Shouts from the desert

The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting this morning that leader of the opposition, Kevin Rudd, has announced that the ALP will introduce legislation banning the use of public funds for political advertising. This comes as the Howard Government is preparing to launch the most shameless abuse of public funds for political advertising in Australian history, claiming that "the ads were required because propaganda advertising by Labor and the ACTU had confused people."

Yes, the Government is claiming that they have to use public funds to get their message out because others are using private funds to get their conflicting message out. That amounts to an admission that the Government is using public funds for their own political propaganda.

It is unacceptable and corrupt conduct for the Government to appropriate money they have taken from us in taxes to conduct their own political advertising campaigns. This is a matter of such importance that on this single issue the ALP would get my vote &emdash; at least after preferences.

I have sent a letter to my local member (who happens to be the Prime Minister, but nothing turns on that) in the following terms:

I am writing to express my strong disapproval of Government use of my tax money to conduct partisan political propaganda campaigns this year. This includes both the health insurance campaign - which was so shameless as to open without even providing any substantive information - and the workchoices campaign which you have admitted to being a political propaganda campaign using public money to oppose political propaganda campaigns waged by others using private money.

There is no legitimacy whatsoever in extracting taxes for the purpose of waging partisan political campaigns for the Government. The current Government has been doing so repeatedly over the past 11 years, and has become bolder in doing so as time moves on, with this year's campaigns reaching a level of audacity not seen before in this country.

As taxes have been raised for an illegitimate purpose, I request that you seek that the Treasurer to take whatever steps are necessary, up to and including introducing legislation directed at this end, to arrange a pro rata refund of taxes to me and to all other taxpayers who object to this use of their funds.

I have deliberately written this so that is applicable whether your local member is a member of the Government or the Opposition, and I encourage others to also send letters to their local members in these terms.