22 July 2009

Stanhopian outrage over curbs to his advertising

| johnboy
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Chief Minister Stanhope is having a good old dummy spit over Liberal plans to put some checks on the rampant ad spend of his Government in defence of Labor’s policies.

There’s even a lengthy list of grievances:

    Mr Stanhope said the Liberal Opposition’s Bill would:

    — Severely impact the effectiveness of Government advertising by banning slogans and jingles;
    — Create unacceptable restrictions on legitimate advertising three months before an election;
    — Severely impact the Government’s capacity to respond rapidly to issues by requiring all campaigns costing more than $20,000 to be reviewed by the Auditor General;
    — Fundamentally alter the Auditor General’s role by making the Auditor part of the decision-making process rather than the scrutiniser of Government actions;
    — Require radio or television advertisements to be authorised at both the start and end of the advertisement, meaning there would be barely time for anything but authorisation;
    — Create confusion and uncertainly by preventing Government advertising for party political purposes without defining the term ‘party political’;
    — Create confusion by not recognising statutory officer holders as chief executives;
    — Violate the independence of statutory authorities by wrongly implying that Ministers are responsible for agency advertising; and
    — Duplicate the current mandatory requirements of Government advertising campaigns in the Electoral Act 1992 and the Commonwealth’s Broadcasting Services Act 1992.

I really liked the line about “wrongly implying that Ministers are responsible for agency advertising”.

Pull the other one Chief, it plays Jingle Bells.

For the record RiotACT would be all in favour of more Government advertising if only some of it would come our way. *sigh*

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Here’s a further response, according to the ABC:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/07/24/2635157.htm

Highly concerning is that our esteemed chief needs the term defined for him. Surely it must be defined somewhere in relation to caretaker mode.

“– Create confusion and uncertainly by preventing Government advertising for party political purposes without defining the term ‘party political’;”

To my mind, this would cover anything advertising that said:
“The Government is spending record $…”
“The Government has a plan for the future of Canberra..”

Essentially, any fluff they attach to ACTUAL community service announcements. No Government advertising should NEED to refer to the actual government.

“– Create unacceptable restrictions on legitimate advertising three months before an election;”

A more than tacit admission that the majority of the cr*p they come out with is illegitimate advertising?

You would think that the ALP would be happy enough with its $20+ million kitty for the next election.

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy9:53 am 22 Jul 09

How about cutting through all this BS and getting back to basics. We need schools, health care, roads, policing and housing to name but a few of the basics. Let’s have a think about some of those things.

I like the lines about creating confusion, um, Jon, are we not confused enough about what it is your Government is doing these days??

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