I’m really getting annoyed by the continued onslaught of ads in support of the Liberal Party’s proposals for IR reform. I think it’s time Labor actually stood up to them over this. I suggest nominating a cutoff date and saying that if the ads aren’t stopped after that, a future Labor government will legislate to recover the money from the Liberal Party (or from members of the Cabinet personally). Of course, the chance that they would actually do something like this, let alone follow through on it, is near zero. More likely, this outrage will be treated as a precedent, and taxpayer-funded ads supporting the government will become routine.
75 thoughts on “Make them pay”
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John Quiggin 
i’d be hard pushed to honestly say these ads are more annoying than, say, the inexplicable “unchain my heart” GST ads. at least these ads make sense [unchain my heart?].
unfortunately, this sort of low involvement advertising is standard for this government. when it comes to the controversial stuff, they do not believe in attempting to convince by rational argument, preferring instead the course of repetition-based attitude shifting. heck, it wouldn’t be a democracy if our government didn’t attempt to change our opinion with advertising we pay for.
link.
I think that a future libertarian government ought to force current politicians (and social democratic flag wavers) to repay taxpayers for all sorts of waste. Lets start with foreign aid, industry welfare, sports funding, arts funding and so on down the list of dumb things governments spend money on.
I think future taxpayers should be forced to pay me for the epic self-restraint I exercise in choosing not to flame Terje.
alpaca Says: October 29th, 2005 at 3:09 pm
Come on alpaca. The main reason to not flame people is that waging a flame war is boring and there are better things to do with life.
I’d encourage taxpayers to write to the govt asking for their money back in cash.
total $15Million at moment divided by how many taxpayers = only a couple bucks each but its better than nothing and can be spent on better things.
It would also not be in cheque form due to the money would be lost in processing costs.
Clearly,no conflict of interest that Dewey-Horton received the contract for the advertisements. That Ted Horton was the brains behind the high interest campaign that well helped the Libs over the line in the last election should not concern the public. Tenders for government contracts ,obviously,go to the right companies in an open and transparant manner.
Alpaca, flame away if it helps make your day.
Lets say that the ALP did as John Quiggin suggested. How might the Liberals respond. Perhaps they could make the ALP repay the debt incurred through certain leasing deals they signed the taxpayer up to when they were in office. And they might claw back my student union fees wasted on the anti-fightback campaign.
There are any number of imaginative ways that John Quiggins intiative could lead us into a spiral of counter recriminations and paybacks.
You know, the last party that went crazy advertising political ideology was India’s then ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, in early 2004. They spent a small fortune on a campaign that told everyone India was shining.
They were so proud of privatising government operations (and thus destroying affirmative action programs), destroying rural finance, grabbing Western jobs and rewriting history books that it never occurred to them that there were villagers without clean water or farmers committing suicide in significant numbers.
In May 2004, at the ballot box, India told them to take a hike.
I agree. Press releases outlining the policies and responses by politicians to claims regarding the policies are enough.
Apart from being wasteful they are becoming tedious since all they present is gloss.
The problem with Dr. Q’s proposal (apart from opening up the prospect for regular orgies of revenge on losing governments) is that Labor was the first Federal party to grossly abuse advertising in this fashion – and probably intend to do so again in the future.
Some government advertising is justified (on rare occasions) but I’d like to see a cross-party Senate Committee or the Australian Electoral Commission empowered to veto grossly partisan ads liek rthe current IR campaign.
Fortunately they are completely inept – right down to the characters they use who are now telling the nation they were misled.
What is more, the ads contradict our direct experience, as millions of people wait in a state of more or less mild dread, knowing very well what their workplaces are actually like. So their chances of being credible are just about zero.
All they do is demonstrate to us over and over and over again that the government is telling lies and doing a bad, bad thing.
I must say that I can’t remember a time when government advertising was so annoying…because of it’s frequency and banality,as much as anything else. I am actually rather pleased because I think it is quite damaging to the Howard Government,and will further rebound when people start to suffer from Howard’s IR changes. I think Howard in the past 9 years was kept in check by a hostile Senate…now we see the really mean thatcherite he really is,and in the hurt that many are going to feel lies my hope of a backlash that will destroy the Costello Govt. which must be now quite close…he may play John Major’s role ,in the end of this chapter in our history . The real Howard ,authoritartian and conservatiive will no be clearly in view…and how I wonder does he view the slow death of a thousand cuts inflicted on his brainless friend in the White House ?.. I watch all this with real pleasure,and only hope fate has got some really cruel trick up it’s sleeve for the awful Tony Blair.
The ads are so annoying that they may well be reflected in less viewers for the programs they interrupt and certainly the ads in the newspaper are easy to ignore as you just turn the page.
When there are real issues around such as in health or support required for disabled people it really does irritate to see the waste. It is working on the principle of grinding the population down.
In addition the Coalition government has such a poor record on telling the truth that only those who feel that they are capable of negotiating with their employer believe the ads – a small minority.
Even small employers realise that the current system has many benefits in terms of a workforce relations where both sides have accepted the umpire’s decision in terms of wage fixing and so the workplace is not aggro which is good for productivity and makes work more satisfying. Employers can also feel that they are able to do the right thing without the pressure to reduce the wages of workers to stay competitive with their opposition.
Nobody who has been through an EB will believe that the new system will be better as even those on AWAs understand the link between what they negotiate and the conditions under EB and awards.
Terje is surely wrong. Ultimately, we don’t live in a world of unlimited discretion and relativism, no matter how much right-wingers like to type. There are sound arguments for public spending or not intervening re the items he selects, no matter how much he disagrees with those arguments, and there are many positions in between or which will have this but not that, etc, etc and so on. On the other hand, there is not one good publicly reputable argument in favour of these advertisements. Not one. That is their unprecedented distinction. At the least, the Liberals should be called on to pay for such an unforgivable lapse in advertising style and taste.
Comment sent in by email from Willy Bach
Much as John Quiggin’s suggested course of action for an incoming Labor government appeals to me a great deal, I agree with people who say that this is not going to happen. I am for-ever chewing Kevin Rudd’s ear, as he is my MP, saying that the ALP needs to differentiate themselves from the Liberals by demonstrating they have higher ethical standards.
I would like them to start this new policy framework by cutting down on the allowed election advertising, perhaps to the level they have in Britain. Then both major parties would be forced to come clean on the corporate donations. I think there should be proper restraints on advertising ‘information’ (come off it) before the legislation is drafted. This IR legislation is nothing but bad news for working people.
I had the dubious pleasure of addressing a gathering of Gold Coast business leaders at the Pacific Palms Resort during the 2004 federal election, as the Greens candidate for Fadden. When Liberal candidates promised that abolishing the Unfair Dismissal laws for small business – well, I can only say that the crowd went wild with enthusiasm. Could the excitement have been the prospect of giving a better deal for workers and more time with families? I felt a great sense of foreboding.
The next step would be that we want all irresponsible spending to be sheeted home to whichever government had so indulged. To be fair, the boat already left port. We would not be able to make it retrospective, a pity, I know.
I would start with catastrophic privatisations, any more like Telstra, tollways (the 21st Century’s brown envelope of cash) and the absurd $2.5 billion subsidy to the private health insurance industry. I would get them for deals like the Abrahams tanks and the missile defence system, not forgetting all the money squandered on tormenting the benighted lives of refugees. I would also scale down to a suitably modest level bloated and largely redundant organisations like ASIO.
This has to be the most fiscally irresponsible and wasteful government we have ever had. Furthermore, just when we should be investing n the future, in social capital and sustainable new green industries, this government is g**bling our future on their own re-election, whilst telling us we have a “strong economy” – which is really a bubble economy.
Would that be skating close to contempt of parliament? I recall Kennett’s threats in the dying months of the Kirner government, that unless an election was called a Kennet govt would legislate to remove the taxpayer-funded component of Labor members’ superannuation. All sorts of dark legal clouds gathered and Kennet had to back down.
That has to be one of the more partisan political statements I have ever read.
Counter: the Whitlam government.
One thing all the Lefties here seem to be conveniently ignoring is that the Feds would not need to spend anywhere near as much money pushing the IR reforms if the ACTU had not spent so much on their disinformation campaign in the first place.
“the Feds would not need to spend anywhere near as much money pushing the IR reforms if the ACTU had not spent so much on their disinformation campaign in the first place.”
THe ACTU is a private organisation spending its (voluntary) members’ money. THis is quite different ot the government spending taxpayer funds.
Additionally, the government has a majority in both Houses of parliament and can pass whatever legislation it sees fit.
If the ACTU campaign results in fewer votes for the Liberal Party at the next election that’s a problem for the Liberal Party organisation not the elected representatives of the party.
what’s next: “if the Labor Party hadn’t spent so much on election campaigning the government wouldn’t have had to spend so much on “Vote Liberal” billboards and posters”?
QUOTE BRIAN: I think Howard in the past 9 years was kept in check by a hostile Senate…now we see the really mean thatcherite he really is,and in the hurt that many are going to feel lies my hope of a backlash that will destroy the Costello Govt.
RESPONSE: It should be noted that when Margaret Thatcher was PM the Tories never lost an election. She was thrown out by her own party, not the people of Britian.
Indeed. But if the ACTU campaign results in widespread acceptance of falsehoods as facts, then that is a problem for the elected representatives. They have a responsiblity to get the truth out. The current advertising campaign is by-and-large just correcting the misinformation spread by the ACTU.
Now, if the current campaign was run along the same lines as the ACTU campaign – ie all scaremongering and no basis in fact – then that would be cause for concern. Fortunately for us, the governemnt is not willing to step down into the gutter with the ACTU.
Just to be clear on where I stand I would be happy to see federal legislation outlawing all advertising by the federal government. If they want to promote awarness of some issue they can put out a press release or hold a press conference. Mark Latham did a good job raising the profile of early childhood reading without spending any taxpayers money on the issue.
Of course I would want the legislation to include all forms of advertising such as so called public service advertisements like those that tell us not to beat our wives or to consider buying Australian made goods or that smoking gives you lung cancer. Not that I think you should beat your wife or that you shouldn’t consider buying Australian made goods or that smoking doesn’t give you lung cancer, its just that these advertisements are symptomatic of the same “think what we say” mentality. And I don’t need to be taxed to tell me what I already think or don’t think.
In any case most of these advertisements could be paid for by state or local governments.
The current advertising campaign is by-and-large just correcting the misinformation spread by the ACTU.
Nonsense. Nothing in the ACTU adverts were falshoods (name one?), which is why they have resonated; and none of the government adverts have gone anywhere near addressing the issues the ACTU campaign has raised, which is why they are being ignored or worse in all respects other than as a choice example of pure public waste.
I think it is false to claim that bosses hold all the aces. Although the inference made by the ACTU that unfair dismissal laws were unfair seems correct to me.
The major problem is not with the facts. It is with the spin.
Here are the ACTU “facts” about the proposed new IR laws:-
http://www.actu.asn.au/work_rights/background_info/workchoices.html
* Wage setting no longer has regard to fairness
* Awards to be cut back and frozen in time
* New minimum conditions guarantee is a crock
* Boss holds all the aces in agreement-making
* Unions excluded from workplaces
* Independent umpire is a lame duck
* Unfair dismissal laws are even less fair
* A confused unitary system
Sure Terje. Everyone knows ordinary individual workers stand in the same bargaining position as their bosses. You only have to say it to know it’s true.
Dogz, whatever else you might think about the IR reforms themselves, the advertising is dishonest, and that’s deeply disturbing. If there really were benefits, the advertising would just have to explain them to us.
Instead, we have a range of misrepresentations, such as the claim that conditions are “protected by law.” In fact, that same law allows for conditions to be be specifically excluded from contracts. Further, the administrative machinery established at the Office of the Workplace Advocate seems to encourage employers to remove working conditions. Why is this?
Second, the alleged right to be represented by a union is rendered useless by the fact that union staffers would have to negotiate separately for every single employee, a task that unions don’t have the resources for. It’s also undermined by the $33,000 fine that will be imposed for attempting to include elements of collective bargaining in agreements. Those measures are explicitly intended to prevent representation by unions.
David Marr provides a good run-down of the deceptions in (The Real Deal, SMH, 15 Oct 2005).
“Nothing in the ACTU adverts were falshoods (name one?)”
How about the ad in which the woman is threatened with dismissal over the phone for having to look after her kids? Extremely misleading, on several counts:
A) What’s she doing in a job that requires that kind of flexibility in the first place if she has childcare responsibilities?
B) Carers leave is protected, so she could always have just said “the kids are sick”.
But of course this fight is not about the workers and their rights. It is about the union officials and their privileges.
[NB: not the union _members_ rights, since they’re always sacrificed on the alter of Labor/Union machine politics. Go read the Latham Diaries to get the inside story of how it works, or just look at the demise of union membership in the private sector for an indication of what the general workforce thinks of the service offered by the unions].
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So, if they genuinely believe that John howard would make a better PM than Kim Beazley they have a duty to get that “truth” out too, I presume?
The worried mum with children could be sacked on “operational” grounds. She’s protected except for operational reasons, which means she’s not protected at all.
It’s another example of the legerdemain in the IR reforms and the attempt to sell them.
Even operational reasons wouldn’t need to be invoked, for the employer could simply have previously sacked her, without impediment, and hired her on again as a casual. Sorry, Independent Contractor. As a casual, if she failed to jump to her master’s demands, she may find being left off shifts and thus losing income.
Welcome to the new Australia.
Of course the sky isn’t going to fall. But whatever I say the chicken littles will cluck back with some overblown counter-example.
I seriously doubt this will change many people’s lives for the worse, _except_ of course the lives of the union leaders and Labor party machine men who have built their careers on unrepresentative, shadowy backroom deals.
However, if it does change a lot of lives for the worse, guess what? The Liberals will be out of there at the next election. So worst-case you’ll have about 12 months of upheaval before we can all go back to the comfort of knowing that some pissant Shoppies official in Adelaide is determining who sits on the Labor front bench.
Geez, if I was left-leaning and really believed that this is going to be as bad as all that, I’d be urging the government on. With all those pregnant mothers and footy coach dads fired by their evil bosses, this’d have to be the best chance Labor have had for a decade to gain office.
I heard a rumor that the worried mum is actually an actor. Fancy using actors to make an advertisement.
Yeah. Next thing they will be saying that a re-configuring of a successful society is being done to benefit the victims of that re-configuring.
Dogz, it’s a real shame that union staff are demonized the way you’re doing. They work for much less pay than in other jobs, in situations where they routinely have to go up against powerful people and law firms on big budgets. From what I’ve seen, they do this because they believe in fair play for the underdog.
The relationship with Labour has been a bit shaky, I believe.
As to shady deals, I think you would those on both sides, particularly with these IR reforms.
What we’ve got here is a management class that resents having its power challenged, and an extremely dodgy, multi-billion dollar recruiting industry scared of having its rorts exposed. John Howard should be hanging his head in shame.
Dogz, OK that alleged falsehood fell over. Workers will be able to be sacked for no reason, which is the safe path for all bosses. Got another falsehood buddy?
As for the ‘chicken little’ nonsense, this is a comforting line invented by conservatives for conservatives. No-one opposed to the Howardian scheme has said the sky will fall in when the new laws arer pased. On the contrary, the argument is that the inequities the laew is designed to encourage are already out there where non-managerial AWAs are operating, and these horror stories will simply increase in scale and incidence, probably (hopefully) in a slow process. Some of you folks need to actually concentrate on both the proposals and the case against to get up to speed.
Will the ALP roll them back? Did Helen Clarke roll them back?
Myself. I go in hope.
David, I think we need get the sequence right here. There was the 19th century, then the twentieth century, and now Howard is trying to roll back to the 19th. We need the ALP to rock & roll forward again to the 21st.
Can we have the tax system of 1900 also please.
So, what are you looking for Terje? The right to be a Atilla the Boss and pay no tax? I guess you want a harem on tap too? I assume you’re OK for sox and undies? How about someone to tie your shoes? All your dreams at once.
“we can all go back to the comfort of knowing that some pissant Shoppies official in Adelaide is determining who sits on the Labor front bench.”
That was the most telling part of the Latham diaries. Summarises beautifully what has become of the Labor party.
I did have some trouble getting the socks to match today when I folded them. So if you have any of my odd socks please return them.
They did not pay “no tax” in 1900. I am a minimalist not an absolutist (ie a libertarian not an anarchist).
In essence I would like less interference by the state in consenting adult relationships. If you can organise to abolish the Bank Notes act of 1910 for me also that would be appreciated.
Life has never been the same since the plebs starting thinking they could go to varsity with their betters. One must know one’s station in life.
In the modern global business world, of course, we don’t use language like that. Instead we say that flexible work practices will create a stronger economy.
If running a business is just a licence to print money and treat your underlings like shit as cs suggests, then why don’t the poor little oppressed guys all start one? Then they wouldn’t have to worry about the IR laws, because they’d be employing themselves.
Employees do actually have a fair bit of power, to the contrary of what the class-warriors who hang around here might suggest. The much-hated contract and subcontract based system that has evolved in the last 15-20 years means that it’s easier than ever to replace your boss.
If he isn’t paying you enough, then you can quit and bid against him on the same sort of work you were doing previously. This happens a lot more than most lefties would care to admit, especially in blue-collar trades.
If running a business is just a licence to print money and treat your underlings like shit as cs suggests
Heh. cs suggested no such thing. All cs did was point out the self evident fact that an ordinary individual worker does not stand in the same bargaining position as his/her bosses. Have a lie down yobbo.
Yobbo, that’s a good suggestion, that workers should simply start their own little business.
However it’s not that simple. The recruiting and labour hire industry is actually in competition against individual workers, especially in IT and business services sectors.
It mounts marketing and legislative campaigns to lock up jobs and work so that they are filled only through recruiting firms, thus forcing workers to contract through those firms, and accept the onerous conditions and huge margins exacted.
Many large organisations now fill their casual positions only through such firms. Even worse, our federal and state governments also now work this way. That is, if you’re an individual contractor, for many contract jobs, the government won’t even consider your application or tender unless you go through a recruitment or labour hire firm.
cs,
Sure – your comment above. While it is true that workers will be able to be sacked for no reason under the new legislation, that’s no different from now. Of course, the circumstances under which workers may be _lawfully_ sacked is a different question, and the frightened mother in the ads cannot be lawfully sacked if she takes a carers day for her kids, neither under the new legislation nor the old.
However, painful and irritating employees who do the minimum amount of work, watch the clock, skive off their coworkers, and lower morale for everyone else, will be able to be fired without the employer fearing a wrongful dismissal suit. Sounds like a good move to me. BTW, I know of several small-business-owner friends who are waiting for the new legislation to get rid of some people they’ve been wanting to get rid of for a while. Watch for an upward blip in the unemployment figures when the legislation is passed into law.
Second, albeit offtopic falsehood in your quote: I am not your buddy.
Tony Healy: start a labour hire firm with smaller margins then. You’ll clean up because you’ll get all the best contractors and all the best customers. In an area such as this with little barrier to entry, large margins represent an opportunity.
Dogz, your suggestion is one response to the emerging climate in Australian business.
The issue is, though, that control of working placements by labour hire firms is not good for workers or even employers, in some ways.
I propose a measure that restricts government advertising to that which is provided for by legislation. That would subject it to debate and prevent this kind of preemptive feel-good guff we’re getting at the moment.
QUOTE CS:All cs did was point out the self evident fact that an ordinary individual worker does not stand in the same bargaining position as his/her bosses.
RESPONSE: It does not follow that the bosses are in a better negotiating position. Most bosses have little choice but to pay the market rate. If the rate is two high for them then they close up shop and join the job queue themselves.
One of the essential strengths in any negotiation is having time on your side. A worker who is cashed up or who has beneficiaries (eg government, spouse etc) can afford to string out negotiations. A boss with capital expenses accruing may not always have that luxury.
It is self evident that bosses and workers are in different negotiating positions. It is not self evident that the boss always has the better position.
Terje, you’re introducing distortions by representing the boss as being simply another individual. In general the “boss” is a company or organisation of some size.
In terms of accessing a market or filling a role, the employer has the advantage over the individual worker of access to equipment, location or capital. The question of how that access came about is a different matter, but it confers upon the employer the benefit of having something to offer.
In administrative terms, the employer has experience of negotiating more employment agreements than the worker. He also has the benefit that workers must compete against each other for the job, and thus he has the ability to choose between workers.
Henry George posed the question in his writings of why, if workers helped employers make more profit, workers must compete against each other for jobs. Surely employers should be competing to obtain the services of workers.
In administrative terms, too, the employer usually has access to specialist human resources personnel, to law firms and to recruiters. They all convey a huge benefit to the employer.
Your claim that workers with access to finance have a negotiating advantage is silly. Most purchasing arrangements in society are based on continuous payments, and thus ongoing employment. For this reason, workers don’t actually have the option to delay negotiation.
Terje: Can we have the tax system of 1900 also please.
What attracts you about seven different income tax systems, extremely high tariffs and the system of wholesale sales taxes the GST replaced?
No Terje, it is not self-evident that the boss always has the better position, nor is it even true. It’s just that the boss *mostly* has the better position.
I’m in an unusually good position to speak about this. I run a small business that employs up to 20 people, but the work is seasonal, and so nine months a year I go back to being an employee for someone else (in a very different line of business). I know in which situation I have more power.