My petition is for Streets' Ice Cream to bring back the Grave Robber Ice Confection.

In the mid 90's I was a child in primary school and took part in a market research group at Homebush NSW with two other friends. The purpose of the group was to come up with new ice cream ideas, with a particular focus on alternatives to the paddle pop stick. While not the expected ecofriendly result, we settled* on a chocolate (dirt) ice cream (coffin) filled with candy (bones) and a spoon (shovel).

Some time later, the Unilever / Street's Ice Cream "Grave Robber" hit the shelves, featuring a plastic tub of chocolate filled with candy sticks and a shovel shaped spoon. Unfortunately, it was not to last.

In 1996, the Honourable Alan Corbett, leader of the "A Better Future For Our Children" political party in New South Wales and member of the Legislative Council (upper house), had this to say:

"My complaint centred around the naming of this particular ice-cream after what is, after all, an objectionable and illegal practice, and the promotional displays for this ice-cream, which feature a gleeful skeleton staring into a dirt-coloured grave in which small bones or personal effects of the deceased are presumably uncovered as a child scoops out the ice-cream with a plastic shovel. I believe this promotion trivialises an illegal activity. Streets has shown a great deal of insensitivity to the friends, relatives and partners of deceased persons. I object to a child's natural curiosity about death - heightened, no doubt, by the awkwardness many feel about the subject - being exploited for the sake of Streets' profits."

http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/PARLMENT/hansArt.nsf/V3Key/LC19961112037

Shortly after, mainstream media joined in on the 'Political Correctness Gone Mad' bandwagon:

"[The] Daily Telegraph published a small article on the matter, which created enough interest for me to be interviewed by Richard Glover on radio station 2BL and later by Derryn Hinch on radio station 2GB"

As a result, Street's pulled the product from the market.

As I understand, the literal objection is to the term 'robber', implying an illegal act. Has anyone considered rebranding them as 'Grave Diggers'? Which happens to be a legitimate form of employment.

I now have young children of my own, and they laugh at the ridiculousness of such a juxtaposition, with my 9 year old daughter exclaiming that she doesn't "even know how to get to a graveyard, and I don't know how to dig dirt but I love digging ice cream".

* Disclaimer: I make no assertion that our Street's market research group and the released product have any relation. Similarities may be purely coincidental.