It's all your money, folks.
Posted at 5:09 PM, 16/10/2007
http://www.alp.org.au/media/1007/msirpaa160.phpWork Choices Advertising Hits $121 Million
Media Statement - 16th October 2007
Mr Howard has added the insult of wasting $121 million advertising Work Choices to the injury of lost wages and conditions under these extreme and unfair laws.
The working Australians who have been ripped off by these laws are also the taxpayers who have been ripped off by these ads.
It’s no wonder Australian working families think Mr Howard has lost touch - if only they had the choice between paying for groceries rather than ads.
The Mid Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) released by the Howard Government confirmed what every television viewer had suspected: that Mr Howard had wasted taxpayers’ money at record speed in an attempt to sell his unfair Work Choices laws.
The appendix of MYEFO details that $66 million has been spent on the second wave of Work Choices advertising since earlier this year.
This second wave was an extravagant attempt to repair Mr Howard’s image after the first $55 million Work Choices campaign only served to remind Australians how unfair his laws were.
In effect, Mr Howard wasted $55 to launch Work Choices and another $66 million to bury it.
During the fifteen weeks between the start of the 2007-08 financial year and the calling of the election, the Howard Government spent $61 million dollars on this advertising - more than $4 million per week just on Work Choices advertising.
This is the campaign that brought Australians such memorable moments as the actor who had himself underpaid workers and actors pretending to be Workplace Authority staff.
The ads were as fake as the Howard Government’s fairness test - which it turned out was administered by backpackers.