Politics
Funny money
by Jane Clifton
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We do need more explicit rules for this activity, not just because of the Brethren, but because of the unions, the farmers, the teachers, the foresters … All the lobbying sectors put money on their favourite horse. If they do so in a blatant “Vote for Bloggs” way, this really should count toward the quantum of the beneficiary party’s spending allowance in election year. Or should it?
What if it’s unsolicited and unwanted? A sort of marketing date rape? Imagine you’re an MP with permissive views on gun ownership, who wakes up one morning to find the dreaded gun lobby has lavished the equivalent of your entire allowance on an ad for you? Not your fault, and probably highly detrimental to your campaign – but it comes off your allocation.
Anyway, never mind push polling, pledge cards and anonymous pamphlets. The most noxious stealth advertising by political parties may well be that done by governments using “public information campaigns” for blatantly political purposes. The Bolger administration broke the unembarrassability barrier on this stuff, but this government has built handsomely upon the pool of expertise. These campaigns are what Alison Holst might term a handy meal extender for a political party facing tightened spending strictures at campaign time.
Last election’s Working for Families ad campaign was a blatant “Vote Labour” push. But it was also a public information campaign; we had to pay to tell ourselves, at election time, what a provident and benign Labour government we had. Devilishly clever.
Recently, the government signed off on a cunning little sleeper campaign in the same vein, the current Accident Compensation Corporation “You’re Covered” promotion. The ostensible reason for these ads is that some people, in particular immigrants and ethnic minorities, still don’t realise what the state will do for them if they have an accident. Clearly this is piffle. Medical staff thrust ACC forms at you for the slightest mishap, rather the way supermarket checkout operators ask “Do you have Fly Buys?” And if immigrants are missing the plot, there are way more effective ways of targeting them than spending $5 million on an advertising campaign in English. (Less than $40,000 of the You’re Covered budget has been spent in the ethnic media.)
The real point of this campaign is to prepare the future of ACC as an election campaign issue. National is still keen to make ACC contestable. Labour wants to build up national sentiment in favour of this landmark institution of the welfare state. In this the government gets no quarrel from officials. ACC doesn’t want itself to be relegated, either. So of course it came up with a lengthy and sentiment-rich “public information” campaign, which will run through election season next year as well.
So even if it has to flag its state funding of political parties plan, Labour is “Covered”.
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