As someone who has never thought much of the government of Brother Number One it is very easy for me to take a certain delight in its failings but this latest betrayal of an election promise is breathtaking in its blatant cheek.
Tanner, who is usually an urbane inner-Melbourne debating type, scraped the bottom of the rhetorical barrel defending the indefensible.
He compared current spending on self-serving advertising with what happened under Howard, pointing out that in its last year that government spent $250 million on ads, while Labor only managed to splurge $200 million in its first two years.
Before you start cheering this parsimony, you should realise this is actually even better than it looks.
In Tanner’s mind, Howard really spent much more. “In today’s dollars that’s more like $280 million,” said the minister.
So there you have it, seasonally adjusted spending larks. That’s policy innovation.
In fact, the whole great big mining tax ad campaign defies political logic.
Before the election, Rudd put his hand on his heart and promised he would never engage in the sort of political advertising we saw under Howard.
It was a “cancer at the heart of democracy” and Rudd pledged to resign if he didn’t adhere to high standards, including audit oversight of any ad spends.
Now if they were being honest (OK I know we are talking about politicians 
) they could have sold this decision as a new stimulus package for the economy designed to work through the advertising industry, you know by paying for massive amounts of dosh to the Add makers we are saving the economy of the Porsche dealers and the makers of the blackberry.
As some one on the Insiders was saying yesterday, who believes government advertising anyway? Surely the community is now so cynical about anything so promoted that they just mentally turn off when they see the the damn things? I am blessed in that I just don’t watch commercial TV enough to even see the crap but I really do resent just about all government advertising because no matter who is in power it is nearly always lies , misinformation and spin.
I give you the Saints who say succinctly in about three minutes precisely what I feel about this and every bit of advertising in general and political advertising in particular.
Glen Milne is right about this too
Cheers Comrades
8)
Iain, I have it on good authority that Kevin Rudd’ ads will feature Peter Garrett singing Midnight Oil’s ‘Blue Sky Mining’ (a most appropriate choice in the circumstances). This will save them $millions in song royalties unlike Howard’s ads featuring Joe Cocker’s ‘Unchain my heart’, which he used to sell the GST to us. Joe said he didn’t like his song being used for political purposes but kept the money anyway.
Look, I realise your point is that Rudd had vowed he’d never do anything like this but then again, Howard said he’d never ever introduce a GST.
Btw, I reckon most people think these ads are a waste of money.
Ray I’m sure that you realise that saying “Howard was worse for political advertising” than Rudd is a rather poor argument . Heck even Lindsey Tanner was chastened by having to sell this deeply hypocritical add campaign on Meet the press yesterday.
The government is showing Just how desperate it is with this campaign and it makes me even more sure that Rudd and Scullen are both to be in the same club..
They’re only “desperate” because they’ve underwitten a great deal of their budget on the projected proceeds from the supertax on mines, Iain. It’s not a bad thing, btw, to charge more for big companies to dig up the farm.
Anyway, I think the ad is just to say that they they are going to do this. It’s not political advertising per se in that it could actually work against them at the forthcoming election. They’re just being honest and saying “we are going to do this and this is why”.
Btw, I didn’t use the “Howard was worse” argument, I used the example of Howard breaking his promise on GST to offset your point that Rudd had broken his promise on advertising.
Anyway, I saw one of those Liberal Party cartoon ads parodying Rudd on Pay TV last night. It looked more like something from an ad selling electrical goods and I didn’t realise it was a political ad until the end. It’s their money but if they want to waste it with that style of childish advertising they will lose seats, not win them.
But the “Work Choices” add were not being honest and saying “we are going to do this and this is why”?
Interesting that they’ll cry foul when the miners are spending money on a “scare” campagne, but when the unions were doing the same prior to the last election the ALP were aghast that the federal government used tax money to counter.
Taking hypocritical to an elite level.
Having said that I agree that Ray is right, Howard said he’d never ever introduce a GST, but when he changed his mind (like a bloke who says he’ll never ever get unmarried)at least he went to an election on the issue. If Rudd’s happy to have an election on the issue of spending millions of taxpayer $$ to bolster his political policy positions then I for one won’t hold the change of mind against him.
I think the mining companies have a bit of an advantage over unions in terms of the $s they can throw at an ad campaign, and so did Howard. And I’d rather see ads about protecting individuals’ rights than ones about protecting the profits of huge corporations. I guess it’s a matter as what you regard as more important.
Take your pick at which one you think is “worse”?:
1. Howard using a bottomless pit of taxpayer funds to counteract the Unions ads on behalf of low to middle income earners, or
2. Rudd using the same pit to counteract the mining company ads on behalf of themselves.
No matter who was empirically worse at the practice of using the public purse to pay for political advertising the fact of the matter is that Kevin swore a solemn oath to the electorate claiming that the practice would stop under his administration. It hasn’t and it is that for which he will quite rightly pilloried.
It is a back-flip with pike and half twist.
To be honest I really did not expect such political stupidity, even from Rudd and Swan.
Iain, did you miss the bit about Howard breaking his GST promise? That’s the point here. Oh, and the use by Howard of taxpayer funds to fight … well, taxpayers. At least Rudd is fighting those who deserve to be fought.
Yes Iain, you never thought much of the ALP well before the election or even well before they elected Rudd as leader. It is clear you wouldn’t like any ALP leader as they are of the evil ‘left’ and you’re a ‘Right Wing Warrior’ or ‘RWDB’, if you want a well used term.
It doesn’t surprise me that you try and reduce the impact of the comment by Ray above, which clearly points out the lying spin of both major parties.
My view is that this is a storm in a tea cup. Both the ‘Workchoices’ ad. and the ‘Mining Tax’ ad. are fair enough when the Government is under attack in the same way by a third party, be that unions or mining companies.
But let’s take a look at it.
Rudd’s ‘health care’ ad. is pure ALP political sell. I don’t agree with that. And Howard’s PR people spent some $120 million on the ‘Workchoices’ campaign (compared to $40 mill by the ALP on ‘mining tax’).
Assuming the mining tax gets up, then the $40 mill will be a drop in the ocean. The money spent on ‘workchoices’ was a waste, as the policy wasn’t successful, so that money is lost to the tax payer.
So I guess Ray is correct, Howard’s ads cost the tax payer $120 million for no return, so they were worse, as he points out.
BTW. The only political party sticking to its principles on this is, as usual, the Greens.
“The Greens are pushing for new laws on Government advertising, after the Government granted itself an exemption from its own guidelines to start rolling out ads promoting its resource super profits tax.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/05/30/2913229.htm?section=business
Ray
I really think that there is no comparison between this and the GST
Craigy
Yes Iain, you never thought much of the ALP well before the election or even well before they elected Rudd as leader. It is clear you wouldn’t like any ALP leader as they are of the evil ‘left’ and you’re a ‘Right Wing Warrior’ or ‘RWDB’, if you want a well used term.
Did you miss the part where of my blog where I pointed out that I have voted fro the ALP before? Or where I have pointed out that I even voted for Gough? You love to characterize me with a stereotype and frankly I would have thought that you who as been reading my blog for almost as long as I have been blogging would do better than that.
Have you actually read my post Craigy? you know including the bit where i said that I detest the practice of using government money for party political advertising? BY all parties in power?
Now who is down playing something unpleasant? I you were the man of principle that you claim to be then you would make no excuses fro Rudd just as I make no excuses for Howard on government advertising. Its B A D !!!! and I denounce it all
You see there you go again trying to both denounce Rudd but defend him at the same time by insisting that he is still a lesser evil even though his predecessor never insisted that teh would stop the practice and now has done a very basic back-flip on a Principe and a promise to the people.
It does not matter a damn about that the hypocrisy from Rudd and swan on government advertising is worth much more than the mining tax , It will cost them a loss of votes that they just can not afford.
Yes I agree that this is one thing that they have done that I respect and agree with. However, sadly you have let them down by making excuses for Rudd.
Notwithstanding the utter hypocrisy of the phony Tony on this issue, which needs no further explanation really, apart from the fact Howard spent a fortune on government propaganda, which no no doubt would buy a couple of hospitals .What can you say?
I am sitting at home watching question time.Rudd has been reborn, he is on a roll, Abbott is sitting there like a stunned mullet.
Tony Abbott’s speech therapist must be thinking Ah! Ah! Ah! um ! um! where did I go wrong?He he. I love it.
The elocution of Abbott he he he.Sir Cecil must be turning in his grave.
Of course there is a comparison between “this & the GST”, Iain. Your point is about “broken promises”, is it not?
And, btw, Howard’s broken promise on the introduction of an all-encompassing tax is far more significant than Rudd’s so-called broken promise re advertising funds. If there is “no comparison” it’s only because Howard’s lie had more far-reaching consequences.
Okay Iain, I’ll play.
I DON”T LIKE RUDD AND THE ALP ARE A DUD GOVERNMENT WHO SHOULD GO. So should the ALP in Victoria. (All we need is some real opposition).
Get It?
That said, I support the parties using TV ads when they are being attacked by TV ads used by a third party.
And I didn’t miss the part where you ‘claim’ to be a REFORMED leftie. You have said many times before that you moved on from the left when you ‘grew up’.
You have been a welded on supporter of Andrew Bolt for many years, running blogs defending his extreme, poorly researched views. You use the terms ‘Latte Sippers’ and ‘Warmanista’s to describe those with different views to you. You insist on calling others names and trying to paint people into a corner because they have a view you claim is of the ‘left’.
I am not ‘of the left’ to anywhere near the extent that you have often accused me of being. I am very much in the middle, if the views of the majority of Australians are the measure.
You claim also to be ‘conservative’ not an ‘extreme rightist’. Your blogging history and those you support tells another story. If you keep up with calling me names I think it only fair I do the same. Are you happy with ‘Warrior of the Right’?
You and your ‘Warrior’ mates are happy to focus on ‘outcomes’ when it suits (turning away refugees is okay because it creates a better ‘outcome’, invading Iraq on a lie is okay because we got rid of a dictator). Above I have pointed out that the Howard ads were clearly a waste of tax payer money based on the ‘outcome’. Rudd’s ads (assuming the tax gets through) will make the Australian tax payer money, we win on the outcome. A truly open minded person would acknowledge this. So can you remove your partisan blinkers long enough to apply your own logic to those you support? I doubt it.
Craigy
So your choice is one of three things Craigy, Vote for the Greens, and preference Labor which seems a terribly dishonest to yourself option. Secondly you can vote for the eternal candidate I. N. Formal Or you can vote for the party who will be part of the next Government. I think that you will end up choosing option two.
I assume that you mean using public rather than party money.
That is a nonsense position which means that you are endorsing John Howard’s Workchoices ads because they were intended to counter the Union campaign… How does that sit with you ?
Yet You seem to be suggesting that I have always been “of the right” and that I could never see anything good in any Labor politician which is just entirely false hyperbole.
Yawn! So what? I think that Andrew Bolt is correct on some of the issues that is in no sense a crime anywhere outside latte land
As epithets go both are incredibly mild and to be honest both are used with some affection and I try to paint people into corners because I think that they are wrong. As Far as I am concerned arguing about politics is a game, a sport, and a pastime too right I play to win who doesn’t?
No mate you are a Greens supporter there is no way that you can claim to be in the centre of the political spectrum.
The trouble with any label is that it never ever fits all-comers too a tee now does it? I was rather amused by ‘Warrior of the Right’ though
Sure they were a waste of money and I never supported them or Workchoices as you will find if you search my back catalogue.
There is absolutely No justification for the adds beyond the ALP wanting to retain power There is no information in them that is not already known. The crime here is that public money is being used for a party political advertising It was wrong when Howard did it and it is even more wrong when the man who gave the Australian peopel a solrmn promise that the practice would be stopped.
What is the right way to tax extractive industries is another question entirely and to be honest I see no problem at all in making miners pay their fair share BUT working out how much they can be taxed is inevitability a balancing act between staying competitive internationally and getting a good return for the people. Rudd may have the right answer to that balancing act but even if he has he and his cronies have acted like a mob of prize chooks in the way that they have gone about suggesting and implementing this tax. This tax may well be the thing that turns Rudd from a rooster into a feather duster
Oh and you may be embarrassed by this revelation Craigy
This tax may well be the thing that turns Rudd from a rooster into a feather duster
Oh yeah, I can see it now:
Mr & Mrs Average head to the polling booth. Mr Average says to Mrs Average: “You know what? I’m f*cked if I’m gunna let Rudd tax those greedy corporate miners; I’m voting Liberal because they want the mining companies to pay less tax than I do.”
No contest, Iain.
“Mr & Mrs Average head to the polling booth. Mr Average says to Mrs Average: “You know what? I’m f*cked if I’m gunna let Rudd tax those greedy corporate miners; I’m voting Liberal because they want the mining companies to pay less tax than I do.”
The whole election in a paragraph. Exactly right.
“Oh and you may be embarrassed by this revelation Craigy”
I wouldn’t believe anything written in that festering pustule of commie sympathizers.
I can’t understand all that information and not a word about “Pink Batt’s”
How about just a pinch of honesty Ray
1. Howard in a boom, using a bottomless pit of taxpayer funds to counteract the Unions scare ads on behalf of low to middle income earners, paying union fees and keeping the union officials in milk and honey positions, or
2. Rudd in “the worst financial crisis since the great depression,” having squandered billions (millions with a B Ray) on burning down people’s homes and building $50k sheds for $900k, using the same pit to counteract the mining company ads on behalf of themselves (the reason for the boom in example #1) when he gave a rolled gold absolute never ever guarantee not to.
Iain, I was with you till you mentioned Glen Milne. Ugh.
That’s non-sensical.
My comment refers to what HJ said, not deffdredd. Yeah, Glen Milne is not a great source to cite, Iain.
Hi Iain, just to clarify a point or two.
You obviously didn’t read my earlier comments through.
My view is that Howard’s Workchoices ads were okay based on the fact that the Unions were running ads attacking their policy.
Advertising can be very influential and advertising can be created by anyone to attack Government policy with very little restriction on how they do this. They can bend and manipulate public opinion to a point where a good policy gets rejected because of a scare campaign.
In those circumstances I think it is fair enough for the Government of the day to use tax payer funded ads to counter the attack. Obviously the Rudd government saw the attack from the mining industry coming and had the ads done in advance. Good planning, as part of trying to get this bill excepted, by the electorate, in an election year.
As for how I vote, I swing depending on the best candidate in my electorate, at times I have voted for the Greens and at other times the ALP, same at State elections. I have never voted for the state Libs, as they have only ever put up pro-development candidates in my area (which is a ‘Green Wedge’ zone). I have come close to voting for Liberal Fran Bailey in the Federal election, she has been a good local member for us, but the fact she was in the Howard Government put me off and the ALP and Greens have had some good candidates running against her.
That said, I would not vote for the current Rudd Government or the opposition under Tony Abbott. My Preferences would go to the ALP, assuming they put up a reasonable candidate. Fran is retiring at this next election, but I couldn’t preference Tony Abbott. Rudd may be bad but Tony is so full of problems and contradictions and way too far to the right. He would be very divisive as PM and would take us back to some of Howard’s worst policies like Workchoices.
How can you support Tony when you say you didn’t like Workchoices?
Seems your a bit confused, love Abbott, hate Workchoices, like the environment but hate the Greens……What are you now? You say middle, but you support the ideas of the extreme right and attack even moderate lefties. You still seem a partisan, even though you are obviously attempting to sound more moderate.
Please explain?
Oh, we’ve got plenty of people that fall into Iain’s category in this area too, Craigy. People whose lifestyle and interests in the environment would seem to be at odds with their rusted-on right wing views. I’m not saying this is the case with Iain but from what I’ve observed in this area, I’d say their political views are fear driven. And it is those same fears that have led them to escape from mainstream city life and ‘go rural’.
Yes Ray and it is interesting that some of the old farming families in our area still vote for the Libs. On most levels they do just about everything that Greens and Green policy suggests (through education and Landcare groups) but they are happy to swallow the scare campaign on other issues they don’t understand and are fearful of, like the Greens drugs policy.
The real Conservative trouble makers in our area are not the small business people or the farmers but local land owners who brought land knowing it was in the ‘Green wedge’ and now spend their time trying to destabilise the council and discredit the so called ‘Greenies’ so as to create an environment of hate. They use this hate they generate to push for further subdivision in the ‘Green Wedge’ and as an ideological attack on their ‘enemies’. If they eventually succeed this would make them very rich. We are talking about dividing up 100 acre properties into 5 acres or less.
One of the arguments they have used recently (that back fired) was that the ‘Green Wedges’ are a fire hazard and without development and clearing people might die. How dumb was that! Can you imagine what would have happened in Strathewen and Kinglake if the density of housing was 10 times closer…..
Up here we’ve got the Mountain Cattleman telling us that “Alpine grazing stops blazing”. I kid you not, there are trucks that drive past my door with this fallacy emblazoned billboard-style on the side of them. I must get a photo of it one day. And these mountain cattlemen are rusted on Lib or Nat voters.
I read and responded to your comments in detail Craigy
Well that is more support than I have given them, but I wonder if this is just something that you are saying now in retrospect to justify your support for what Rudd is doing .
Hmm That statement assumes a gullible public who trust what they hear or see in advertising I personally have more faith in people to know when something is spin or bullshit. I oppose such advertising paid fro from the public purse on principle.
But this very fact makes Swan and Rudd total lie tellers as well as hypocrites because they have tried to justify the ads as “an emergency measure to counter the miners campaign” which can’t be true if they were planning an add campaign before the tax was even announced. Hoisted on their own petard!!!
As I have said for years Craigy You are of the far left and frankly I don’t know how you can deny it with a history like that.
That means that you are supporting Rudd , but hiding behind a Green primary vote to do so.
Because Industrial relations just does not impinge upon my life. I support private enterprise and I think that individuals should be able to negotiate things like their terms and conditions of employment. That said I thought that Workchoices went too far but I also think that Gillard’s fix went too far in the other direction giving brutish unions too much power and I really think that “unfair dismissal” laws were widely rorted
I’m not at all confused I look at the individual issues and consider them on their merits. and craft a position on each in turn. As I am the member of no political party I am under no obligation to tick all of the boxes of any platform. I care passionately about the environment but I think that Greens have taken up the Climate change religion at the cost of their environmental credibility. I support free enterprise but I don’t think that the mantra of exponential growth and a greed is good culture can’t be sustained. I love the diversity of human cultures but I don’t think for a minute that any culture should be beyond criticism for the sake of “cultural sensitivity”. Likewise I don’t believe in anything supernatural but I am fascinated by the topic in fiction and I love to argue with those who believe.
It is a complex world that we live in and no one who is worth their salt should just accept that there is a simple way to define your ethical or political standpoint.
Far enough Iain, just one question. Have you considered voting for anyone else since you have become a conservative, anyone other than the Libs or Nats??
Yes Craigy
at every election I think very deeply about where to allocate my vote, just as every citizen should .
How about you Craig? Ever consider voting for the coalition?