y ago> racist, xenophobic views and efforts in advising the One Nation party Mind elaborating? If you were referring to the news item from 2016, it seems to me that you may be misrepresenting Smith: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/dec/06/dick-smith-backs-pauline-hanson-on-immigration https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/dec/06/dick-...
- rajamaka 5y agoI thought he was just a proponent for "Small Australia" and by extension of that anti-immigration? Never really heard anything racist or xenophobic from him but to be fair having paid that much attention.
- skissane 5y agoHe chose to publicly ally himself with Pauline Hanson on the topic of immigration. Hanson has a long history of anti-immigration positions publicly justified in terms of racial/religious animus (in the 1990s targeting Asian people, more recently she has made Muslim people her primary target); when she starts trying to justify anti-immigration policies based on population growth concerns, most people (quite rightly) view that as a disingenuous fig-leaf for her real position, but Smith seems incapable of seeing that insincerity himself. I don't think he is personally motivated by racial/religious animus. I think he is genuinely concerned about the potential impacts of population growth on the environment, housing affordability, traffic congestion, quality of life, etc. However, I think he has a poor understanding of how other people are going to perceive his decision to publicly ally himself with a politician who has a clear record of that animus.
- seoulmetro 5y agoBeing anti-immigration isn't the same as being anti-[race]. That's a weird thing to tie together.
- lotophage 5y agoHis peanut butter was always known as "Dick's nut butter" amongst my friends.
- naruhodo 5y agoIn a similar vein, his "Dick Smith Electronics" stores were known as "The Big Electronic Dick".
- berenza 5y agohe had a brand of matches that competed with the popular "redheads" brand, the brand name was "dickheads"
- joeman1000 5y agoThat peanut butter is sorely missed. There’s no good replacement for it on supermarket shelves yet.