Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Industrial Relations) Share this | Hansard source

It seems to me that the minister is suggesting that if the unemployment figures are good, because they are low, it is the government’s performance and, indeed, if productivity is declining it is because of the drought. It seems to me that he picks and chooses. I would like to go to something more specific with respect to the costs of polling, market research and creative development of the current campaign ‘A Stronger Safety Net for Working Australians’, in 2007. In fact, in estimates in 2005 it was uncovered that the government spent approximately $55 million on doing exactly that for Work Choices. I would ask the minister if he could identify precisely the costs for the current campaign in those three categories. I will repeat them: market research, creative development and polling used for the development of the Work Choices brand and, indeed, the current campaign.

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