Increasing anti-migrant sentiment in Australia has set off online rumours that home goods store Bunnings had gotten rid of its weekly sausage sizzle in favour of serving Indian food. A representative for the popular chain told AFP they have made “no change” to their weekly sizzle — a hallowed pastime in the nation to cook and serve sausages in bread. The image used to depict the false claim is AI-generated.<\/p>\n
“BREAKING: Bunnings has fallen. The classic Aussie sausage sizzle is dead,” declares an X user<\/a> on August 3, 2026, in a post shared more than 280 times.<\/p>\n “In its place: Butter Chicken, Samosas and ‘Authentic Indian Food from the Heart of India’ right under the green canopy. Not even the great Aussie tradition of a snag can be left alone by ‘diversity’.”\u00a0<\/p>\n Accompanying the post was an image of three men beaming at a food stall in front of Bunnings, offering up a menu of Indian food.<\/p>\n “Is nothing in Australia sacred anymore? Our culture is slowly being erased,” the user lamented.<\/p>\n Screenshot of the false X post taken on August 5, 2026, with a red cross and the AI label added by AFP<\/p>\n <\/span><\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n An honoured tradition in Australian culture, a sausage sizzle<\/a> is a social gathering where people buy sausages on white bread slices to raise money for charity or communities ( archived link<\/a>).<\/p>\n Bunnings typically holds a sausage sizzle<\/a> on the weekends at its various branches to allow grassroots community groups to raise money ( archived link<\/a>).<\/p>\n The anger over the posts about Indian food being served at Bunnings comes as Australia sees a rise in anti-immigration rhetoric — fuelled in part by a series<\/a>\u00a0of\u00a0 marches<\/a> held across Australia since 2025 — and criticism of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his centre-left Labor Party (archived\u00a0 here<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0 here<\/a>).\u00a0<\/p>\n At the same time, the Indian diaspora in Australia has increased in recent years, with the latest population statistics showing that the country’s\u00a0 largest group<\/a> of residents born overseas was from the South Asian nation ( archived link<\/a>).\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Similar posts circulated on X<\/a> as well<\/a> as on Facebook<\/a>, with social media users criticising the purported fall of an Aussie tradition.<\/p>\n “Australia is cooked,” said one, while another said it was “time to boycott Bunnings”.\u00a0<\/p>\n But Bunnings told AFP that the image “is fake”.<\/p>\n “We have made no change to our weekly sausage sizzle,” they told AFP in an email on August 4.\u00a0<\/p>\n There are also clear visual discrepancies in the image to indicate that it was created using AI — like how the sauce bottles look melted together and how one of the men’s fingers appears to be gnarled.\u00a0<\/p>\n