Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Hansard source

As the honourable senator well knows, 25 per cent of government communications expenditure is spent on Defence Force recruitment. Would the Labor Party abolish that? Absolutely not. Would they abolish the advertising that communicates with people about their rights and responsibilities in relation to, say, drugs? Would they do that? No, they would not. What they say, very dishonestly, to the Australian people is: ‘We’re against all the advertising.’ But when you start putting them down campaign by campaign the only one they do not like is Work Choices. The reason they can afford to do that is that the ACTU is outspending the taxpayers in relation to its misinformation campaigns. The Labor Party seek to surf into government on the top of this wave of misinformation. We have a duty to the Australian people to correct the record, and that is what we are doing.