Senate debates
Monday, 17 September 2007
Questions without Notice
Advertising Campaigns
2:21 pm
Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Corporate Governance and Responsibility) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
My question is to Senator Abetz, the Minister representing the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. I refer the minister to the letter to Australian nurses from Mr Hockey published in newspapers across the nation at the weekend. Can the minister confirm that this full-page advertisement was paid for by Australian taxpayers, not by the Liberal Party? Will the minister now come clean on the full cost of this latest advertising campaign? Can the minister tell Australian taxpayers, who have already footed the bill for $93 million worth of Howard government Work Choices advertising, just how many more advertisements from Mr Hockey the Howard government expects taxpayers to pay for?
Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
As I think more and more Australians are coming to realise, the misinformation campaigns run by the ACTU and aided and abetted by the Australian Labor Party have caused a great degree of confusion within the minds of the Australian public. Therefore, it is appropriate for us as a government to put the facts on the record. And the facts are these: the Australian public has been provided with misinformation and misleading commentary about how the pay and conditions of Australia’s nurses are set; advertising was placed in the national newspapers at the weekend to clarify the situation with Australia’s nurses so that they know where they stand.
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare publication titled Nursing and midwifery labour force 2004 shows that around two-thirds of nurses are employed in the public sector. These nurses have their pay and conditions set by state Labor governments, yet the ACTU, the nurses union and other organisations deliberately mislead the Australian public in relation to that. The publication also shows that around 14 per cent of all nurses are residential aged care nurses. The majority of residential aged care nurses—around three-quarters—are employed in the private sector.
Nurses working under the federal workplace relations system have the protection of the fairness test when negotiating AWAs so that penalty rates and overtime cannot be exchanged without fair compensation. All employees in the federal system have a set of protections which all employers must abide by.
In relation to government advertising generally, can I make this point: state Labor governments around Australia have in fact outspent that which we as an Australian government spend on communications campaigns. Do you ever hear one word of criticism from Mr Rudd about state Labor advertising? Never once! Mr Beattie’s watermelon smiling face appeared in all the national newspapers promoting how well he was running Queensland—despite ‘Dr Death’ and other issues. Queensland taxpayers funded those first advertisements, and guess what? Not a squeak! There was not a squeak from the former mandarin of the Queensland government Mr Rudd. What that shows is that this mandarin is fast turning into a lemon, because he is not able to deliver on his policy with his state Labor colleagues. He says he is going to cooperate with his state Labor colleagues. You know what that means, don’t you? It means huge advertising expenditure way beyond that which has ever been seen.
In relation to nurses, the feedback we have got is that a lot of nurses now feel very satisfied that the misinformation being put out by the Nursing Federation is simply a political ploy to damage the government and does not have the interests of nurses at heart.
Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Corporate Governance and Responsibility) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. I note the minister asserts that it is appropriate for Mr Hockey to use taxpayer funds to advertise his open letter. I note that the minister again refused to come clean with Australian taxpayers and tell them how much they are spending on this latest round of advertising. Why don’t you answer the question, Minister? Can the minister also confirm—
Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Corporate Governance and Responsibility) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Through you, Mr President—
Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Corporate Governance and Responsibility) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Through you, Mr President—the minister could come clean with Australian taxpayers and tell them just how much they are spending on Mr Hockey’s latest round of industrial relations advertising. Can the minister also confirm that the Howard government is on track to spend nearly $2 billion of taxpayers’ funds on advertising during its term in office? Minister, isn’t it the case that the Howard government will do anything, say anything and spend any amount of taxpayers’ money in an attempt to get itself re-elected?
Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
As the honourable senator well knows, 25 per cent of government communications expenditure is spent on Defence Force recruitment. Would the Labor Party abolish that? Absolutely not. Would they abolish the advertising that communicates with people about their rights and responsibilities in relation to, say, drugs? Would they do that? No, they would not. What they say, very dishonestly, to the Australian people is: ‘We’re against all the advertising.’ But when you start putting them down campaign by campaign the only one they do not like is Work Choices. The reason they can afford to do that is that the ACTU is outspending the taxpayers in relation to its misinformation campaigns. The Labor Party seek to surf into government on the top of this wave of misinformation. We have a duty to the Australian people to correct the record, and that is what we are doing.
Alan Ferguson (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Order! I remind senators that yelling across the chamber is disorderly.