Skip to main content

Your taxes at work - not!

Crikey puts it all into perspective where the tax-dollars of Australians are directed:

"Name the federal outlay that increased by 24.9% in the past financial year ... Emergency housing? Aged care? Coastal surveillance? Nursing education?

No, none of the above. The answer's probably obvious when you think about it: advertising. In the financial year 2006-2007 the Howard Government spent a record $175million on ads. The biggest ad spend in the Australian economy. Top of the list. A figure that beat last year's biggest spender Coles by some $15 million.

Of course the feds are not the only Australian government lining the pockets of media operators with hard-earned taxpayer's dollars. The NSW government's $90million spend was a 19.7% year-on-year increase that took it to number seven in the top 50 published in the latest issue of the ad trade bible B&T. The Government of Victoria, well offf the electoral cycle but still with issues, came in at number eight, having reduced its spend by 2.8% to $75million.
Just to put all this in context, Coca-Cola Amatil is at 47 with a spend of $35million while David Jones managed to make Megan Gale the inescapable face of commuting with a mere $50million.

It's your money, we just thought you'd like to know."

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Robert Fisk's predictions for the Middle East in 2013

There is no gain-saying that Robert Fisk, fiercely independent and feisty to boot, is the veteran journalist and author covering the Middle East. Who doesn't he know or hasn't he met over the years in reporting from Beirut - where he lives?  In his latest op-ed piece for The Independent he lays out his predictions for the Middle East for 2013. Read the piece in full, here - well worthwhile - but an extract... "Never make predictions in the Middle East. My crystal ball broke long ago. But predicting the region has an honourable pedigree. “An Arab movement, newly-risen, is looming in the distance,” a French traveller to the Gulf and Baghdad wrote in 1883, “and a race hitherto downtrodden will presently claim its due place in the destinies of Islam.” A year earlier, a British diplomat in Jeddah confided that “it is within my knowledge... that the idea of freedom does at present agitate some minds even in Mecca...” So let’s say this for 2013: the “Arab Awakening” (the t...

Palestinian children in irons. UK to investigate

Not for the first time does MPS wonder what sort of country it is when Israel so flagrently allows what can only be described as barbaric and inhuman behaviour to be undertaken by, amongst others, its IDF. No one has seemingly challenged Israel's actions. However, perhaps it's gone a bridge too far - as The Independent reports. The Foreign Office revealed last night that it would be challenging the Israelis over their treatment of Palestinian children after a report by a delegation of senior British lawyers revealed unconscionable practices, such as hooding and the use of leg irons. In the first investigation of its kind, a team of nine senior legal figures examined how Palestinians as young as 12 were treated when arrested. Their shocking report Children in Military Custody details claims that youngsters are dragged from their beds in the middle of the night, have their wrists bound behind their backs, and are blindfolded and made to kneel or lie face down in military vehi...

Wow!.....some "visitor" to Ferryland in Newfoundland