Campaigns
The ACTU's media campaign triggered a government counter-campaign promoting the reforms. Stage one of the government campaign preceded the release of the legislation and cost approximately $46 million, including advertisements from both the government and the BCA, information booklets and a hotline.
Government polling of the period August 2005 – February 2006, not released until March 2008, revealed that the government's advertising campaign failed to make workers less apprehensive about Work Choices.
The ALP, minor parties and the ACTU attacked the advertising campaign, with ACTU President Sharan Burrow describing the advertisements as deceitful party-political advertising funded through taxes. The Government argued that such expenditure is normal procedure when introducing radical change, citing the example of the GST advertising; however, that advertising was severely criticised at the time, and for the same reasons. The expenditure was challenged in the High Court of Australia by the Australian Labor Party and the Australian Council of Trade Unions, on the grounds that the expenditure was not approved by Parliament. On 29 September the High Court rejected this argument in a majority decision.
Read more about this topic: WorkChoices
Famous quotes containing the word campaigns:
“That food has always been, and will continue to be, the basis for one of our greater snobbisms does not explain the fact that the attitude toward the food choice of others is becoming more and more heatedly exclusive until it may well turn into one of those forms of bigotry against which gallant little committees are constantly planning campaigns in the cause of justice and decency.”
—Cornelia Otis Skinner (1901–1979)