Senator Andrew Bartlett
Sunday, July 10, 2005
 
Govt Workplace Relations advertisements - stealing the public’s money
It probably just shows my naivety, but sometimes I still find myself getting truly shocked at how flagrantly dishonest and brazen some governments and politicians can be.

The new federal government advertising campaign promoting their plans for workplace relations is nothing but blatant stealing of the public’s money by the government so they can spend it shoring up their own backsides.

There will always be a grey area between what constitutes legitimate government advertising to inform the public and what is just blatant party political propaganda. But these adverts are so far beyond that grey area that no one can credibly pretend they are legitimate.

The most obvious fact that makes these adverts partisan propaganda is that they are selling a policy, not explaining a new law. No matter how much people might hate the new workplace changes, if they had been passed into law, there would be some justification to informing the public about what they entailed (as is currently happening with the new rules on superannuation choice). But not only are these workplace changes not yet law, they are not even draft legislation so there is no way of knowing how much of it is true and how much of its half-truths and lies. This is nothing other than spending the public’s money to try to build public support for a policy of the Liberal & National parties.

The media often marvel about what a clever and skilful politician John Howard is, and there is undoubtedly some truth to that. But if I had twenty million dollars to spend every time I wanted to build public support for an idea of mine or to counter criticism by others, I think I could make myself look pretty good too.

Frankly, I think the mainstream media are being an accomplice to theft and in receipt of stolen property in taking money to run these adverts. If they were genuinely interested in an honest democracy and fair public debate, they would refuse to run these advertisements.

UPDATE: This paper for the ANU's Democratic Audit by Fred Argy looks at the incumbency advantages for governments by examining the use of taxpayers' money for political advertising campaigns and argues that public money should not be used for 'proposed and unlegislated' policy changes.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Sunday, July 10, 2005 Permalink
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