In response to my last post about taxpayer-funded IR propaganda, Things I’ve Seen comes up with a neat suggestion.
At the end of every advert, where we currently have “Authorised by”, add “This advert was paid for by the Australian taxpayer”. Then let democracy take its course.
The neat thing is that if ads were genuinely helpful and informative, tazpayer-viewers wouldn’t mind.
A requirement of this kind could be inserted by legislation, and it would be a brave government that subsequently removed it. Of course, it would only happen if it could be done in the first few days after a change of government, when the habits of power had not yet grown familiar.
John Quiggin 
“The neat thing is that if ads were genuinely helpful and informative, tazpayer-viewers wouldn’t mind.”
Sure they wouldn’t. I have a bridge to sell you.
transparency is a beautiful thing. too bad that over here in the states, transparency would melt our brains…
That is a very clever idea. Sooo elegant.
If they stop running these adds do I get a tax cut? Or will the money just get spent creating jobs in other industries?
Most of what government does is unproductive. So as a taxpayer I was already cranky before the adds went to air.
This is a brilliant idea. But why stop at government expenditure on ads? Let’s apply it to _all_ government expenditure, and then set up a website where people can vote for or against individual expenditure items, and let deomcracy _really_ take its course.
So:
“This hospital was paid for by the Australian taxpayer – $83M”
[excellent use of my money]
“Mr Smith [teacher] is funded by the Australian taxpayer – $80K pa (including on-costs)”
[fine – he’s a good teacher]
“Mr Jones [teacher and AEU organiser] is funded by the Australian taxpayer – $80K pa (including on-costs)”
[no way – the AEU want to turn my kids into know-nothing post-modern politically correct commie sympathizers – he’s out]
“Prof Quiggin [academic] is funded by the Australian taxpayer – $400K pa (including on-costs)”
[he’s taxpayer funded? $400K pa??? man, all he ever does is whine about the government that feeds him – out]
BRING IT ON!
In these days of almost frictionless transfer of information, the solution to the issue of loaded information is simple.
Call it the Access to Legislation Act 2005.
Under the provisions of this Act, any taxpayer-funded information must contain a weblink to the latest draft of the proposed legislation.
Governments have three choice:
1. Introduce legislation without benefit of government propaganda. This would arouse suspicions of a ministerially-plotted ambush. But it would save taxpayers’ money.
2. Leave dummy or misleading drafts on the website. This would confirm suspicions of a ministerially-plotted ambush when the real legislation is introduced.
3. Be honest and update the draft as changes are made, sometimes in response to public pressure.
An impressively original point, dogz. You must be only about the 20th to make it.
One of the great bonuses of my current position is how much it annoys RWDBs.
Which point JQ? That we should go for democracy across the board?
I never claimed it to be globally original, although it was original with me and the first time it was made in this thread.
I think it is a valid point: if you want democracy on any individual issue – as opposed to just letting the elected government get on with it – are you willing to extend it to all issues? If not, why not? In my view, you don’t get to apply it just to the areas that favour your side of politics.
Orthogonally, I looked up “RWDB” after SJ used it on me yesterday – according to the few web sources I could locate, it means “Right Wing Death Beast”. Sounds pretty nasty – what’s your motivation for calling me that?
BTW, I couldn’t give a rat’s arse what you earn – I’d vote against you if it was $50,000 pa.
John, RWDBs notwithstanding, I think you’re too generous towards government advertising. I’d argue that for most campaigns (PBS, Regional Telecoms, probably even defence recruitment), the costs exceed the public benefit. Being “genuinely helpful and informative” sets the bar too low.
Actually, I retract that. It was said in the heat of the moment in response to an outright insult. I may disagree with your views but the country needs at least a few smart people with dissenting views who are not worried about where their salary is coming from.
Dogz, retraction accepted with thanks.
RWDB is a blogosphere in-joke used primarily by rightwingers to describe themselves, and more generally as a description for a fairly well-defined group. See, for example, rwdb.blogspot.com or the listing of sites at Troppo Armadillo. Since you’d used it yourself, I assumed you were aware of this. It’s not generally taken as an insult, and I didn’t intend it this way. Apologies for any offence.
Andrew, I agree that the relevant test is whether benefits exceed costs. But presumably the viewers will be applying the same test.
I’m mildly surprised by your reference to defence recruitment. No doubt it’s partly a plug for the defence forces, but I assume the primary purpose is the ostensible one and that someone in recruitment allocates funds between alternative recruiting methods.
I guess I am not “in”. My misunderstanding. I had only used the term when quoting SJ’s use of it.
I get it now – “we’re here and we’re
queerRWDBs”Now that’s out the way – the substantive point remains: do we brand everyone and everything in receipt of govt money or just the ones you disagree with?
Dogz, we can brand everything the government does with our money without having a direct democratic exercise in our judgement of its value. But the more aware people are of what the government spends their money on, the better their decision will be at the next election. Pr Q wasn’t suggesting that if the voters don’t like the adverts they clikc ‘no’ on its funding. he was suggesting that if they don’t like the adverts they take it into consideration at the next election. i thought ‘RWDBs’ were all for small, accountable governments?
The adverts tell us precisely what the Government thinks of the voters – they are thick and to be manipulated.
Howard with his majority has gone berserk – look at the proposed anti terrorism laws!
Where is the right of reply (in advertising form) from the opposing parties/views?
WHAT IS BEING LEGISLATED (“slipped through”) in Parliament while these pathetic adverts are endlessly stuck in front of the public?
The endless glossy pamphlets that were letter-boxed on behalf of the Federal Government – the End Violence adverts – they were inaccurate, favouring women (I am one) instead of showing a major increase of violence in the community by women against men and children, I expect this to be dealt with by the Government and respective organisations without all the brouhaha of an advertising campaign. This campaign was simply keeping Howards Mob in the limelight – this little man is obsessed with using any form of the Press.
Am I correct that the Federal Government is the 2nd largest Advertising contract in Australia.
Am I correct that the GST Adverts cost the taxpayer $380mill?
Apart from writing to the Political parties how can we STOP this total waste of taxpayers money that could be used in many vital areas in our community and give one relief from constantly having to change channels when Howard is thrust upon once again?
I don’t think the punters generally have any misconceptions about who’s paying for these ads. I noticed the NSW govt was to spend $300,000 on advertising the opposite case and Rann has come out and said the SA govt will challenge the legislation in the High Court. Presumably he’ll have some mates among the Premiers. It would appear the genie is well out of the bottle on using the taxpayer’s hardearned to push your political barrow. It really started with public funding of political parties. That was the thin end of the very fat wedge for us all today.
It’s interesting to look back with hindsight on the capturing of the public purse in order to promote partisan political views. Public funding of these campaigns before getting into office, would appear to have logically led to the notion that it was OK to use the the trappings of office to promote the same. It’s interesting to speculate as to whether public funding of campaigns has cheapened our democracy. When the parties don’t have to sing for their campaign supper funds, then who needs all those messy problematic members eh? That leaves the field to a few factional heavyweights and movers and shakers.
theo,
I am all for small, accountable governments. I want the government to tell the public loud and clear everything they are spending. Ads, schools, academics – everyone and everything that is in receipt of taxpayer dollars.
The ads should carry the message “this ad cost the Australian taxpayer $30,000” or whatever each slot costs. This website should carry the message: “PrQ is funded at $400,000 pa by the Australian taxpayer”. I should be able to look up for each hospital where my dollars are being spent. For each school. For each university. For each public service department. There is nothing like the antiseptic of public scrutinity.
The principle is actually pretty fair: I have to account to the government for every dollar I or my company earns so the government can work out how much tax to take. It is only fair that in return the government should account to me for every one of those tax dollars it spends.
Dogz,
Agreed, we should be informed as to where the billions of dollars put into the common fund i.e. Government (State & Federal) is being spent.
As the population is becoming more computer & Internet savvy, a web site that shows exactly where the money is being spent should be established by an appropriate body enabling access by all Australians.
Twice a year the Government(s) could “advertise” (print) this same information for people who do not have this Internet access.
We are the politicians EMPLOYER and we need to actively hold them to account and ask for a thorough transparent explanation of where our hard earned, accountable dollars have been spent.
In this country we regularly seem to end up paying hugely for inadequate short term decisions made by politicians/bureaucrats, possibly a detailed, audited spending “report” may see a more responsible attitude to the allocation of taxpayers monies.
John, defence recruitment is clearly the most defensible category of government advertising (pun unavoidable). I mentioned it because I wanted to stretch the envelope as far as possible. Perhaps it’s pure as the driven snow, but I rather suspect someone in the PMO knows what’ll be spent on it next year.
then maybe australia should also publish individual tax return amounts like they do in – um, norway? i think? –
I would also like to introduce some workplace flexibility into Parliament.
As one of the employers of parliamentarians, and to grow the economy, I would like to sign MP’s up to new contracts that make them subject to dismissal at 1 hours notice at any time, and remove overtime for political staffers
If they don’t like it, they can choose another job, just like the PM says.
Dogz, I’m fairly sure that PrQ’s salary/funding etc is available if you dig hard enough through the relevant public records. And also, it’s my understanding that this blog is entirely his own device, and has nothing to do with his being a (worthy) recipient of public funding. Actually, he’s providing somewhat of a multiplier for his funding, disseminating it more widely than it otherwise would be, and thereby doing the public a service.
Supposedly, all of the information you require is provided to Parliament at least annually. There is a necessary trade-off between aggregating information for the sake of convenience and clarity and providing full disclosure. It was argued in the High Court that funding for these ads wasn’t adequately disclosed, and McHugh and Kirby agreed with that proposition, but oh well…
Kenneth Davidson bangs on about this topic rather frequently.
It’s really quite simple: a small government and an accountable government are at least partially opposed concepts. Which one do you want?
The stupidest thing about these adverts is that it’s not even a campaign. No member of the public will get to vote on this issue, and it’s not like they’re trying to convince the opposition since they have a senate majority anyway.
The adverts wouldn’t have even existed if it wasn’t for the ACTU’s ridiculous scare campaign, but they still seem like a waste of time to me.
Of course, no matter what sort of policy is being discussed, Labor can run their own propaganda campaigns using both the voice and cash flow of the relevant union to get the message across. So it’s no wonder the left is suddenly so concerned about government spending – such a change could only help Labor.
For some reason “RWDB” always reminds me of that penetrating lubricating oil you squirt into stuck old mechanisms to loosen them up.
“Most of what government does is unproductive.”
So which unproductive bits would you like to eliminate, Terje? Perhaps all the bits that guarantee property rights? Infrastructure? Defence? Health? Justice system? Or is it, as I suspect, just the bits that prevent the indigent from starving or allow people to consider having children without facing financial ruin? An essay question Terje: “why the Bush administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina shows how government can get right out of unproductive activity”. Would you happily sign up to Margaret Thatcher’s dictum ‘there’s no such thing as society”? http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/margaretth165648.html
If so, why do you bother contributing to a social democratic website, except to be a nuisance?
I must say that I first heard of the term RWDB also when SJ used it to describe Dogz. I presumed it was a term used to vilify.
wilful,
Both. I am sure the government would run more efficiently overall if it streamlined processes to expose its expenditure.
If not, then I think next year I’ll tell the tax office that I can’t file a tax return because it’s too hard to find the information. I’ll leave the filing cabinet on the verandah and they can come dig for the information themselves.
To clarify, this blog is an entirely private activity. My paid work is reported here with a prominent acknowledgement of public funding.
Most of the “productive” things governments do are only productive as compared with nothing at all. However the true alternative is what would be done to meet those needs instead. Simply abolishing those government services would be a bad idea as in the short term those alternatives would not be there; you would need a proper transition to get to them without throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Nevertheless, history shows that nearly all those needs were indeed met in different ways in the past, and the need for government provision has actually been caused by various forms of government crowding out and ringbarking of the alternatives.
That means there is no philosophical justification for government intervention in those areas, but rather that intervention indicates past government failure to meet the underlying need of maintaining a situation in which those alternatives can flourish. So now we face the practical problem of how to get there from here.
Gee, I always thought RWDB was an aconym for Right Wing Dead Beat as most of the rabid right are!
i never thought i’d say this, but yobbo makes an interesting point. the public has basically no say on workchoices [cf GST and medicare safety net advertising, both of which occured in the lead up to elections], so convincing them can’t be the point. the only plausible rationale i can think of is that they’re spending $40million to convince barnaby joyce.
can’t they just give him the $40million and be done with it? at least then i wouldn’t have to watch any more of these goddamn ads.
A very useful source of information is the Senate Finance and Public Administration references committee inquiry into government advertising (see http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/fapa_ctte/govtadvertising/index.htm) ; make up your own mind about the various submissions, which include my own, and a peculiarly rabid supplementary submission from the Minister concerned.
In terms of justified advertising, there is a lot of it – not just defence recruitment, but others such as health promotion (immunisation is contested by some but most public health advertising is fairly non controversial), electoral matters (enrolment, location of polling places). In most years the single biggest item is defence recruitment, but in some partisan political campaigns outweigh defence (GST, and now IR legislation). There are two main issues of concern – the content of the political ads cited, which are designed to influence opinion before legislation goes to the Senate, and the pattern of government advertising being ramped up in the period before an election is called – a pattern observed under both Labor and Coalition governments.
Yobbo’s point about the irrelevance of this spending is correct, as far as it goes.
The major function of the ad campaign is to establish an aura of normality around what will quickly come to be perceived by many as a revolutionary change in Industrial Relations and in the balance of power in workplaces.
The campaign aims to manufacture consent in favour of this new IR regime. The campaign seeks to forestall and to delegitimise criticism and dissent.
Thus, the campaign is not intended to enable the passage of the legislation, which is more or less inevitable. The campaign is early propaganda for the next federal election, which will be held after the consequences of the IR revolution will have begun to bite.
Yobbo needs to broaden his timeframe of reference.
A lot of the info mentioned above is fairly easily findable on the web – either in the annual report of the organisation, or in the budget papers.
P.M. Lawrence writes: “history shows that nearly all those needs were indeed met in different ways in the past,” doesn’t seem that way if you read Dickens.
Dogz,
You suggest that a teacher receives funding from the government of $80,000pa. This is rarely the case unless you start adding in some sort of indirect government support. In fact, teacher salaries are generally below $60,000pa before tax. It would only be fair to deduct tax before stating what annual income a teacher receives from government sources.
Perhaps we should all carry around a little balance sheet setting out our contributions to and support from the government…
J,
I was careful to say “$80,000 (including on-costs)”. I was assuming a $50,000-$60,000 base salary. On-costs include all the added costs of employing a teacher, eg workcover premiums, super, office space, coffee, admin overhead, yada yada. The education departments will have a formula, but I doubt it’s less than 1.5 X base salary.
I like the idea of a balance sheet.
I noticed in the paper today that the NSW government is running an advertising campaign critical of WorkChoices. Now we have an advertising war fully funded by the taxpayer. Hopefully we will all figure out what to think before this is over.
Dogz, you’re right, you did include ‘on-costs’. My apologies for the oversight.
Dogz, I’m sure you meant the transparency to extend to the large corporations engaged in “public private partnerships” who currently hide behind “commercial in confidence”… didn’t you?
An interesting claim. Care to provide examples?
I note that the US government provides less services in many social areas, and has distinctly different outcomes to Australia in aeas such as healthcare and education. Is that the example you think we should follow?
I guess you agree with Margaret Thatcher, there is no such thing as society.
“I note that the US government provides less services in many social areas, and has distinctly different outcomes to Australia in aeas such as healthcare and education.”
Distinctly better, yes.
“I guess you agree with Margaret Thatcher”
Much more often than I agree with John Quiggin.
Helen – absolutely. I consider private rorting of taxpayer funds to be just as bad as public waste, in fact maybe worse – at least public waste is usually originally motivated by some notion of public benefit even if it doesn’t turn out that way.
Yobbo – much as I usually agree with you (I’d love to bang Katie Holmes too) – there’s no way US healthcare is better than Oz. At last count I think there were 45M uninsured Americans for whom the only access to healthcare is the hospital emergency room. If you’ve ever been in an inner-city US emergency room (I have), you’ll see it stacked to the eaves with black kids with minor ailments waiting hours to see overworked interns.
The US health system is not one to emulate.
Dogz and Yobbo stand eager to rectify infuriating inequalities exhibited in Hollywood’s gene pool.
Perhaps offspring with their brains and Katie Holmes’s looks would be no scarier than the alternative outcome.
US healthcare? Too easy!
Dogz: I think you would agree that Health care and Health insurance are two different things. The standard of care you get in the US is far superior to what you get anywhere else in the world – the fact that some people can’t afford (or choose not to pay for) insurance is not an indictment on that.
The other problem of course is that mountains of malpractice suits have made health care and health insurance vastly more expensive than it should be – but again this isn’t really a problem of the health care system but of the court system.
Government provided health care services (which is what wilful was talking about) like we have in Australia are vastly inferior to their private alternatives, which is why so many people choose to pay extra for private insurance.
I’ve got no opposition to Medicare type insurance schemes to assist the poor, it’s actually letting the government run the hospitals and schools that is the problem. By all means give people money to use the services, but let private organisations actually provide them.
We don’t let the government run car service garages or fish and chip shops, I don’t see anyone would think they would be any better at running hospitals or schools. This is why we now simply give people welfare money to buy food with instead of providing soup kitchens.
Yobbo,
I lived in the US for several years and I didn’t find the general level of private care to be that much better than available in Oz under the public system. Just my personal experience.
The motivation for privatization of any industry is usually that market forces ensure improved service. The problem with health care is that the market forces break down in several respects.
First, there’s the doctors “unions” (the specialist guilds). The guilds decide who becomes a specialist in their area (that’s how it is here or in the US (or UK – so lets say at least anywhere in the anglosphere)). So guess what? They ensure the supply of specialists is always tight to keep prices high. The AMA and its associated guilds are the biggest closed shop in the country.
Second, there’s no limit to what people are willing to spend on their own health. You’ll mortgage your house and work three jobs to save the life of your own child. That means companies that develop new drugs and treatments under patent have almost zero downward pricing pressure (depending on the area).
Third, the medical insurance companies have no incentive to keep health costs down because they just pass the increases onto the consumer, which in the US is your employer.
Both two and three are somewhat alleviated by having a public system: the government negotiates as a bloc with the US drug companies and wrings out massive concessions for the PBS scheme (remarkably, medicaid in the US (public health care for the destitute – nothing like medicare here) is forbidden _by legislation_ from negotiating a bloc discount on drugs – which is why so many americans buy their drugs from canada over the internet); and with the government picking up the tab for a big chunk of the healthcare it can keep a better lid on costs.
I’m not saying its the best system or that you can’t devise a better private system, I just think there are good reasons to think that “purely private is better” doesn’t necessarily hold when it comes to healthcare.
test
well – looks like “Dogz” is being moderated. I had a nice long piece extolling the virtues of public health disappear into JQ’s bitbucket.
_dissent_ …. _will_ … _not_ …. _be_ … _tolerated_
lame