Five Words From Honesty

Of course this news doesn't surprise us anymore:

'UP to $61 million of taxpayers' money has been allocated by the Howard Government to promote Work Choices over the past four months in a bid to neutralise the ACTU campaign against the workplace laws.'

'A government spokeswoman would confirm only that the latest figures showed $23 million of the $61million allocated had been spent by August 8. Since then, there have been countless government ads on television and other media.'

When we all know that this is just more of our money being wasted on partisan political propaganda the Government conveniently comes just five words from admitting its crime:

'But the Government insisted the spending was necessary to rebut the ACTU "scare campaign".'........ to improve it's election chances.

What other reason could there possibly be for such a frenzied spend fest prior to an election? Where is the disgust from conservatives over this behaviour? (....crickets)

Hypocrites.

$2 Billion On Telling Ourselves How Great Howard Is

The Howard Government has nearly reached the $2 billion mark in spending on taxpayer funded propaganda:

PRIME Minister John Howard has spent nearly $2 billion on government advertising and information campaigns since coming to power 11 years ago.

A Sunday Age investigation has found that just weeks from calling an election, the Government has 18 advertising campaigns on the air, with a $23 million climate change campaign to air after this week's APEC conference.

The Sunday Age investigation has also shown that since the last election in 2004, Mr Howard has spent a record $850 million of taxpayers' money on government advertising. The Government disputes this figure. "It's probably closer to $400 million," said Peter Phelps, chief of staff to Special Minister of State Gary Nairn.

Spending this year is expected to peak at $200 million before Mr Howard calls the election.'

But don't you feel better for it? Doesn't it reassure you that we have the greatest government in the world? And surely if they feel like telling us this with our own money then who are we to argue, right?

Even though Howard railed against such abuses of taxpayer funding in 95:

In 1995, Mr Howard promised that if elected he would instruct the Commonwealth Auditor-General to draw up guidelines on appropriate use of taxpayers' money for advertising. "There is clearly a massive difference between necessary government information for the community and blatant government electoral propaganda," Mr Howard said at the time. "Propaganda should be paid for by political parties."

Here, here!!!

And conservatives still act so outraged at suggestions that Howard is somehow dishonest.

For How Long Can We Take It?

Must we accept from now on the constant abuse of power shown every election year in the funding of partisan political advertising with tax payer funds? State Labor do it, federal Labor even did it, but no government in the history of the country has spent even close to the amount the Howard government has. Their new add to counter possible voter backlash against their new industrial relations laws is a disgrace.

We're greeted by a public servant who's been put in, what is clearly, a partisan position telling us that what we've been hearing about the new laws isn't true. They're good, fair and she's there to protect us, but isn't this yet another step further? Not only must we pay for this Liberal party advertisement but we must endure a public servant preaching a Liberal party line. Do they think we're stupid? Hockey thinks so:

'Workplace Relations Minister Joe Hockey last night rejected Labor's claims, with a spokeswoman saying it was appropriate and responsible for public servants to explain government policies. '

Yes Joe it's fine for them to explain government policy but this isn't all she's doing. Workplace authority chief Barbara Bennett states at the beginning of the add:

'"The biggest myth is that employees are alone and unprotected, and that's just not true." '

This is clear tackling of a political issue, had she simply spoke of her job and what the authority does then she would have remained impartial, though even had she done just this it would still have been a tax payer funded Liberal party advertisement.

My question is what will the catalyst be? To what heights will the government be allowed to go before this ridiculous practise is ceased?