You may have noticed, like I have, just how many government ads have been on telly the past few months. It’s a long running trend - starting some years ago.

These ads bug me on a number of levels, but I have often wondered just how much public money (our money) is being spent on what often amounts to little more than propaganda for the government’s (mostly unpopular) policies.

GetUp have just launched a campaign that puts the figure at $2 billion since the government took office - $200,000 of that this year.

Yep, you read that right - $2 billion! GetUp claim that that works out to be around $1 million a day.

This is what GetUp are asking for:

GetUp is calling for the introduction of a new law that ensures that:

1. All future government advertising costs (from focus groups to media buying) are publicly available and easily accessible to the community via an annual report
2. All advertising above $250,000 is to be approved by an independent auditor who applies strict guidelines to limit advertising to the dissemination of public information
3. These guidelines are to be developed with public consultation with the final guidelines to be publicly available
4. These conditions to apply in both the federal and state governments within 1 year
5. A cap of $100 million p.a for total government advertising spending is to be imposed with any additional money to be approved by parliament.

The $100 million cap even seems high to me - I’m amazed that rules like this don’t already exist. Time we had some methinks…

I keep thinking about the events this weekend here in Sydney as APEC takes hold. There are posters around the city proclaiming “21 world leaders, 1 great city”. Before last week I joked with friends saying it should read “21 world leaders, 1 police state”. After seeing the overkill of police presence in our fair city, it’s unfortunately no joke.

It kind of struck home when I saw a police bus in the city - they’re literally shipping in police - and then saw a bevy of about 30 police at railway square “protecting” us from about 30 odd peaceful protesters. It was ridiculous.

I thought to myself that with all this focus on “security”, there must be gaping holes there. I mean - we had fighter planes and helicopters circling the city, thousands of extra police. Streets closed, transport services canceled. Simply ridiculous.

So I cheered out loud when I saw what the Chasers pulled off. I was watching TV late on Thursday night when I saw it. Priceless.

As it turns out, the Chasers didn’t even know they were in the restricted zone and voluntarily gave themselves up. Puts lie to Alexander Downer’s smug comment that “they were caught weren’t they?”.

What was even more ridiculous is the media feigning indignity about the Chaser’s pranks. Makes me want to support them even more…

After the stunt, the Chinese president Hu Jintao has called for increased security, and Channel Ten then trotted out a line about protests by “the religious cult” Falun Dafa.

Wittingly or unwittingly, I’m not sure which, Channel Ten became party to the Chinese government’s propaganda machine. Falun Dafa is not a cult, but the government uses those terms as justification for imprisoning and torturing Falun Gong practitioners in China. If only it was as unexpected as it was disgusting to hear such rubbish in the mainstream press.

But as a friend pointed out the other day - what does Hu Jintao think they’re going to do - meditate him to death or something? This is a religion founded on the principles of “Truthfulness, Benevolence, Forbearance”. No wonder the Chinese government, which practices none of these, is scared.

The Australian government, and the media, have been painting the protesters as violent and unruly. Most protests in this country, unlike protests overseas, are peaceful. Where violence has occurred, it’s usually been at the hand of a small isolated group, easily contained. There was never any chance of protests turning as violent as those in say, Genoa or Seattle.

But, of course, the government has to demonstrate it’s “tough on terror” - has to assure world leaders that Australia is secure. What better way to demonstrate that than to not lock the city down, to let it operate as it usually does. It seems, we have to see an unprecedented turnout of police.

One argument that I’ve overheard is that security forces had intel on an attack - that it’s because of this security that something bigger didn’t occur. But with such lax security that the Chasers can make it to outside Bush’s hotel without being detected, I find it hard to believe that the emphasis on security this past week is what stopped an attack…

The (big) question that remains unasked in the coverage I’ve seen is what, exactly, are the protesters protesting? The media’s penchant for plainly painting them as “anti-globalisation” protesters masks a plethora of reasons behind the civil disobedience.

From human rights abuses in Russia and China, to the attacks on civil liberties here in Australia, to the devastating (for Iraqi civilians) and mishandled war on Iraq - there are reasons aplenty. But none of those issues made it to the headlines.

(As an aside, I heard at an Amnesty International event that the Chinese government displaced over 1,000 of its own people, without remuneration or repatriation, just to construct the Olympic swimming complex - and that’s just one of the many abuses that have taken place in the lead-up to the Games that were won on the back of a “human rights” message.)

No - it’s not the dangerous men behind closed doors making deals that we’re being warned about. It’s those dangerous, nasty, evil protesters. It’s those people with a conscience that are exercising their rights of free speech - they’re the ones we need to be afraid of.

If it wasn’t so ominous, it would be hilarious. If this is the future, I think we need to turn the car around…

Update: A fascinating Flickr slideshow of the protests to give some sense of the overkill. I also forgot to mention that police stopped anyone from leaving Hyde Park for over an hour - including families with kids - during the protests.

Update 2: NewMatilda.com also has another piece on APEC (from which I grabbed the photo).

I love the cartoon that accompanies this NewMatilda.com article: APEC: Not Welcome Here.

The article’s worth a read as well - but the cartoon is priceless…

David Marr in the SMH: Free speech? Not while we’re on sheep’s back

Hurt a business simply by arguing that it’s ethically repugnant to buy its products and the commission [the ACCC] will be able to step in and sue to recover the company’s lost profits. It’s quite a service.

Baz on the whole flag affair.

SMH - Ross Gittens: Howard’s crossed line on Telstra. Interesting read.

I can’t help but agree with Ross on this point:

The best way to have done that was to split Telstra’s copper network monopoly (”wholesale”) business from its retail business competing directly with the other telcos. Once you’d done that, you could have privatised the retail business without a worry and perhaps even the wholesale business once you were confident its prices to retailers were adequately regulated.

Paul Keating:

I was pilloried by the Canberra Press Gallery when I said in 1995 that John Howard, then Opposition leader, had given a commitment to the late Kerry Packer that upon achieving office, he, Howard, would remove the cross media rules, which at the time were frustrating Publishing and Broadcasting Limited’s attempts to acquire control of John Fairfax Holdings.

In the decade since, nothing has changed, other than that, in that time, the Howard Government has mounted two serious forays to remove the cross media rules, attempts which were defeated by a majority of those opposite in the Senate. Now, with nominal control of the Senate, the government is backing up for a third go, only this time, it has the prima facie ability to succeed.

The changes announced by Senator Coonan are not, in any sense, a reform. Rather, they are the working out of that undertaking given by John Howard all those years ago.

Interesting article (thanks Baz).

Greg Bourne on ABC’s AM program:

If the Government were to convene an inquiry which was to look at how could we quickly reduce our emissions to 60 per cent below what we currently have by 2050, and how could we do that as expeditiously as possible, then I, and a number of others, I think, would jump at that inquiry.

But the Government has not been prepared to have that sort of inquiry. As I repeat, this is really an inquiry about the nuclear industry, and it’s about economics. It’s not about the environment.

The real issue, I repeat, is about climate change and the fact that we are just not doing enough about it.

The Age:

He says he took the call from Mr Campbell, had a brief discussion with the board of WWF International, told them he was declining, and then called Canberra back with his decision.

“I could see straight away this was an economic inquiry about wealth creation, not about addressing the problem of climate change,” he said.

Mr Bourne’s refusal to play ball has left the Government minus an environmentalist for its inquiry, and plus a group of experts who are already in the gun in some quarters because of alleged conflicts of interest or support for nuclear energy.

The Australian:

Mr Bourne said he had been asked to join the taskforce about two hours before Mr Howard announced it on Tuesday. But once he had seen the terms of reference he advised his board the inquiry was “rubbish”.

“It’s an economic inquiry to see how much wealth can be created through uranium exports (and) nuclear power. It’s purely an economic inquiry,” he said.