The Greens oppose the CPRS not because it is too weak, but because it will point Australia in the wrong direction with little prospect of turning it around in the timeframe within which emissions must peak, says Senator Christine Milne.
Liberal mates milked millions from Howard’s ad bonanza
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The Australian National Audit Office released its audit of the Howard Government’s advertising processes last week. In the dry and understated way of auditors, it is absolutely savage. It makes the famous Regional Partnerships report that went off like a bomb during the 2007 election campaign look like a model of best practice. But what is even more damning is what isn’t explicit in the report: that several senior Liberal Party mates were given millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money with no evidence they would provide value for money and no way of checking afterward whether they had provided it. When I first wrote about the Howard Government’s micro-management of advertising, I talked about the Ministerial Committee on Government Communications, the all-powerful body of backbenchers and Prime Ministerial advisers chaired by the Special Minister of State that controlled even the most innocuous advertising to ensure it served the Government’s political interests. While there is discussion of problems within the bureaucracy’s own processes like not signing contracts until long after work has begun, it is the MCGC that the audit report focuses on. In the Commonwealth, you can’t use taxpayers’ money without appropriate authority and you can’t spend it without making sure taxpayers are getting the best value for money. There are laws, regulations, guidelines, Chief Executive Instructions and other paraphernalia by the truckload for this to ensure that these requirements are complied with. And no one is supposed to be able to get around them. But the ANAO report, which focuses on three advertising campaigns — the “alert not alarmed” fridge magnet one, a private health insurance campaign and the infamous Workchoices campaign — is a long litany of how these requirements were ignored by the Howard Government. It is a detailed 200 page answer to anyone who would ever try to claim that the Howard Government was a competent financial manager or observed the basics of accountability and transparency. The key issue is that the MCGC had no authority to spend money on advertising. That lay with individual ministers and the bureaucrats with delegated powers to spend money. But the MCGC made many decisions about advertising campaigns, often overriding advice from bureaucrats. As any public servant who worked under the Howard Government will tell you, the MCGC’s word was final. If it didn’t like the ad campaign a department had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars developing because it didn’t suit the Government’s political agenda, the campaign was binned. If it wanted a campaign that served the Government politically, it got one, no questions asked. In effect, MCGC was therefore spending money with no authorisation. The ANAO obtained explicit advice from the Australian Government Solicitor that this was the case. This was disputed by former special minister of state Gary Nairn, who argued that the MCGC was an “advisory committee” only and that public servants didn’t have to take its advice — a statement that anyone who dealt with it would regard as laughable. Nairn also argues that because the relevant portfolio ministers attended each meeting of the MCGC, that in effect ensured the decision was being made by someone with authorisation to do so. The ANAO, very politely and indirectly, questions Nairn’s version of events. “As part of its analysis,” the report says in a footnote, “the ANAO examined the complete records of 63 of the 66 MCGC meetings held in respect of the campaigns that were part of this audit and extracts of the records of the remaining three meetings. The ANAO found no evidence that portfolio Ministers attended MCGC meetings.” The problem with this process was that, when bureaucrats and Ministers on the advice of bureaucrats make major expenditure decisions, they have to demonstrate they are obtaining value for money, that the selection process was rigorous and that, in short, they weren’t giving millions of dollars to mates in the private sector. When the MCGC made decisions, no such requirements were observed. When it came to the Workchoices advertising campaigns, which cost more than $120m, MCGC ensured the Liberal Party’s closest friends in the advertising industry got in on the action. None of the tenders for the Workchoices campaigns were put to the market — they were either offered by invitation or given directly to a firm without tendering. Only one of the eight major contracts was the subject of a proper assessment as is required under the web of accountability requirements. On 13 July 2005, MCGC selected Jackson Wells Morris as its public relations consultant after inviting it and three other firms to tender for the contract, without any input or assessment from officials. At that stage, former Howard adviser Grahame Morris was still part of JWM. The then-Department of Employment and Workplace Relations later claimed in its annual report that JWM had won through an open tender process, a claim it has been forced to retract. The value of this contract was more than $815,000. On 9 August 2005, MCGC selected Dewey & Horton as its advertising consultant after a select tender process to four firms picked by MCGC. There was no assessment by officials of the tenders or pitches to the Committee. Dewey & Horton is headed by Ted Horton, a long-time Liberal Party advertising guru, part of what the Liberal called “the Team” that led the party’s election campaigns. The value of this contract was nearly $5.9m. In September 2005, the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations was startled to receive an invoice for advertising work by Brandmark. Without consulting the Department, Dewey & Horton had subcontracted work to Brandmark, which is not normally permitted under Commonwealth contracts without prior arrangement. The Department was ordered by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet to pay the invoice for nearly $50,000. Brandmark was headed by Mark Pearson, another long-time Liberal ad man and member of “the Team”. Pearson’s firm has scored big with the Howard Government’s GST advertising contracts. Jackson Wells Morris also subcontracted work, to another Liberal Party figure, IR hardliner Warren Stooke, and to one other firm, worth more than $130,000. On that occasion, DEWR was aware of the subcontracting, although the ANAO concludes that the Department “took no steps to ensure that contractual requirement for the engagement of subcontractors were observed.” For the Workchoices campaign, no evaluation strategy was in place to check whether the taxpayer got any value from the expenditure the Government was making on their behalf. DEWR only had “tracking research” which, as the ANAO tartly notes, “is no substitute for effective evaluation.” In short, a junior minister, a bunch of backbenchers and Tony Nutt from the Prime Minister’s Office simply doled out the cash without any recorded evidence or independent assessment, and left the bureaucrats to pay the bills. Lindsay Tanner and John Faulkner got rid of the MCGC when they got into government and handed control of advertising back to the Department of Finance instead of PM&C. They also put in place arrangements for the Auditor-General to vet ad campaigns to determine if they are partisan. On accountability, this Government is light years ahead of its appalling predecessor. |
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32 Comments
Thank goodness we can all rest easy now we have a Labor Governement. There will be no jobs for the boys now. Golly I am relieved.
It’s great to have honest John Faulkner & Lindsay Tanner.
OK Bernard it’s a scandal that has been exposed by the ANAO, so what now? If no one is made accountable, it will happen again, either by the current government or a future Liberal one.
It seems to me that either criminality is involved or at the very least a scandalously arrogant attitude to the public purse by the culprits.
Addressing whose “issue” Damon?
You say: “As has been pointed out by other correspondents, what the ACTU, NFF, BCA or other individual donors do with their money is their business”.
I repeat : It is our business and should be our business if the Labor party receives $40 million in lucre and as Government enriches and makes more powerful that donor.
If the shoe were on the other foot: a Liberal Government enriching a private business at taxpayers and citizens’ expense after that business ‘donated’ $40 million to the Liberal party. That Liberal PM would be lynched.
What is the bottom line for ordinary taxpayers and ordinary citizens?
Isn’t it to see that the system is both fair and transparent?
That is not what Bernard Keane and this government is endeavouring to do here. They want: ‘grossly unfair advantage for Labor and only transparent when it suits them and moreover slime the Coalition whenever possible even if it goes against the greater public interest.
I mean Bernard Keane and the Labor Party being outrageously ‘justifiably indignant’ is actually far worse than the pot calling the kettle black. it’s just more of the Left: disingenuous and dishonest.
Keane has often said that good government needs good opposition. It agree. But like so many from the Left the good words are repudiated by their ensuing actions.
Lastly, I hope you’re not suggesting that I have implied or said: “well, they all do it, Labor are just as bad” and that somehow that excuses ‘bad behaviour’ by the Coalition.
Because I haven’t.
If you were saying that this issue needs to be resolved for the greater good, I agree with you. Now if you could only convince Bernard Keane and the Labor Party to demonstrate goodwill and to act in the interests of the country as a whole.
There is as the ‘Keane-maligned’ Senator Ronaldson said in Parliament: “an unprecedented opportunity to make dramatic improvements to the system of electoral funding”
The Coalition are not the stumbling bloc.
Government by the people certainly throws up its disappointments with cranks like Howard really stuffing everyone’s dream of honest responsible democracy. Surrounded by like and feeble minds they inflict profound damage by cycling through parliaments building careers on selling out constituencies. Years on we’re gobsmacked these extremist loops ever rose to power. The NSW populace gave itself an upper cut within seconds of saluting Iemma’s team and next week it’ll be Queensland when it resigns to authoritarian control after Bligh follows Beattie after Joh. Good, decent, moral and open government isn’t elusive it’s just not on any political party’s agenda.
Sorry JamesK, you’re on a bigtime loser on this one. The ACTU’s money is far from the same thing as taxpayers money. Yes, the Labor government’s amendments are favourable to workers and thus to the ACTU. But trying to pretend that the Howard government was fair and balanced on IR and in no way ideologically driven in favour of its corporate mates, oh how stupid such a claim is. The fact is that if business groups had footed the bill for the advertising campaigns which are the subject of this article (and it’s a fact that the Libs were begging them to spend up in the lead up to the 2007 election, and that this did not happen) then there would be no article. Nice try JamesK but not even you can defend the indefensible efforts of the Howard camp on this one.
Or even jobs without a due government tender process and at Rudd’s mates rates:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/pr-job-for-wife-of-labor-staffer/2008/04/24/1208743153697.html
Hi there Joel. How’s it over in communications? Of course I’ll round on any political party that dupes trusting voters just as I do when some in the NSW and Qld Labor rabbles act like detention centre recruits and not ‘honourable’ members of parliament. Its curious that wilful deceit in most arenas gets the thumbs down other than in a parliament. Why do you think that is?
The SMH media page in their business section had a strong article about this earlier in the week also. Surprisingly strong I thought. Deserved to be alot higher in the newspaper.
‘stevo the’ perennial working w-nker commenting on the “twittishness’ of another is equivalent to Paris Hilton commenting on the frivolousness of Professor Stephen Hawking.
The trade unions spent $37.6 million to help get Labor elected including $16 million on their own anti- ‘Work Choices’ campaign and multi-millions in direct donations let alone Labor party -Union affiliation fees.
But that has absolutely nothing to do with the union financial enrichments in the ‘Fair Work’ legislation and their increased powers to ride roughshod over others citizens property and records?
Of course not…….. if like stevo you’re a fuckw-t.
The other huge source of patronage is through the contract system, to which Labor is also addicted. In a previous life I used to cobble together the odd para for the Treasurer’s budget speech, not rocket science by any stretch. I was amazed to meet a chap from a PR firm a few years back who proudly told me he was being paid $180 an hour to contribute same. He was a Liberal through and through, but apart from that I couldn’t see what he could have contributed to the process.
Cath, well… I was right in saying I have a deep respect for your opinions. Not sure about communications, though it’s true I have a background in that area.
And you are mostly correct in what you say “wilful deceit in most arenas gets the thumbs down”.
I’m sure we agree on other matters as well, except perhaps the Rudd Government.
Call me “cheap” but I usually end up really liking/voting for the government at the time. It hasn’t happened this time though and Rudd leaves me feeling creepy. It’s not all bad though, as Gillard makes me scream.
Looking forward to more socio-political analysis…
Let’s not forget that the Howard waste of taxpayers’ money started back in 1996, when he (JWH) waged a personal vendetta against law abiding gun owners. The result: more than one billion dollars wasted on a gun buy back of guns (hardly a “buy back’ since the government had never owned those guns in the first place!) which had been legally owned and had never caused any injury to anyone. JWH also forced the States to impliment a complex and flawed Firearm Registry system, which simply diverted scarce police resources from dealing with the REAL criminals. A similar Firearms Registry system introduced in Canada around the same time, has now been disbanded as it was proven to be of no value in stopping or solving any crime. Let’s see Rudd disband our firearms registry!
Vote Liberal Democratic Party: small government, low tax and personal freedom.
JamesK, by quoting the High Court in defense of the Howard government and in retort to this article, you are asserting that because nothing illegal took place then the government was justified in what it did. What bollocks. The High Court’s remit has nothing to do with whether taxpayers got value or the government was not giving its mates a big handout with taxpayers dollars. As for your suggestions about BHP, I have no knowledge of that specific company’s political donataions and have not asserted that they’ve done anything wrong. But it’s a point of fact that Howard’s IR legislation was a huge free kick to businesses of all shapes and sizes, and it was done in expectation of return favours as well as thanks for favours already done. You can pretend the 2007 election was not lost over workchoices if you want, but Malcolm Turnbull disagrees with you.
O, woe is me. Who’d have thought that politicians are corrupt self-serving nest-eggers and mates-raters? Would that I had skipped today’s Crikey and remained blissfully ignorant.
Forget Labor, Liberal, Democrat or Callathumpian, there is but one rule that applies to these maggots - the WIIFM Principal (what’s in it for me?)
Oh and I forgot an example of Rudd wasting taxpayer dollars:
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,25055130-5001021,00.html
I hope Dave and Bernard are suitably righteously indignant!
This is a really good article. But where is the accountability? These guys tore up the rule book, doled out the cash and when their behaviour is exposed, what then? Until there are some serious consequences for this sort of behaviour, we will continue to be appalled…until the next time.
HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA
Address: PO Box 6309, Kingston ACT 2604 Telephone: (02) 6270 6998
Fax: (02) 6273 3025
Email: fhamilton@hcourt.gov.au
21 October 2005
GREG COMBET AND NICOLA ROXON MP v COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA AND
THE HONOURABLE KEVIN ANDREWS MP AND SENATOR THE HONOURABLE
NICHOLAS MINCHIN
“The Federal Government’s expenditure on its advertising campaign to promote its proposed
industrial relations reforms was permitted by the Appropriation Act (No 1) 2005-2006, the High
Court of Australia held today.
Prime Minister John Howard announced the workplace reform package on 26 May 2005 and the
ACTU immediately began a national campaign of rallies and advertising. On 9 July 2005 the
Federal Government began a newspaper, television and radio advertising campaign. Mr Combet,
the secretary of the ACTU, and Ms Roxon, the shadow attorney-general, contended that
expenditure of public money on the advertisements was unlawful.
The High Court handed down its orders on 29 September 2005, after hearing Mr Combet and Ms
Roxon’s challenge on 29 and 30 August, and today handed down its written reasons for those
orders.”
There was a further failed bid in 2007 as well in the High Court
I wonder if this ANAO report has anything to do with Nicola Roxon and Greg Combet, Bernard?
Perhaps the $30 million of ACTU money spent on or behalf of the Labor Party in its electioneering could have been mentioned in yesterday’s rant as well as this one?
Dave Liberts , you have a bad habit of telling me and everybody else what you think I said or “pretend” and not what I actually said and then writing an entire diatribe on that false premise.
There are a couple of other pertinent facts on this topic.
Labor already massively outspends the Coalition on electioneering.
Furthermore most electoral abuses in the past decade have been actually committed by the Labor Party c/f the Shepherdson inquiry, cases of fraudulent enrolment and the Wollongong council sex and bribery scandal.
And we all know the ALP’s ongoing tradition of ‘jobs for the boys’ (unless your name is ‘stevo the’ numbnut).
“Howard’s IR legislation was a huge free kick to businesses of all shapes and sizes” you say.
But wouldn’t employment and the economy in Australia be better off now with a “free kick” to business instead of the expensive ‘kick in the nuts’ from the Rudd/Gillard/Combet Combo?
Humble apologies to the moron.
re: JamesK
You’re still not addressing the issue. Two wrongs don’t make a right, we all know the standards of the ALP (paritcularly the NSW branch) seem as low - if not lower - than the Howard government when it comes to probity issues. But the point that Bernard Keane raises is valid and you haven’t addressed it - this was a serious and systemic failure by a Commonwealth government to ensure that its taxpayers received the best available value for money from its advertising expenditures, with all available evidence implicating them in rewarding their political mates.
As has been pointed out by other correspondents, what the ACTU, NFF, BCA or other individual donors do with their money is their business. But the Commonwealth Consolidated Revenue Fund is *OUR* business and we need to keep governments past and present accountable for its appropriation. If we don’t - if we simply acquiesce and say “well, they all do it, Labor are just as bad” then that is a very slippery slope indeed and before you know it there will be no other description for our government communications process than corrupt to the core.
HAL: “Look Dave, I can see you’re really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill and think things over.”
Last part of para 1. should have read ‘manifestly obvious corrupted’ I think. Hell, it is Friday the thirteenth..
Dave Liberts show me where I have alleged that: ‘The ACTU’s money is the same as taxpayers money’.
I quoted an High Court judgement in the first post and posed a question. Nothing more.
After being personally abused, I pointed out that ‘stevo the’ half-wit is a w-nker in the second post.
If BHP give the Coalition $40 million and when in government the Coalition enact legislation the enriches BHP what do you think the reaction would be (and not just Labor voters)?
Joel, Gillard gets up your nose but I’m in awe of this MP who’s having a far greater impact on debate than the lauded Costello slumped on his back bench with years more experience up his sleeve than the deputy PM. Too many in the federal opposition look like cup cakes, fairy floss and fizzy drinks and its disturbing stuff when these bods are our advocates on the world stage. Nothing can be more unsettling than a withered opposition in a global crisis leaning on a government of novices. That’s as creepy as the report Bernard highlights about Howard syphoning advertising dollars to mates for propaganda. I’d like to think we all make impartial critiques in political debate - its more healthy?
Cath, you know I have the deepest respect for your opinions, but really.
“There’s less than a cigarette paper between JWH and Parlzim’s Mugabe”
All I can say is… spew your bile elsewhere. Typical hate comments from the Labor supporters, but you guys (and gyrls) won, surely you could be a bit happy?
Think Churchill: “Resolute in defeat, magnanimous in victory”
Oh, I forgot Labors’ perpetual winge “It’s your fault. No-one told me it would be this hard! They used to call me “Kev “bringing the sunshine back into our lives”“, now they call me shit…”
appalling! etc
but until pollies are held accountable - and i mean really accountable, as in charges, fines and/or jail time - all this is meaningless
Labor may, or may not, use this to beat the Coalition around the head a bit - but i doubt there will be any real change
there will always be one set of rules for them and another for the rest of us
JamesK, you are exceeding even your own high standard of twittishness this time. The ACTU’s money belongs to the ACTU, and can be spent as and how they wish in the interest of its membership. The Commonwealth tax revenues are the property of the people of Australia, and do not belong to political parties of any stripe to spend as and when they wish.
The fact that the ACTU spent it’s own money on a cause you don’t agree with has no equivalence with a political party p*ssing OUR money away to the benefit of themselves and their cronies.
And Cossie still sits around and says they were great economic managers. Huh, the mob who brought us the $1.5 billion Pacific Solution and the further $1.5 billion onshore prison system for a few thousand refugees.
Who brought us into an illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq, didn’t know that AWB were rotten to the core and funding Saddam Hussein, children whose dreadful parents refused to throw them overboard, other children’s illegally deported to the wrong countries on false papers, Australian’s locked up for years in DIMA concentration camps or deported.
Name one area that the Howard mob were not corrupt to the core.
It will be much shorter.
Rant rant rant…
How about analysing the now/present hey Bernard?
The utter failure of Rudd to introduce any legislation worth a dime is staggering given the alleged massive mandate they had.
Instead Rudd chose to grin mawkishly, hold summit after summit, make promises that he subsequently forgot (Indigenous report), create bizarre schemes like FuelWatch, GroceryWatch etc etc.
And don’t even get me started on Gillard…
Bernard, frankly you make me sick. You need to put a sticker on your stories: “Written by some-one who will never disagree with the left”
It’s not as though Aussies to their Jackie Howe singlets were unaware Howard monotonously flicked off guidelines, best practice and the national interest. He’d have hijacked Father Christmas even tossed ethnic kiddies overboard for a vote. There’s less than a cigarette paper between JWH and Parlzim’s Mugabe and only a handful of our parliaments a cut above the Kurds.
But surely you knew the Howard government was as corrupt as hell? Of course you did, and if you are squeamish about calling any Australian government corrupt, you could instead question the degree of such manifestly corruptidness. You could ask was John Howard corrupt, or was it the leeches with which he surrounded himself?
IMO it was John Howard who was infinitely corrupt. For by creating the atmosphere which allowed great corruption, he was condoning the corruption himself. For evil to survive….could just as easily be true if you put corruption in place of the word evil.