Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

I suspect that members of the opposition are trying to offer me other suggestions for the list, but I will have to leave that aside for the time being.

What we are seeing with this advertising campaign is, in effect, corruption and arrogance reaching new heights. Now they will not even say how much is going to be spent on these campaigns. They are now not even prepared to indicate what the budgets are going to be. And we heard today that it looks as if every household in Australia is going to get a glossy leaflet in the mail explaining why the government are really concerned about climate change—and a letter from the Prime Minister to boot! So rather than addressing the problem—rather than having a serious strategy for Australia’s future—what are they doing? They are concentrating on looking like they are doing something, by advertising the product, not by actually having a decent product.

The Prime Minister responded to these claims with one argument: ‘The Labor state governments do it too.’ He obviously missed the statement made earlier today by the Leader of the Opposition where he indicated that not only do we intend to impose our commitment with respect to the Auditor-General or his delegate vetting all advertising campaigns that are more than $250,000; we intend to act to ensure that state governments fulfil their responsibilities in the same way—that they are subject to the same disciplines.

I just want to conclude on this point with one example to illustrate just how outrageous their spending is in this area. In 1993 the Labor government introduced a massive fundamental reform to industrial relations—the introduction of enterprise bargaining and unfair dismissal laws. The total cost to the budget of those reforms was about $11 million. As the person who was heavily involved in prosecuting Labor’s case at the time of the waterfront scandal and as the person who spent weeks harrying Peter Reith in this place about his misuse of his Telecard, I am embarrassed to admit that I have to say something good about him in this instance. When he introduced his industrial relations legislation, which, in many respects, was as sweeping as the Work Choices legislation, do you know what it cost the taxpayer? Again, it was only about $11 million or $12 million. It was only that much. Peter Reith, to his great credit, relied on his own advocacy. He was prepared to go into battle on behalf of the people he represented and the ideas he stood for and to fight it out in the public arena. But John Howard, the Prime Minister, needs the assistance of $600 million of taxpayers’ money to put his point on these issues out in the community. So not only do you lose your penalty rates and your overtime; your taxes are being used to persuade you that it is a good thing.

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